Beyond ADHD: A Physician’s Perspective

Beyond ADHD A Physicians Perspective: Dr. Mydalis Diaz-Ramirez

Dr. Mydalis Diaz-Ramirez: Big message to our listeners, right? When you're lost, you know, in this despair, maybe burnout. So tired, sometimes you're so hurt that you become numb and you keep going. And then we talk about the golden handcuffs or, you know, gonna move. And you know what, at the end of the day, who's making the decision of staying. There is no one else other than you. So you're making the decision of staying there. You can make the decision of coming outside. You have to understand that you can find your path again. If you're in the right group.
Dr. Diana Mercado-Marmarosh: Hi, welcome to Beyond ADHD, A Physician's Perspective podcast. I am your host, Dr. Diana Mercado-Marmarosh. I'm a Family Medicine doc, with ADHD, practicing in a rural setting in Texas. I am a mother to two very energetic toddlers who are three and four years of age.
And in the past year, I have undergone radical transformation after discovering ADHD coaching, and life-coaching. For the past decade, my typical day consisted of having 300 charts backlog, a graveyard of unfinished projects, and a lack of time awareness. I didn't realize that I was not filling my own cup. I was running on fumes. The last year I figured out the secret; learn to stay in your lane. So now my mission is to help others develop systems that tap into their zone of genius. So they too can reclaim their personal lives back like I have.
Dr. Diana Mercado-Marmarosh: Well, hello. I am so excited today. I am speaking with a dear friend of mine. Who's become, such a instrumental part of my journey, and it's a pleasure to bring her on board today that this Dr. Mydalis Diaz-Ramirez she's actually, an anesthesiologist and an interventional pain management physician who after 20 years of training and doing what she loves is now transitioning into innovative medicine, really being a trailblazer and pioneer in the lifestyle medicine.
It's so good to have been part of her network and seeing her as she's been able to not only empower herself, but empower other physicians through master classes, six-month master classes to build their businesses, and practice medicine on their own terms. And she's also doing podcasting and all kinds of stuff.
So welcome Dr. Mydalis, tell us all the things, how are things going for you?
Dr. Mydalis Diaz-Ramirez: Oh, my goodness, Deanna. I'm just so excited. It gives me chills to hear you because, the way that we met was precisely through our mastermind and that's how it's going. Right. We have our new mastermind coming now in August and we're getting the new members and we're just like, It's been quite a transition, quite, the transformation for all of us, not for only the members of the mastermind, but for me too, as the facilitator and as a physician, it's been quite the changes, so we're very happy.
We're enthusiastic. We're very excited about what's coming up and, I can wait to tell you more about.
Dr. Diana Mercado-Marmarosh: Awesome. So how did you decide that you were gonna start this journey, like in, in pain management? Was it something that you always envisioned and then like what made you decide to transition to something more innovative? Like lifestyle medicine? So
Dr. Mydalis Diaz-Ramirez: Pain management, I got into it, actually pain drew me to pain. I went to medical school, I did my internship and then I chose anesthesiology. And then while I wasn't doing anesthesiology, then I developed some decorat veins on my right hand I'm right handed. So that eventually they dumped me at the pain center because I could not be in the, or, and then they're, I learn about pain management and it's like, I fell in love because then I could see the transformations are not only the patients, but their families.
And would I be able to do some, long-term follow-ups for those patients and do surgery, which I really liked. So one of the things that I had thought about doing was neurosurgery or even orthopedic surgery. And I, there you are. I'm doing those things. I'm placing spinal cord, simulators, pumps, and all these things.
And then 20 years later through the years, I've seen how patients have come to us. And there's so much more that we can in terms of finding nerve root costs for many of the things that people suffer. For example, we see a lot of patients who come when they're 40. And they were like on antidepressant and then something for sleep and then something for inflammation and really the root cause as in being examined, nobody wanted to do their, their hormones or just help 'em with those things. So I said, you know, what, why don't I focus more on prevention and then I can like, do see the whole picture for those patients and how that's, how this came. So we have found, lifestyle medicine, functional medicine, regenerative medicine, those ways of trying to get to those patients, give them like the best evaluation possible.
And then if they still need something at the end of the day, then we can work on those things as well.
Dr. Diana Mercado-Marmarosh: Yeah, that's so amazing. Tell me about this new adventure that you're doing. You found some of your partners through this mastermind, right?
Dr. Mydalis Diaz-Ramirez: It's funny, but because I tell my kids never trust anybody you meet online, right? Here we're I'm here with you. Like I consider you a friend. Have we ever met each other in person? Have we ever Hugg each other? Not yet, but we are on our way to do that soon. I'm hoping. And that's how it's been. So the, this has given us the opportunity to meet so many people. And one of them is my new partner, Miranda Phillips. She eventually asked me, Hey, is there someone that in Sarasota, I really want to go to Florida. And it's like, okay. You know, and then like, I'll call you right back. And instead of giving her some names of some people that she could be working here, part-time I gave her a whole business plan. I put together not a business plan, but a vision, a plan of a vision for our clinic.
And that's one of them. So I met her through the mastermind, my other business partner, Dr. Arun Rao, I also met her she's local here to Sarasota, Florida, but we truly, got to know each other through our mastermind. So now the three of us mastermind related, we are coming to real life, physical life, giving a service to our patients here locally.
And actually we want to make it a destination facility. So that's, that's one of the big, huge gifts this group has given our families. Really?
Dr. Diana Mercado-Marmarosh: Yes. I actually joined your mastermind. It was the very first one. Right. And it was before. Before the business, I would say where before my business, so I hadn't finished, I hadn't graduated yet from my life coach school training. At that time I finished in July and I remember it was all just an idea, right? Like I was something I was working toward. It was where the growth happened, where my baby was bur or so to say. And it was so amazing to be in an environment where it was intimate, because I, I believe we were like 10 in the group and it was so unique because you asked for the spouse to come along and here I was being so excited about my business and talking about my business with my husband. So I just assumed that he was gonna be like, yes, of course, I'm coming to support you in this, amazing mastermind. So I signed us up and then the day that we're supposed to meet, I tell my husband, I'm like, Hey, come on, let's get on the zoom meeting. And he's like, wait, what? You signed me up without asking me?
And he was like, yeah, I'm not going to another zoom meeting. I'm on zoom meetings, like seven hours a day. Cuz he works from. And he's like, I'm not gonna do one more zoom meeting. I can support your system or your business from afar, but I'm not going to another zoom meeting. And I was like, so embarrassed and I remember emailing or texting Mydalis.
I was like, would you still have me army of one because yeah, I made an assumption and she's like, yeah, come on in. It was just a really unique experience because. All the physicians in the room, male or female then brought their spouse and their spouses. Some of them were medicine, but some of them were not.
And that was where the beauty was, where y'all sudden had access to everybody else's way of thinking. And you could. Talk about whatever you were going or you're thinking you were working on and people could give you feedback. She called it the hot seat. They put you in the hot seat and then she brought experts to help you move you along.
And so at that time, I didn't realize how valuable. Yes. I realized that I knew accountability was needed, but now looking back, I don't know if I would've been such successful towards the beginning. Had I not had that type of environment where you're regularly meeting? Once a week and you're not just accountable to yourself, but to the whole group.
And so I bring this up because people with ADHD, we need structures, we need routines, but more importantly, we need people who are not gonna crush all their dreams when we think, because we have thousands of dreams and sometimes we have to make sure that the environment we're in facilitates that. But it also kind of, I don't wanna say restricts us, but I wanna say hones in on what is prioritizing is the word I'm looking for instead of restricting, I wanna use the word prioritizing because, not all thousand ideas are meant to come alive, but we gotta figure out which one you're really passionate about. And then what steps. So you don't get in the way. And this is where I was, it was such a blessing to be able to be part of Mydalis group. And so yeah, if you wanna share what it was like to have, somebody like me in your group, let us know.
Dr. Mydalis Diaz-Ramirez: Well, I have to tell you Diana, like you're one of our superstars. Because, we all know you've made all as part of your story with ADHD, you were really focused on what you wanted to achieve. You had a clear idea and you were very passionate. You were very driven, you are very driven. And, you've been an example and having somebody with ADHD, actually, my last cohort. We discovered like half of our, of our physicians had a ADHD.
Maybe there were some more who didn't, share that. But, as you say, the group parties has allowed us, is to hone down on what the dream is and then set priorities and then keep you accountable for that area. So we're gonna make sure that we're gonna identify first, you know, right. Different from home when you came the first time that we have onboarding process and we make sure that everybody writes down and, tells us in detail what they want to do.
And then we're gonna go and set the priorities. What is most important? What's gonna give you. Your best return on investment or at the quickest, you know, so that you can start right away. It doesn't have to be a business for many, of our, of our members, actually, it's the life, change that they're looking for and to look for opportunities and, what they want to learn.
Some people want just to learn about mindset and then getting into that mindset. Most of it is through entrepreneurship, what we want to achieve. But people with ADHD are able to focus on a small group. That's gonna have no judgment for them. It's gonna make them accountable. It can be with, or without your partner, in your case, you didn't have a partner.
And I remember like you asking me, can I come and say yes, yes, please come. Because what we want to do is change, the lives or our physicians so that they understand that they're control. And when you are somebody with ADHD at times, like you are really out of control because you have so many ideas going on and, so many dreams, as you say that we help you structure.
We help you give structure for that. And then once hopefully you have achieved this successful plan and you have. Taking into completion, then we can add another dream. So we don't have to cut you off the dreams. We just organize them with you and having somebody like you. That's the things like you have so much energy.
You can be such a great example and look what you've achieved. Like I always remember within three months you were already selling within three months of, I think two or three months, you were already selling your coaching business. And you were telling us everywhere what you were doing. And I just remembered this particular when you said, oh, I went ahead and I started selling and I didn't even press have the button for people to pay me.
I was like so funny, but it was so good because then that's, you know, like you knew you were gonna talk to somebody. and, you were gonna be able to get through those hurdles quicker than if you were doing this on your own. And even though your husband has the best intentions of giving you the support, he wasn't necessarily there for you, you know, step by step for the business.
So that's what, what we were there for you. So having somebody like you in our group is like a blessing and it's been wonderful. And we're so proud of you. Like you can imagine.
Dr. Diana Mercado-Marmarosh: Yeah. And, and it came full circle. When you asked me if I could come back and be a speaker for your program. And I thought that was amazing.
And even while I was already in your mastermind, I did also volunteer to be a speaker to our colleagues because we all don't realize like the gifts that we have that come. So naturally that we think that who wants to hear that, but actually. I don't wanna say I, you know, I was accredited to, but I was part of some conversations that happened that allowed one of our physicians to consider what he wanted in terms of, family style and traveling so many hours.
And we had conversations around, what does it mean to prioritize your time and your charting and your stuff. And we were all doing the happy dance at the end when he. You know, a different job that was aligned with this lifestyle that he was envisioning and the hours, and no longer having to drive so many hours and be away from his, family because of.
The charting and, he was optimizing, but he had just like, we all have some limiting beliefs that we think that where we are is the best we'll ever be at and not necessarily right. Like we get to dream every day and then come and implement it. in Mydalis group, how to execute it so that we could do it.
And it was having that vulnerability of saying, well, this is what I'm doing. And we weren't judging him for doing that because he thought that this is what he needed to do, but we could see past how much better it could be if he wanted it. Right? And so that's where it's so important. Like she says, sometimes it's just a mind shift that you need in order for you to practice medicine the way you want it.
And that opens up the ripple effect for how you show up for your family and how you show up, for your colleagues. Right? And by more importantly, how you show up for yourself, because we think we're functioning at the highest level, but it maybe when we get into a room, others can see your blindspot. And it's so much quicker that our growth can happen because they're showing it to us from a place of love.
Dr. Mydalis Diaz-Ramirez: And the transformation that you helped, achieve for that doctor. He gained four hours every day. From that transformation. So within six months he already had a different job. He was already studying about, a real estate, which was a way of doing passive income. And he was already publishing pictures with their family from the time, you know, he had so much more time off.
So he learned how to chart better. He changed to a job where he acquire it was more than four hours a day, because then at times when he was going at night. Actually almost every single night, he would then chart after having dinner. So now he wasn't charting at home. So he acquired that time plus a traveling time, which was a 12, four hours a day.
So that quite up at least like, I don't know, six hours a day, just from this transformation, plus the real estate knowledge and, the way that his, wife came to our mastermind. So she learned about those options as well. And, and it was really a family affair. So it was really transformational for everybody there.
Dr. Diana Mercado-Marmarosh: Yeah. And I think for everybody else too, to see it right, to see that this is possible, that I know somebody and I actually got to meet him and his wife in New York. When we went to go visit Dave's parents, my husband's parents. So it's like such a small world. Like you said, sometimes people that we meet online that were like, well, who are you meeting?
But you meet in person and, like, you know them because you've been talking to them for six months, like week by week, you, you understand their ins and outs, their love, their fears. It's such a powerful area that it's almost like you were in residency again, but without the drama, right? Because in residency, you're just all trying to survive, but like now you have a purpose, like invested in yourself and in the wellbeing of your family and on purpose are deciding that you have a goal in mind. And that you're just gonna get from point a to point B. And I don't know how you would do it, but you would magically just spring, like the person to talk to for that stuff.
I remember it was through. Brought like Dr. Unah for me, when, for me, she was a superstar at that point. Like somebody, I was just like in awe with, right. I was so starstruck. And like now I, I have been able to work with her in her program, but you created those opportunities and you brought other people for me, super bowl expert with ads to talk about branding and, it was just like, wow, like to get the collabor of people.
In this to talk to us and they see it as like, oh, I'm talking to physicians and we're seeing it like, oh, we're talking to superstars. It, it's just amazing to be able to make those network connections. And then to think why not me?
Dr. Mydalis Diaz-Ramirez: I have to tell you, like, that's what I found the most. One of the most significant things, besides all the friendships and transformations is that this is one of the best times, if not the best time in history for physicians to really come together and help each other.
And I, I, you say like magic, I really called a lot of people to be able to, to get. And, you know, you would get like some responses and some notes. But I never stopped asking because for us to transform, we really need those examples. And what better than having somebody who's been successful at that come and tell you person to person, you know, what, what you can do first?
Like, yes, you're capable of doing it. Like, I think it's universal that they say, you know, I'm, I'm not special. I'm just like a doctor. Like you are. Who took these steps and here are the steps that you have to take and, boom. And then you ask them, Hey, I'm having problem with this. Oh, don't worry. This is the way that you do it.
So that's how we advance. And to me, having access to these tons. So as you say, superstars has been, has been a blessing and there's no better time. And I think that we all have to take advantage of that so that we all raise, you know, we all grow together. We all lived each other and it's been quite a gift.
And, I want to thank our coaches because our coaches, without our coaches, there's no mastermind and you're one of them you've been you've. One of them helping us from the very beginning and, yeah, the coaches. It's amazing in our page, we have some of them, we don't have all of them. But it's those journeys, you know, like you, you can think of at times just looking back, I don't know, five years ago, would I have thought in my mind that I would be talking to somebody like that? Maybe not, you know? But here they are and they're like us and they're talking to us and then they inspire all of us. It's quite the gift.
Dr. Diana Mercado-Marmarosh: Yeah. And, I wanna point out that, like you said, I made a lot of phone calls. I got some, yes, I got some nos. I got no responses. I think that's the part that trips us up with ADHD. We think, oh, that's too hard. I don't want to ask people, what are they gonna think? Da, da, da, da. And I think because you took. Some part of that, like, it was so easy. I just had to show up. And of course I had to do some steps afterwards, but you took away as many of the things that would get in the wake, which is just starting or just the conversation. Right? Just starting that conversation. And I think that's why. It's so important to not take it personally, but you can see why people with ADHD do take it personally, if they don't understand that in human nature, usually, the two things we really want is love and connection, right? Those are the two things we want.
And when we feel one or the other is being threatened, then yes. Some of us feel rejected, but people with ADHD, a hundred percent of people with ADHD experience, what is called rejection, sensitivity, Dysphobia, which means that we will take it way outta context that, oh my God, they don't wanna talk to me.
That's it, I'm a failure. And we go to all these other places, but instead. Not making it mean anything is so easy, but it's so hard at the same time. But when you're in an environment where the people that are coming to talk to you are coming because they want to, because they decided that, yes, I want to help this person get to where I am.
And like you said, I'm not any different. I just took extra steps. And, it's the same thing. It's a muscle, right? Not all everybody. Well, nobody really knew all the form of meds. Right? We don't know all the names of these meds, but we learned them. Right? We all learned them because we knew it was part of the thing.
And I remember you crushing when we started talking about like real estate, like my mind would just wanna shut off because I was like, I don't know, money. I don't need to understand. And it was, my husband was always like, yes, you do. You need to understand money. You need to have an express spreadsheet.
You have to see how much you're spending so you can see how much you're making. And I was like, why do I have to know that? Like I know there's plenty. And so the problem then becomes that if you don't understand where you are, You don't know where you're going. Right. And a lot of us sometimes get stuck in that.
We feel like what, wherever we're at, we're comfortable at, and we don't need to go anywhere else. But if there's a something inside of you that tells you, yes, I'm a physician, but I want to practice more. I want to do more. I wanna have more impact. Then you really need to listen to that little voice, because it's gonna nag at you and you just have to take some steps.
So in your master class and in your podcast, you really highlight the importance of network. And like they say, you're the average of the five people you hang around with. And so it's so important to not necessarily go out there because what am I gonna get back? Because you're planting seeds everywhere, because one day you don't know who's gonna help open a door for you, or likewise, you don't know whose door you're gonna help open that can help and impact the rest of humanity. Right?
Dr. Mydalis Diaz-Ramirez: Yeah. One of the things that I've decided to lead my life, with is one is love. You know, like we all, as you say love, and the other one is contribution, and I've seen that by giving. I'm not giving to get, but it just happens that you just get more. I really was not expecting to have these partners from the mastermind coming and it, it just happened like that.
And, I cannot tell you how life changing it. It's been like every day we have changes that are happening right and left. In terms of the podcast that you were mentioning, it's called designer physician life. And we want to give specific tips in each podcast. Episode that you can start right away. So I remember the conversation you having in our mastermind.
And I'm saying this because you allow me usually what happens in the mastermind stays in the mastermind like, like Vegas, but Deanna just mentioned it. It's like she didn't, she had that conversation with her husband and she brought it to us. It's like, it was so funny because there you go. Like, she doesn't know how to put that button to, to get the people to pay.
And then she's spending some money in coaching and all these things, and it's super important that, you know, and it cannot let that. You cannot give that authority to anybody else. Right? You have to have the authority because you know, what's gonna happen to you. It's like the comparison I make is when you have a patient and you give them instructions for labs or physical therapy or something, and then they come a month, whenever you tell 'em come between four to eight weeks later to report on those changes.
They come and it's like, oh, nobody called me. It's like, really? And then you get so upset. It's like, how come nobody called you? Couldn't you call that place? You know? Like maybe they didn't call you because they got busy, you know? And that's what happens with everybody else. One, when you receive this, notes for example, and people are telling you no it's because maybe they're busy with something else.
It's not that you're not a good person or representative that has nothing to do with you is that they're busy doing something else. And that's why you have to take matters, you know, into your hands for your destiny. And, you have to understand all these things yourself. We don't learn any of these in medical school. Right? So in our podcast, we will have specific tips so that you can learn about your finances, what to do about how to really get with people who are aligned with what you do. And we teach people to still love your friends. Still love your family. Still love your coworkers, but if they're not supportive, if they are in a different mindset, Spend the social time with them and spend your creativity time, spend your inspiring time, spend your entrepreneurial time with that group that's really gonna help you succeed. That's one of the big things that we talk about.
So first yeah, you have to take matters into your hands. Don't worry that you've had some rejections and this is not a matter of being difficult or hard. One of the things that we learned from, Kenji, for example, when he came to talk to us about mindset, it's not talking about heart is if it's a worthy challenge.
So is this a worthy challenge? Is it worth it that somebody with ADHD or not ADHD is going to be able to reach to someone? Who's gonna coach them. Yes. It's worth it. So let's work on it. Is it difficult? Is it hard? We set those aside and then we see the challenge if it's worthy or not. Is it worth it for you to take care of your of your own life?
For example, Diana, April, 2021, just a plan, just an idea. A year later, you've made some extra, how much, how many times have you made from the money that you invested in your coaching? It's at least twice right, by now. Is that correct?
Dr. Diana Mercado-Marmarosh: Yeah.
Dr. Mydalis Diaz-Ramirez: Now that you know your numbers.
Dr. Diana Mercado-Marmarosh: Yeah. I know now that I know my numbers, I will tell you. So when I started, when it was just an idea, by the time I graduated, I had made $2,000. When by the time I graduated July of 21, and then by June of 22, I had made $148,000 from that.
Dr. Mydalis Diaz-Ramirez: It's just over a year later. Right. And then now you've been offered the possibility. Right. We dunno how that's gonna materialize the possibility of between three to six months in your life making twice one and half or twice your salary that you make in a whole year. Is that correct?
Dr. Diana Mercado-Marmarosh: Yes, correct. Yes.
Dr. Mydalis Diaz-Ramirez: So what would have happened for Diana Mercado-Marmarosh, if she was still waiting to start thinking that it was gonna be difficult, thinking that she could not do it thinking for that period of time that she was not worth that she was gonna get rejections. Hmm. And she was wait for it to be perfect. To have to know how that bottom to charge for people was. Huh? You would have missing all these things. Right. And look where you are. So that's, that's a big message. To our listeners, right? Doesn't matter that you have ADHD, you have to get into the right group, right connections.
We're fortunate that we've been able to have people like Diana and a bunch of others in our group who have ADHD and then help them achieve their dreams. And these are things that you have to take into your own hands. You have to take your own future. And as a physician, when you're lost, you know, in despair, maybe burnout, so tired, sometimes you're so hurt that you become numb and you keep going. And then we talk about the golden handcuffs or, you know, gonna move. And you know what, at the end of the day, who's making the decision of staying there is no one else other than. So you're making the decision of staying there. You can make the decision of coming outside my own story just recently. Not, not that long ago, I had decided like I had businesses and I had the clinics and then I sold those clinic successful.
And I decided to start to stay, to remain as an employee in those clinics, because I wanted to spend some more time with my kids at this stage of life and all these things. Right? So I gave those rights away by staying as an employee. And I realized that really that's not the life for me, you know? And I cannot blame them for being who they are.
It's I only blame myself for staying there for as long as I, because it just doesn't make me happy to not have that control. So when they came to me, And I had already resigned. I gave them three months that I was gonna resign from this job and then six weeks into this process. So I still had like six other weeks left.
They come one day at the end of the day and they tell me, today's your last day, you know, what do you do? Like we have decided to accelerate your departure. So then I decided immediately that's the first time and the last time that anybody will tell me, what I'm gonna do the next day at work, right?
That's all I can do. I cannot be crying. I cannot blame them because at the end of the day, I was the one who chose that job. Right? So as a physician with, or without ADHD, you have to understand your options. You have to understand that you're in control and that you have to understand that you can get you, you can find your path away your path again, if you're in the right group.
Dr. Diana Mercado-Marmarosh: Yeah. And, I think you were able to go through that for a lot of us, that type of stuff would've been crushing, right? Like being told you no longer have a job, but because you were in this growth mindset. And the people around you were there to say, it's funny who you surround with because now for most of us, and if we lose a job, like we don't make it be the end of the world because we realize that it's okay.
I am the secret sauce. So it doesn't matter where I'm at. I will make it even better. And before we used to think, you should bow down that you have a job. Right. But now we have come to realize that nobody owns us, unless you let them own you because you're not living in alignment with your values. It didn't crush you. It made you stronger.
Because of the community that you had, and it allowed you to dream and think outside the box to do it your own way and to trust in you. And, and I was actually gonna ask you about this because I know you're one of few physicians, female physicians who has been able to secure what your new practice that you're going into secure alone, and even asked to be in the board of financial planning for this bank now. Right? Like how crazy is that?
Dr. Mydalis Diaz-Ramirez: Totally crazy. Never in my whole life would I have thought that they would offer that to me? Like what's going on. So, yeah. And it's because of this mastermind because of the company that I'm with. That we've been able, and then the things happen to you, like, as they say, like, life is happening for you. Right? And, in this case, we went to this program and we, at the end of the day, we have received more money than what we went for asking, asking for to that program is a local bank and they have requested us to be part of their marketing materials. They think that we are a good group and they even offered us to have some shares at the bank.
Like what like, are you kidding me? But yeah. So that's there, it's available and, it can be available to you two. I don't know if you're gonna be, you know, shareholder at the bank specifically. I don't know yet if I'm gonna be a shareholder myself, but the opportunities there, and these opportunities only come when you surround yourself with people who are in the same mindset going that way.
And, you have to work on your mindset. It's not something that came to us overnight after so many years of leaving a life, you know, of fixed mindset is something that you really have to train. You have to work, you have to read, it's, you know, something about reading is that people ask me many times what's the one book and I can tell, you know, the book that triggered it for me was Rich Dad, Poor Dad.
That was the book that triggered it. But it's certainly not the book that has told us everything that we know about entrepreneurship. Right? So when you become a physician, you know that you're gonna have to study so many books, right. That so many years of studying for you to be able to become a physician.
You don't have to study as much to become an interpreter. You certainly have to study and not only one book, but you have to read, you have to train yourself and you have to grow that mindset and you have to surround yourself with people so that then these opportunities will come. Yeah. So totally surprising.
Dr. Diana Mercado-Marmarosh: Yeah. And the good thing about this is that, I read the. I listened to the audible version of rich dad, poor dad while I was in your masterclass. I think that was one of the ones that started to break my idea of, I don't understand money and get me to show up. Even when, you know, I was so grateful that David, who was in our group would explain things and Miranda would explain things.
 I wouldn't really understand everything that was going on, but, I kept trying to understand it because I wanted to have an open mind and I kept telling myself, you know, you didn't understand all the medicine you were learning when you were learning it, but you had to have an open mind. And it's the same thing.
Like we have to have an open mind that something can change and. and in their masterminds, it was all kinds of things. Like some people wanted to start a winery, some people wanted to start, you know, a retreat. Some people just wanted to have a very productive practice. Some people wanted to a better style of life, real estate.
So that's the beauty of being able to be surrounded by people who want to just invest in themselves and in their future. And so, yeah, so I was saying 150,000 that I probably have made, but I wanna say like two thirds have been invested back into my own coaching, into other programs, into hiring coaches to come and teach in my program, into go me going to conferences so I can continue to level up and understand trauma based consent and all kinds of stuff, that not only benefit my mastermind, but now benefit my patients because I use these techniques with my everyday patients.
And it's now so wonderful to see the mixture of it and who you become and what you can now decide like, okay, maybe in three years from now, you know, in the summers, I'm gonna take my kids to go, you know, for a whole month to a different country, to understand and live, and immersed without me on being attached to my phone, like actually learning things for learning. Right? And so you start to think outside of the box of how you could envision and I'm like, well, why not teachers have summer soft? Why can't doctors have summer soft if they decided to. Right?
And so, again, It might be a crazy dream or it could be the why not start of a conversation, right? It is so wonderful to be able to look into books, look into each other and, to understand that you are worthy of that challenge, like you are worthy to put forth the challenge.
Dr. Mydalis Diaz-Ramirez: And one of the things that you just mentioned just subtly, but, important is that you've been able to invest back in yourself. So when you start this journey at the beginning, that you're so scared, not understanding with your fix mindset, you're asking what is the cost for that? Right? That's the question?
What, what is it gonna cost me? And now we know it's like, what's the investment. It may gonna be like, so that's a big change that happens. Oh, what is that too expensive? And I say, you know, what is more expensive? So Dian, what's more expensive to you? Like not doing, you know, doing nothing a year and a half ago versus like investing yourself? What was more expensive, not doing anything. Right?
Dr. Diana Mercado-Marmarosh: So like two, three years ago, I mean, I was paying it with time and money and suffering. Well, how? I was having two to 300 charts open, right? I was, using 20 to 30 hours, unpaid outside of work, trying to mask how much I did not have control of the situation and how taxing it was.
Luckily I had a husband who was very, non-judgmental on the, whatever it took for work. He just thought, well, that just comes with the territory, but he didn't realize that I didn't realize that it didn't have to come with a territory. Had I invested in my mental health. Had I invested in my ADHD coaching in my life coaching, but I didn't know those tools were available for me.
So therefore, I thought this is the norm. And so I'm here to say that it doesn't have to be the norm. There's always a way that you can do it. And if you surround yourself with physicians and they don't even have to be physicians, coz my first ADHD coaches, they were not physicians. It's up to you. And currently my own private one-on-one business coach is not a physician.
Actually, she didn't even go to college and I am learning so much and I am kicking it out of the park because you don't have to have a degree to have common sense sometimes. And sometimes we just need a little bit of approval to like push past their dreams. And so, yeah, so right now I am going to continue to have a one-on-one coach who knows for how long , but as long as I can, because that's what keeps me available.
It's like you have to be in a mindset that is clean to be able to help those around you, and I am still in my, in Dr. Una's group coaching. So it's a accountability everywhere. I am putting myself in a place where people are my network and of course, making amazing connections. Like with Mydalis, I am constantly in contact with Mydalis because we are each other's way to continue to grow. And it's amazing to be in that environment .
Dr. Mydalis Diaz-Ramirez: And one of the things is that first it's no secret anymore. Right? That how they do it, how did that person do it is not secret anymore. So we can be part of that secret, which is now allowed. Yeah. The other thing is that once, you know, how it is to live in these lives is like preaching.
Like you have to tell everybody it's not only about like they knowledge its power is really its responsibility. Like we feel responsible for, for those around us and to bring them up like this in terms of the mindset, it has been such a powerful, Changing our lives, that for our next employees, especially like at this new clinic that we're building, they're all gonna get mindset, training, specific mindset training.
We're paying somebody to teach them mindset things that we can, we can do too. They just have the programs organized, for them as employees from that point of view, like certainly bring the things from the mastermind, but we decided to do it this way. And it's, it's all the teachings that you have to share.
And what happens is that when people are in that growth mindset and you're part of that journey with them, they show up happier. They want to contribute more because they have meaning. They know that they're part of something bigger and we all can be part of that whole mesh of something bigger coming together and growing together and brewing together.
And that's inevitably that's what happens is a result that comes from all this work that gets to be done. And yes, you have to work at it. In our mastermind, like people will ask, oh, how that I don't have time for that. I'm just so busy. I have my kids. Well, I have kids, I have a husband, I have the mastermind, I have a podcast and I have my business and we have to go to Congress and stuff.
So we learn how to. Set priorities, how to manage your time based on our principles and our vision, our missions. So we identify all those things. And then we invest in ourselves because as I said, nobody's gonna do that for us. And this is how it gets done.
Dr. Diana Mercado-Marmarosh: So Mydalis, I'm gonna wrap this up in the next few minutes, but I know we could talk for hours because we always do, but tell me, where do you see yourself in the next three to five years for fun?
Dr. Mydalis Diaz-Ramirez: Oh, my goodness for fun. I love to travel. So I truly, in terms of traveling in my bucket list there's a couple of things that I really want to do. One is I really want to go to Antarctica. And when Thomas listens to this, my husband, he's gonna laugh because he says not gonna go to Antarctica, but what am I gonna do there?
I just want to go there. I don't know. Like I want to see those spend with myself firsthand. So I really, within the next five years, I really want to do that. I really want to have been able to share some different experiences. I want to share with my, with my family still, like, I have been able, I've been blessed to give them some, some things, but I just want to give them more in group experiences that I have planned and then fun things in terms of like work.
I really want to be this, Mastermind so successful that we really get, you know, 60 to a hundred, physicians a year where we can help them, specifically help them one on one, in these small groups, I don't want to be do big groups. And then I think for big groups, I would be speaking to, to larger groups.
I have already done some of that. And then from, from a fun way at work at the clinic that everything's running really smoothly and that we have become a destination facility with all the things that I want to have for this clinic, for our dream, sharing that with the physicians that we have.
Dr. Diana Mercado-Marmarosh: Awesome. So you know that people with ADHD have wondering attention sometimes, so let's say they zoomed us out and they just, started listening again. What is the takeaway point that you would want them to take away from this whole episode?
Dr. Mydalis Diaz-Ramirez: Take matters into your own hands. Don't think that something is difficult and unreachable surround yourself with the right people. Get coaching, start reading and start today. Don't wait.
Dr. Diana Mercado-Marmarosh: Awesome. And where can they find you? Cause they need to find you.
Dr. Mydalis Diaz-Ramirez: Two things that you can do. One is our website, maxallure.com is M A X A L L U R E.com.
There you can find our next webinars and when we're starting with our next cohort, where you can join and other is the podcast Design Your Physician Life, which you can find in any major platform.
Dr. Diana Mercado-Marmarosh: Well, it's been a delight to have you today. Thank you so much for sharing this space and sharing your wisdom. And like she said, don't wait, start, start TODAY!
Dr. Mydalis Diaz-Ramirez: Thanks for having me, Diana.
Dr. Diana Mercado-Marmarosh: As someone who understands that time is our most valuable asset. I am so honored that you have shared your time with me. Please click the subscribe button and join my Facebook group: Beyond ADHD, A Physician's Perspective so that you never missed an opportunity to create time at will. Do share this podcast with your friends they too can can learn to live life and stay in their own lane
Link to my website to register for October 2022 Cohort (waitlist):
Transformation Physician Group Coaching
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Beyond ADHD A Physicians Perspective: Ketamine and Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation with Dr. Teresa Anderson

Dr. Teresa Anderson: Mental health can be approached from so many different directions from the physical side to have people who were mindfulness, meditation, and movement instructors. There is hope. If you have tried and failed multiple antidepressants or multiple therapies for depression, anxiety, or PTSD, you're not at the end of the road.
You're not at the end of the rope. Ketamine is a great offering. PR TMS is a great offering and just. Investing in yourself, even though it can be a little scary.
Dr. Diana Mercado-Marmarosh: Hi, welcome to Beyond ADHD, A Physician's Perspective podcast. I am your host, Dr. Diana Mercado-Marmarosh. I'm a Family Medicine doc, with ADHD, practicing in a rural setting in Texas. I am a mother to two very energetic toddlers who are three and four years of age.
And in the past year, I have undergone radical transformation after discovering ADHD coaching, and life-coaching. For the past decade, my typical day consisted of having 300 charts backlog, a graveyard of unfinished projects, and a lack of time awareness. I didn't realize that I was not filling my own cup. I was running on fumes. The last year I figured out the secret; learn to stay in your lane. So now my mission is to help others develop systems that tap into their zone of genius. So they too can reclaim their personal lives back like I have.
Well, hello. I am so excited today to have my good friend, Dr. Teresa Anderson. She's an adult outpatient psychiatrist, and she specializes in depression, anxiety, and PTSD. And she's been in practice for more than 13 years in Cincinnati, Ohio, and six years ago, she started to. ketamine infusions to her treatments.
And I'm so excited for her to come and talk to us about this. It's like state of the art treatment. And we are trying to make sure that, you know, everybody is aware of other possibilities other than just, you know the standard so that we can see if, you know, they get more personalized treatment in her clinic is our really state of the art.
And we're so excited to have her here today. So why don't you tell us a little bit about yourself and what you're up to, and I am so excited to have this talk with you today.
Dr. Teresa Anderson: Well, thank you so much for having me. I'm excited too. So, like you said, I've been in practice for about 13 years in Cincinnati, Ohio.
I'm an adult outpatient psychiatrist. And, there are three different parts to our clinic. I do the standard psychotherapy and medication management for folks with depression, anxiety, and PTSD. For folks who aren't responding as well to treatment, who've tried and failed multiple options, either got nasty side effects or didn't get a great outcome on the medications that, that we've tried them on.
We can offer ketamine infusions, and we can also offer PR TMS. I thought I'd talk a little bit about ketamine infusions first. So ketamine has been on the news of late. It's sort of like the latest, greatest craze in mental health. It's been touted as a rapid acting antidepressant, which we don't really have those and it's been around for eons.
So it went generic in the 1970s. Traditionally, it was used as a dissociative anesthetic. So that means that it's not only going to take you out of your pain, but you're gonna be on Mars and forget that you were ever in pain, but it's fairly unusual. In terms of a medication, because most anesthetics slow your heart rate and your respiratory drive way, way, way, way down.
And so ketamine does the opposite. As a matter of fact, this was actually used as a buddy drug in Vietnam and some of the soldiers carried it on their person. If their mate got blasted or in severe pain and the medic wasn't around, they could give them the ketamine without needing an anesthesiologist nearby monitor their cardiovascular rate or a sympathetic tone.
So recently it has been shown to act very quickly as an antidepressant. Especially in folks who are in the case of like acutely suicidal and it can have its effects in as little as one treatment, or it might take several, our standard course of treatment was set forth by the national institutes and mental health.
In that we use 0.5 milligrams per kilo of body. And infuse over a time of like 45 to 60 minutes. We give six infusions over the course of two to three weeks. For whatever reason past the three week market seems to lose its efficacy. But it's really well tolerated. It can be done in an outpatient setting without the presence of an anesthesiologist.
We just monitor their cardiovascular rate. We, you know, monitor their vitals, um, make sure that they're comfortable. And the biggest side effects about 30% of the time that people have is mild headache or mild nausea, which we can treat in house. People are free to leave of their own volition. After the fact they do.
People to drive them home. cause they're not with it enough to drive. But outside of that, it's tolerated really well and works really beautifully about 70 to 80% of the time, depending on what other medications that you're taking, or if you have any like major other medical risk factors or whatnot.
Dr. Diana Mercado-Marmarosh: So have you noticed that this has helped like the emotional dysregulation part of like the ADHD that sometimes some of the stimulants necessarily don't hit?
I know that in the US, the emotional dysregulation is not like a must needed criteria to diagnose ADHD, but like in Europe it is. And so I think it's just a matter of time that maybe in the US we start to recognize. This part of it and wonder if that would be complimentary per se.
Dr. Teresa Anderson: Yeah, I agree wholeheartedly it's it gives the patient two things outside of like lessening of anxiety and depressive symptoms, but it gives the patient significantly two things.
And one is the ability to take a step back from reacting, which I know is a problem. A lot of folks with ADHD have the impulse control thing. And gives you just an extra second or two to add that filter in, like, is this how I really wanna respond before you, you know, before it automatically just hits your brain and out your mouth.
Right? And so it gives you that little bit of space, that little bit of objectivity to decide how you wish to respond instead of reacting automatically. The other big takeaway that a lot of patients and I said, have said to me is a huge blessing for them is that it really cuts down on the negative internal, constant judgmental running commentary that a lot of people have with depression, anxiety, ADHD, all that.
And it's. Again, providing some space for your brain to breathe a little bit and to decide how you want to behave, decide how you want to react instead of respond instead of react. So,
Dr. Diana Mercado-Marmarosh: and that's great that, you know, within, like you said, if it works for you within a couple of treatments, like six treatments, you know, Three week span of that could now be an area that you could target because some of that impulsivity can get us into a lot of trouble at work or with our spouses or with our kids.
Right. Sometimes we just. We don't mean to say what we said, and then we're in trouble because we said it and then we are like, oops, I didn't really mean it that way. It was just, you know, it happened, I think like obviously meditation and running and getting away from people can help, but like, wow, this is like a cool way to be able to target that.,
Dr. Teresa Anderson: Absolutely. And, you know, PR TMS, the other offering that we have the personalized, repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation, we've actually brought people down off their stimulants, or at least able to reduce the dose significantly because we are stimulating the underactive areas of the brain that help with that filter.
Dr. Diana Mercado-Marmarosh: So, do people have to be like your patient just at the clinic to be able to get this? Or can somebody else like refer them to you? Like another psychiatrist or another family medicine doc or internal medicine doc.
Right. So any, any other clinician can refer us patients I'm actually full on the psychotherapy and med management side ever since COVID surprise, surprise.
Dr. Teresa Anderson: But that's amazing. Yeah. Any other physician, any other psychiatrist who doesn't offer this and, and wants their patient to seek out this type of therapy, as long as we, you know, get a referral and a release of information. So we're not practicing medicine and avoid. Yes. It's absolutely acceptable.
Dr. Diana Mercado-Marmarosh: And do you just take people from your state or would you be willing to let other people come from other states or is it insurance dependent or is it just if they can pay out of pocket or how does, does that usually work?
Dr. Teresa Anderson: So our clinic is all self pay and we have people visiting their families from different states all the time. Again, as long as we can get ahold of their treating doctor, you know, we know they're not like using an alias or something. And as long as we have a list of their current medications and we have a good communication, open communication with their current treating provider, I am totally fine with it.
Dr. Diana Mercado-Marmarosh: That's amazing. So you've been doing this for the past six years, is that correct?
Dr. Teresa Anderson: We've been doing the ketamine for the past six and a half years. We've been doing the PR TMS for the past almost four years.
Dr. Diana Mercado-Marmarosh: Wow. What do you think, what got you into this side of side of it? I mean, it's such cutting edge stuff. Like I'm so intrigued.
Dr. Teresa Anderson: A number of things. One is sort of a silly answer, right place, right time. I was finishing up my maternity leave and I had. Drop down my patient load to 20 hours a week. And a group outside of Boston approached me about the possibility of ketamine infusions. And I had studied it for a long time and I thought it was the coolest thing since slice bread, but I assumed that you had to be affiliated with a major hospital to do it or needed, you know, large services or actually, no, you just need an infusion nurse and a place to keep drugs locked up and safe.
So. At the time I was coming back from maternity leave, the doctor who I was renting space from was getting ready to sell the building. So I was gonna need a new place to live anyway. And so in terms of my business. And so I just decided to go ahead and get a space big enough to be able to provide the ketamine infusions.
So it just kind of worked out timing wise, three years later, PR TMS sort of fell in my lap. I had a young lady who was very brittle bipolar patient and, and she's given me permission to share like generic parts of her story. And she was a stay at home mom to two kiddos on the autism spectrum. And I mean, her life was hell on a daily basis. And she came to visit me once a month and she was on five different medications. Her moods weren't stabilized, she wasn't sleeping well. And she had a lot of stress, but she was mostly focused on her kiddos and mostly wanting to get help for them. And she'd come to me and say, so I'm gonna try a natural path this month.
I'm gonna try chiropractor next month. And we're gonna try this. We're gonna try an elimination diet, this, and, you know, Whatever works and you're not hurting your kids. You're trying to get them treatment. You're trying to help their lives be better. I very much respect that. But so one month she comes to me and said, have you heard of PR TMS?
I said, well, I've heard of TMS, transcranial magnetic stimulation. She said, no. PR TMS is this guy out of San Diego who, is a radiation oncologist. He found a way to target the treatment using an E EEG. And so he's looking specifically at your brain, which areas are most underactive or overactive and can actually target the TMS.
It has like a 90% advocacy. So he has a clinic set up in Indiana. I'm gonna move my family there for six weeks and see how it goes. I'm like, good luck, God bless. I mean, I didn't know what else to say but six weeks later she comes back and she got the whole family treated. She is on less than half of the medications that she was on prior to leaving.
And her mood is better. She's sleeping through the night. Her husband, who was a footballer in high school and college no longer was multiple concussions, no longer had headaches sleeping through the night, her kiddo, uh, on the spectrum who was super, super, super uncoordinated was now riding a bike. And her kiddo who was barely verbal, now wouldn't stop talking. And I said, who the hell is this guy? I've gotta meet him. And so I sent in my information and told them my interest and that I'd been in business already for, you know, like 10 years or so. And they flew their whole team out to meet me and gave me a presentation. And he actually, Dr.
Murphy actually showed me. A video of a family member who was on the spectrum and who was basically nonverbal, you know, beating his head against the wall, biting mom and six months of twice daily treatment. And he lost him, his IEP.
Dr. Diana Mercado-Marmarosh: Wow.
Dr. Teresa Anderson: So I said, I don't care what I have to do to get involved with this. I'm doing it because this to me felt like for the first time the brain was no longer a black box.
Dr. Diana Mercado-Marmarosh: Yes.
Dr. Teresa Anderson: We could see. What areas were underserved, what areas were overactive? We could temper both. It wasn't a one size fits all treatment and standard TMS is great for who it's great for, but it only works about 30% of the time.
All the treatment is given at one place. There's the lateral prefrontal cortex, where we think the seat of the emotions lay, right. It's given it one frequency at one amplitude, one dosage, one size fits all. That's great and all, but what if your brain doesn't work in the average range of 10 Hertz? Then you might actually screw up the things that you're doing well.
Dr. Diana Mercado-Marmarosh: Right. Kind of like when you think about chemo, right? Like the way that now they've been able to do target radiation and stuff before, right? Like they would just be like, here's all this chemo, they were. Things you wanted, right? You didn't wanna lose your hair. You didn't wanna be vomiting. You didn't wanna, you know, you just wanted the area that was not was the cancer to be killed, but not everything else.
And so this is amazing that with such precision, you could personalize now what you need to target. Wow. What a blessing, this type of treatment is.
Dr. Teresa Anderson: It is huge. And I can't tell you, it's so exciting to see patients, not only like verbally reporting that they're feeling better, but like also the EEG changes. We give an EEG every, week essentially.
And we do neurocognitive exams based off of what they need, either PTSD, depression, anxiety, ADHD, sleep, or concussion symptom inventory, and all of those things improve as well as you can see the EEG starting to. Like tighten up and be cleaner. It's just, it's just phenomenal. I've never seen anything like it.
 I tell people that I'm so nerdy about it. Cause it's like star Trek medicine. I still can't believe it. Yes.
Dr. Diana Mercado-Marmarosh: That is like star Trek. I mean, it's just unheard of, you know, we hear all and we try all kinds of things, right? Like people have tried, acupuncture, people have tried all kinds of things, and then you finally have something that, you know, starting to be so, so well received.
Do you get to go to like different conferences and teach others to also do something similar?
Dr. Teresa Anderson: So we haven't yet Dr. Murphy's in the process of writing a textbook about his findings and about, and sort of using the clinical data from our different clinics around the United States. So far, I think there's about 10 of us up and running. So he's, he's in the process of running a textbook, but, the hope is that eventually that we could train other physicians to do what we do. .
Dr. Diana Mercado-Marmarosh: Yeah. I mean, you are definitely a trailblazer there and wow. In 10 clinics, you know, when we think about how big the US is, 10 clinic is like, you know, nothing, I wonder if are y'all gonna be expanding to other parts of the world or do you know if there's something alike that is being done elsewhere?
Dr. Teresa Anderson: So there are lots of different TMS types. And there are lots of different like experimentations with different types of train length, or amplitude or frequency or location. A lot of people are experimenting with this and having different kinds of results. The nice thing about PR TMS is that it's not painful.
At all, very few side effects and the treatment can be targeted to the individual specific needs. For instance, a person with ADHD, we would target more of the frontal lobes, the executive functioning, the attention concentration decision making and impulse control. Right. A person who had more depression than anything else who'd be targeting where our standard TMS brothers would be, you know, using their paddle, a person who was recovering from a stroke and had motor difficulties, we would be actually, you know, treating it on the motor strip.
And so, the way that we can personalize it, it unlike anything that we've ever seen. I know Dr. Murphy had been in talks with some folks, outside the us, and I don't know where those have gone so far, but, he's in the process of opening up like 10 to 15, more, mostly around the coastal regions. He had no plans whatsoever to expand to Cincinnati.
We just sort of stumbled upon him. because of my patients. So I feel incredibly blessed in that regard, but yeah, it's, it's a work in progress, but we're partnering with him to try to help onboard docs and answer any questions that, you know, if they need anything.
Dr. Diana Mercado-Marmarosh: That's so amazing. So where do you see your current business? Like in the next three to five years? Like what are, what is up and the works for you?
Dr. Teresa Anderson: Oh, that's a fantastic question. So it's been on my mind greatly. I would love to set up more of a holistic mental health clinic because I think mental health can be approached from so many different directions from the physical side to have people who were mindfulness meditation and.
Movement instructors like yoga Tai Chichi. I would love to have nutritionists on board as a person who suffers from celiac disease. I know it made a tremendous improvement in my own mental health. When I gave up gluten not to mention, I don't have cystic acne anymore and you know, not chained to the toilet 24/7. So noticing changes in diet, especially for kiddos with ADHD and, you know, removing the process. I would love to have float tanks. Because you can actually being submerged for an hour, three, one hour sessions can reduce your cortisol without any medication intervention whatsoever. And so for my PTSD folks, that's huge.
There are lots of folks who still have the stigma of, oh my God, your strength. I don't wanna look at you. I don't wanna talk to you. You're reading my mind kind of scenario. And so for those people, maybe we could introduce them more gently, so to speak. Two ways of movement, two ways of nutrition to the float tanks, to vitamin infusions, that sort of thing, to get people interested in their own mental health and wellbeing on the back end and say, oh, I wonder what else they offer.
There are people who are in dire need, who are in emergent circumstances who need more the PR TMS, ketamine psychotherapy, med management. And then they think, okay, well, you know, I could do kind of a step down. I don't need this anymore, but I could still do other things. And so to have more holistic sort of care for people, that would be my ultimate goal when we're working towards.
Dr. Diana Mercado-Marmarosh: That sounds amazing trailblazer all the way. So what about like in the next three to five years for fun? Like, do you see yourself traveling anywhere or doing any other extra stuff?
I would love to travel. And my seven year old has ADHD as well. And so he, more than anything, I'm always like future oriented, right? Like I'm always thinking about like, 10 20 steps ahead.
Dr. Teresa Anderson: And he always says, mommy, what do you want to do today? And I say, well, I have to drop you off at camp. Then I have to go to work. And then we probably need to pick up something for dinner and then we probably need to do this and that he goes, no, that's what you have to do. What do you want to do? So he is my, in the present guy.
Right. I would love to experience like Canada or Mexico or Europe with him through his eyes because he keeps me grounded in the present moment. He's very good. Like that.
Dr. Diana Mercado-Marmarosh: That's amazing. You know, I, I've been sharing with a couple of people in different episodes that I would love to, you know, and in the next three to five years, as my kids get a little bit older, maybe during the summers, like pick a country and like go for a month to that country and verse in the food, the language, the history of it, like how amazing would it be to be.
Not just reading books. Right. But at least you experience it. Right. Like the combination of both things. So, yeah, I think that's really cool to be able to pick Mexico or Canada or Europe or any place. Right. And, just live in the moment, like you said, because so often we forget to live in the moment.
We're like, like you said, we're like we have all these checks. List. And then we forget, like, why are we even doing the checklist? Right.
Dr. Teresa Anderson: These babies and grand babies. I totally get it. Yes, absolutely.
Dr. Diana Mercado-Marmarosh: All right, well please tell us, where can our people find you? Like, where can they reach out to you? Give us your website, give us your, social handles. That way we can get ahold of you.
Dr. Teresa Anderson: Oh, absolutely. So it's super easy. On the web it's www.andersonclinic.net. So that was easy. If you wanna give us a call it's (513) 321-1753. If you would like to give us an email because you have questions. It's admin A D M I N @ anderson clinic.net. And if you want to take a peak at my very, very, very, very, very fledgling TikTok channel it's Andersoncliniccincy, C I N C Y. And we're working on, we already have content written for 12 podcasts. So we're hoping to get that up and launched in August or September, and that's gonna be on apple and all that kinda good stuff.
And that'll be called psych waves.
Dr. Diana Mercado-Marmarosh: That's so great. So the last question that I say, you know, my viewers have ADHD, so sometimes we zone out so let's say they just started paying attention, like right this second, what is a nugget you want them to take away from?
Dr. Teresa Anderson: There is hope. If you have tried and failed multiple antidepressants or multiple therapies for depression, anxiety, or PTSD, you're not at the end of the road. You're not at the end of the rope. Ketamine is a great offering. PR TMS is a great offering and just investing in yourself, even though it can be a little scary. Absolutely.
Dr. Diana Mercado-Marmarosh: Well, there, you have it. We had an amazing interview with Dr. Teresa Anderson and she's cutting edge on all things, mental health, as we know, COVID really has brought up to front how underdiagnosed and undertreated it can be.
But. When you do invest in yourself, everything else you can think more clearly, and you can make decisions from a place of calm instead of overwhelm, that makes a world of difference. So reach out to Dr. Anderson, cuz she can really help you. And if you're somebody who is interested in maybe providing this for your patient, Definitely reach out to her because you know, you gonna join her as a trail trailblazer.
Dr. Teresa Anderson: Yeah. And if, if there are folks out there who are interested in providing this type of treatment within their clinic, I would reach out to Dr. Murphy's website because he can onboard you or at least lead you in the right direction. And that's www.prtms.com.
Dr. Diana Mercado-Marmarosh: Awesome. Thank you so much for your time.
Dr. Teresa Anderson: You're very welcome. Thanks for having me.
Dr. Diana Mercado-Marmarosh: As someone who understands that time is our most valuable asset. I am so honored that you have shared your time with me. Please click the subscribe button and join my Facebook group: Beyond ADHD, A Physician's Perspective so that you never missed an opportunity to create time at will. Do share this podcast with your friends they too can can learn to live life and stay in their own lane
Link to my website to register for October 2022 Cohort (waitlist):
Transformation Physician Group Coaching
Instagram: @beyondadhdlifecoach
Tiktok: beyondadhdlifecoach

Beyond ADHD A Physicians Perspective: Time Blindness

Dr. Diana Mercado-Marmarosh: Most people with ADHD. Totally understand. When I say time blindness the thing with this time blindness is that it can be perceived in different things. It can be perceived as not keeping track of time in awareness of being able to create a time sequence.
Hi, welcome to Beyond ADHD, A Physician's Perspective podcast. I am your host, Dr. Diana Mercado-Marmarosh. I'm a Family Medicine doc, with ADHD, practicing in a rural setting in Texas. I am a mother to two very energetic toddlers who are three and four years of age.
And in the past year, I have undergone radical transformation after discovering ADHD coaching, and life-coaching. For the past decade, my typical day consisted of having 300 charts backlog, a graveyard of unfinished projects, and a lack of time awareness. I didn't realize that I was not filling my own cup. I was running on fumes. The last year I figured out the secret; learn to stay in your lane. So now my mission is to help others develop systems that tap into their zone of genius. So they too can reclaim their personal lives back like I have.
Well, hello. Hello. I'm so excited. Today's topic is about time blindness, you know, most people with ADHD. Totally understand. When I say time blindness, it's inability to sense the passing of time. and it just makes it hard, for the person who is experiencing this, because it affects all levels of their life.
And so when you think of time, blindness. Think about it kind of like a sensory issue. Like it's not intentional. Like nobody wants to just on purpose, look bad or mislead people one way or another, and there's different reasons. And I'll give you examples of how we can get in trouble with time blindness.
Usually things that people with ADHD really enjoy doing, we can tend to hyper focus on things and we underestimate how long it's gonna take us. You know, things we enjoy, maybe we're seeing a patient and the encounter runs way over past it. It might be that we were really, you know, enjoying the encounter we were having.
Or it could be that maybe, you know, we were gonna go and hang out with friends and we thought it was gonna take so long and it took a lot longer. So things that we enjoy, we tend to underestimate how long it's gonna take. And then things that we don't necessarily enjoy, like washing the dishes. I don't like washing dishes or maybe cleaning things around the house.
We way overestimate how long it's gonna take and we don't even wanna start. And so what happens with time blindness? Is that sometimes it can make us look like there is a character defect or a character flaw, and we end up beating our self up for something like that. Right? When we think about ADHD, I want you to think about the fact that, you know, it's not that we can't focus all the time.
It's sometimes we can't inhibit certain things. Like we can't inhibit certain perceptions or like this sensory stimula that I was just talking to you. And sometimes we can't inhibit certain actions and we are driven to do things over and over almost like, you know, because it's important to us.
And so the thing with this timeline is, is that it can be perceived in different things. It can be perceived as not keeping track of time in awareness of being able to create a time sequence, like, you know, how long each task is gonna take. So then we can spit out an appropriate estimate, or it could be that we don't know how something happened, and we feel like we don't have any control over time reproduction.
Making sure that we can redo that over again. So this is important because once you have realized that there's a term, you know, now you are at least aware of the problem. And from there, you can seek to accept it and realize that, okay, well, this is me now. I don't have to make it mean anything. Now I can seek, take action, right?
Form, uh, solutions for it. So to change the system, you first have to change yourself and to change selves. We first have to gain some awareness of where we're at, right? And so with that being said, there's certain things that you can do to help you be aware of what you need to do. So if you think of, of using techniques like a timer, a timer is gonna create that shortcut or that buffer to be able to consciously track how long something is taking you.
And so it can help decrease that drive to start something, because most of us don't wanna jump onto something that seems like it's impossible to accomplish, but if we at least tell ourselves, okay, I'm not gonna get sucked into like cleaning the house for like eight hours. I'm only gonna commit to like 20 minutes.
Then you have a start and end time, and it's more likely that you're gonna give yourself that time to do it. And so with that being said, You can increase that dopamine energy and decrease those timeliness by keeping track. I use timers all the time, so that I have an awareness of how long it's taking me to walk into the room.
And then I have my nurses knock at a certain time. And that way they ask me if I need anything. And sometimes I do, you know, I might need a shot or a tetanus shot, or I might need wound culture or some sort of something, right? And so they can help me by doing that. And it's enhancing the care that I'm giving my patient and it's keeping me in line.
With ADHD. One of the things with the time blindness is that we just don't know that we have to give ourselves some buffer time. Like most of us just wanna tell you how long it's gonna take, tell us to do up certain things, but we don't give ourselves the buffer time. Like we don't on purpose count in that, you know, there might be a flat tire somewhere on your drive or that, you know, you might be, you're almost outta gas and you have to stop.
If we don't give ourselves some buffer time, then we might not be aware, right? And, I think the other thing with timeblindness is that sometimes we're not intentional with the things that we're doing. Like sometimes we don't say, okay, I just need to do this one thing. And then off I go, we try to put in another and another and another.
So. That's why we always seem to be chronically late to places. So even the things that are important to you, like sometimes we might show up late and it's not like we're doing it on purpose, but you can see how, if we're not creating a safety net for ourselves, either a reminder, like the day before to give you a heads up that you need to show up at a certain place an hour before or 40 minutes before it could get us into trouble.
So you seen timers. And alarms and, maybe creating your journal can be ways for you to add some buffer time into whatever task that you're trying to complete. And so, you know, this is an important topic. I would just wanted to bring up this time blindness so that you could know that it's one of many things that we talk about in my course.
If you're interested in learning tools, please, please. Definitely. Look into, getting an ADHD coach, if not with me, with anybody else or even just bringing the topics like attitude.Mag is an amazing website where you can learn a lot of tools because you know, if you have ADHD or you have a kid that has ADHD, You can have now some insight about this time blindness, and then you can create a better system to help them instead of just labeling them that they're having a character issue.
And so this way you can support yourself or support your loved one. Anyways. I wanted to just talk about time blindness. So the actionable steps is get yourself a timer. If you don't have one, use it to decrease the initiation task, that it is the initiation force to jump onto a project and then use it to stop, you know, use it to stop so that you can move on.
And you know, most of us when we have so many choices, We spend way too much time looking at stuff, right? Like I love planning vacations, but before you know it, if I'm not careful, like I can literally spend two hours just looking at all these hotels. And then I had so many choices that I didn't even make a decision.
So now I've learned to use the timer to help me to just give myself 20, 30 minutes to search the area and to make a decision. Anyways, I hope this tips continue to save your time so that you can invest the time in the things that you love. Have a blessed one, take care.
As someone who understands that time is our most valuable asset. I am so honored that you have shared your time with me. Please click the subscribe button and join my Facebook group: Beyond ADHD, A Physician's Perspective so that you never missed an opportunity to create time at will. Do share this podcast with your friends they too can can learn to live life and stay in their own lane.
Link to my website to register for October 2022 Cohort (waitlist):
Transformation Physician Group Coaching
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/beyondadhdlifecoach/
Tiktok: beyondadhdlifecoach
 

Beyond ADHD A Physicians Perspective: Radical Acceptance Towards Holistic Approach in Life with Dr. Katrice Brooks (Family & Lifestyle Medicine Doc)

Dr. Katrice Brooks: Give yourself, grace, this is a journey and we're on the journey. We're all trying to be better and you're even wanting to be better. You're on that journey. So give yourself grace and radically accept yourself, build community and other people. That's, you know, mirroring body, doubling, delegating, optimize your habits.
Dr. Diana Mercado-Marmarosh: Hi, welcome to Beyond ADHD, A Physician's Perspective podcast. I am your host, Dr. Diana Mercado-Marmarosh. I'm a Family Medicine doc, with ADHD, practicing in a rural setting in Texas. I am a mother to two very energetic toddlers who are three and four years of age.
And in the past year, I have undergone radical transformation after discovering ADHD coaching, and life-coaching. For the past decade, my typical day consisted of having 300 charts backlog, a graveyard of unfinished projects, and a lack of time awareness. I didn't realize that I was not filling my own cup. I was running on fumes. The last year I figured out the secret; learn to stay in your lane. So now my mission is to help others develop systems that tap into their zone of genius. So they too can reclaim their personal lives back like I have.
Dr. Diana Mercado-Marmarosh: Well, hello? Hello. I am so excited today to have one of my friends Dr. Katrice Brooks. She is a double board certified Family and Lifestyle Medicine Physician, and she has more than 10 years of experience. So you need to talk to her because she does the whole holistic approach. Okay. She makes sure that she helps her patients get the care that they need.
She's the one who stays there and listens what she listens. She spends times with them, she answers all the questions. She's so passionate about health equity, improving their quality of life by reducing medicines and of course helping the patient make decisions. And so it's so important that you listen to today's topic, because she's gonna talk about how ADHD has been one of her superpowers to help transform her patients' lives.
One of her newest adventures has been having her own clinic. And so we're here to talk about how an ADHD entrepreneur can have all the things and how that can create a big impact in not only her personal life, but in the lives of her community. And everybody who works with her has this amazing transformation as well.
So Dr. Brooks, please let us know where you are and tell us a little bit about your clinic or what it's like to have ADHD and, start this amazing using adventure.
Dr. Katrice Brooks: All right. Hi, Dr. Mercado. I'm so excited to be on here. Just talking with your audience, super, super excited. You are amazing, and you're doing amazing things.
So I'm really so honored as well. My life basically changed when I began to accept my brain and to start working with it rather than working against it. When I stopped trying to, be like everybody else. And I started trying to help and support myself and that journey of supporting myself and radical acceptance, has helped me to radically accept my patients and to help them rather than to try to put everybody a square peg into a round hole, trying to fit everybody into these boxes. It helped me to see kind of the individualistic needs of people and meet them where they are and help them get where they're going. So I really kind of transform my approach to my patients. So I really do think of it as a superpower. And I have lived with this my entire life and not. Realizing kind of what it is. And I do wanna say that I'm self-diagnosed ADHD or self-diagnosed neuro divergent, and I might be, you know, just on the spectrum or a product of complex trauma, but my brain, you know, just doesn't work like, most other people, or my brain works like my brain.
I can't even say like other people, but my brain works like my brain. And I found that what everyone else did and the rewards that they were getting in their brain, I didn't get the same thing. So I had to create paths for myself. And it's been a journey because as you know, I'm sure as your patients know is taken me. I've taken lots of hits because of it too.
Like it is now my superpower, but this journey to entrepreneurship was because it was almost my Achilles heel, you know, I know you, you actually have a course where you've given talks on recognizing ADHD in your coworkers. And I wish some, one of my coworkers would've recognized it in me. You know, I like most other physicians who struggle with ADHD my entire career with those 10 years of experience working for big medicine.
Almost the whole time since hitting the ground, I struggled to close my charts. I would have periods where I did it. Great. And then I would, it would fall apart and I would do it great. And I would fall apart. And you know, the, the talk in the office would be like, Dr. Brooks is such a great doctor because, you know, ADHD does allow me, that's my superpower.
I'm able to talk to people and really hone in and listen and be present and they love it. But you know, when it comes to finishing tasks that I don't wanna do at the end of the day, I struggle. You know, But I've, I've learned to harness that. I'll talk about some of the points that have kind of got me there, but you know, it has been a journey and a journey of self discovery.
Dr. Diana Mercado-Marmarosh: Yeah. It's so important to highlight what you just said, radical acceptance. And I think everybody who has ADHD or who, like you said, maybe trauma induced ADHD, will know that we tend to be our inner critics. When we learned to be like, okay, nothing's wrong. I'm not broken. I just think differently. And therefore, I must do things differently.
The moment that you started, like accepting you, then all of a sudden, like you just said it was radical because you started accepting your patient. I mean, they teach us not to be judgemental, but we're human. Like humans have judgemental minds. Yeah. Even if you want or not, we do right. Practicing on purpose. Radical self acceptance is like so rewarding for you and for your patients. Right? If you don't practice self acceptance, if you don't say, okay, this is what's going on, how can I help myself then? Like you said, it's almost like Achilles because you don't know what you don't know. So how can you do things differently if you weren't aware that you were quote unquote not doing it your way
Dr. Katrice Brooks: And so I found that was step one is to give yourself grace, cuz then otherwise with ADHD, I would be mad at myself constantly. I forgot my keys. I can't get out the house. Like all of the things I'll be like, Ugh, what's wrong with you? And it's like, that's okay. It's just, it's my brain. And I just to accept it doesn't mean that I don't want to change it.
To deal with it. It just means that here we are, this is, this is what I have. Right. I struggle to leave the house in the morning. I know that. Right. So now I can change things about it rather than just beating myself up about why can't you do this? What's wrong with you? Which is, that was the approach that I took for most of my life.
I would bear white knuckle. Until the time where I couldn't and it would, it would fall apart. You know, we only have so much willpower, the built systems and other things so that I don't have to white knuckle it. That is just, that helps me. Yeah.
Dr. Diana Mercado-Marmarosh: Good. Now tell me about this adventure of your practice, like, tell me what that's about. Because again, we, even though we have ADHD, like we all benefit from structures and systems, like you said. And then when you go from, okay, corporate is down my neck telling me I have to do X, Y, and Z to now you're like your own boss. And like you said, you now have to set up the systems for you to tell yourself I gotta close this otherwise I'm not gonna get paid. And people working for me are not gonna get paid. So tell me, what have you noticed or what have you done now in your
entrepreneurship?
Dr. Katrice Brooks: Great question. And so part of me leaving corporate medicine was that I felt like a cognitive machine. I did not like to kind of the stick and carrot kind of do this. Okay, I'll do this. And so when I left to create my practice, I was very aware of my shortcomings and corporate medicine and how I was struggling. And I really wanted to design something different for myself because I was designing it. So I also wanna be transparent. I actually also do locum still as you know, part of making money.
And I'm, I'm actually thriving in locums. That's a whole nother story. But when setting up my own practice, my own entrepreneurship, my own, clinic one, I set up a direct primary care clinic so that I do not make money based on me submitting the bills, but it's a membership model. So I make money. You know, constantly, and that's not something that I, I won't say, have to worry about, cuz that comes with a whole new set of billing issues. You have to make sure the credit card is on file and that it hasn't expired, but I made it so that it's not, I submit this chart. I can get my money because I won't say that model didn't work because now I am thriving and locums, I figured it out.
But I thought that that was the problem. So when I set up my clinic, I was looking for a model that wasn't so dependent on that. So when I did that, also, I gotta strive. That has absolutely changed my life. I really, really struggled to close my charts. But again, now in locums, I close my own charts, you know, 25 30 charts a day, because talking to you, you've taught me a lot of techniques and I've, I've figured out that, but on my own. I really hated the in depth work that I like to do in primary care spending all this time with patients and talking to them for an hour. I really hated also charting while I was doing that. I really felt that it interrupted the patient relationship. And so I got inspired from hello and it's been wonderful.
I wish that I had gotten this before. When I was employed. I might have been able to stay employed. Although I did ask. This journey to entrepreneurship. I realized that I was struggling and drowning and I felt that I had to, my company couldn't save me cuz I, they, they would ask, what do you need? And I'm like, I don't know.
So they said, oh, we'll close your, your we'll close your schedule. Closing my schedule didn't work for me. That means that I don't get paid. That means I'm not seeing patients and making RVs, which is how I would get paid. And yeah, I get to sit here and close the chart. I can make the money you already made, but it doesn't help me in the future.
And it doesn't set up systems, so they didn't know how to help me. They didn't have anything scheduled. So I realized I was drowning and I realized that I just needed something different like that, that scenario wasn't working. So the scribe certainly helped me. And. it allowed me to spend time with my patients that I really needed also something else that, not struggle, but these systems.
So now that I work for myself, I, control everything, right. Nobody's saying you gotta do this. You gotta see these patients and you gotta make sure that you make this money and you have to be here from this time to this time. But I had to say that. Right. And for me, it's easier for me to follow my own rules and to follow someone else's rules.
I don't know why, you know, so I set up rules for myself. I have these rules that when I have patients on the schedule, I have to come in 30 minutes early. Otherwise I'm barely making it in on time. Right. We're we're arriving together and it's like, oh, I'm sorry. You know me? So I had. Create these rules, but the rules are just suggestions for my life, because I know when I follow my little rules, it runs right.
These things that the..
Dr. Diana Mercado-Marmarosh: They're your systems, right? Yes. You created your systems. So, I mean, we call them rules or whatever, but the really your systems you're creating. A wiggle room or like a safety net, right? That's exactly it like, you know, yes, I'm gonna arrive at the same time with my patient, but what if. I arrived, 30 minutes earlier. I can set myself up. I can breathe and I can show up how I want to show up because I decided I want to show up this way. Not because X, Y, and Z person is telling me. Right. But you've noticed to throw an error. What. Makes you feel like you're showing up your best version and then not only that, but you are empowering your patients to be listened to and you're creating it so that, okay.
I'm doing the wonderful things that I love, which is that interaction with my patient, not having to write this damn chart, like my scribe is gonna help me. But at the, the same time, like you said, I get to go and practice in locum. Because now it feels fun. Not because you have to. And so. It's so different because now you're practicing medicine in your way.
And like you said, even though your provider where you were at before wanted to help you, they couldn't help you because you were not even aware of what you needed. And this is something that I always try to tell to my clients, because when I'm talking to you guys, you guys have to understand that you're talking to Diana, like three or four years ahead of you.
I was there and I was there for like 10 years. And you're talking to Katrice right here, like you, because maybe you've been considering doing DPC or you've been considering doing locums because locums is cool because. It's like Playland, you go, you do what you need to and you piece out. Right.
Dr. Katrice Brooks: Love it. Love it. It's great. Really?
Dr. Diana Mercado-Marmarosh: And who knows, like if they're close enough, there can be like, oh, I love you. Let me follow you. Right. Like, which I'm sure you've had.
Dr. Katrice Brooks: I do. Absolutely. I do it, in Wisconsin. And so I kind of bring my cards with me sometimes because I do all this stuff and I'm like, oh, check me out on social media.
And they can see the passion. They see that I'm a doctor who's so invigorated and happy to do the work now rather than being run down, like. Life is a joy for me now, I, I enjoy my locums and working that and doing urgent care. I love my clinic, but I'm, I'm happy with medicine again. This is really figuring this out has really just helped me to love medicine again, entrepreneurship.
But again, my ADHD for me makes that a superpower. So I'm really thrilled.
Dr. Diana Mercado-Marmarosh: Yeah. So this is so important for our listeners to listen that, you know, we don't have to stay in the damn hamster wheel. if there's something that is not working, just ask yourself, what could I do different? Could it be different? How can I create it different?
Don't just learn the hopelessness. We can unlearn that stuff. And unfortunately, sometimes it's trial and error, but when you do create your systems, Yeah. Oh my God. Do they work right?
Dr. Katrice Brooks: oh my God. And it's trial and error, but it, it kind of has to be like, your system may not work for me. You know, some of it will because there are like some principles that, you know, we, we all share, but, I literally have.
All my habits, right? So my morning task and my afternoon and stuff, and I tweak it like I look and say, oh, that didn't work for me. Or when I do that, I really slip into that. Or, you know, I spend too much time doing that. Or if I scroll my phone in the morning, then it's hard for me to get outta bed and do the rest of the stuff I need to do.
So my systems have been years creating it, but they absolutely do work for me. They allow me to thrive and to soar and to not worry about the little things. Cause I've my previous self has already thought about that and figured out the best route. And so I can rely on the work that I did and build from there.
And that it's been amazing. And every day, little tweaks, like, Ooh, I need to include that. And I need to put this on my checklist of, you know, when I travel. Cause I have to have these checklists because otherwise I'll forget things. And I have, you know, I call it my autism bag. I really don't mean to offend anyone, but I have my book bag.
You saw it when you saw me that I carry everything in and when I don't have that bags, I don't have a meltdown, but it's like, oh, I forgot this. And I'm, it's in my bag. Like just those things I know that I need. And so if I bring them with me, I have them. And those that is my system. My book bag is a system for me.
It has my mask and it has, you know, wallets and just all sorts of things that I may need a bag of pens, just all this stuff.
Dr. Diana Mercado-Marmarosh: Yeah. So you, you have figured out that if you have your backpack with you, you have the essentials that you need. And you don't have to think twice they're there, your future self already knew what you needed. And so it prepped you. And then you don't have to worry, like you don't have to go hunt for the prunes, like all over the hotel, looking for things , or whatever. Right? Or you don't have to be like, oh man, I can't walk into this store because I don't have X, Y, Z, or you have your charger in there, which, you know, we all gonna lose 10,000 chargers.
Right? So like I saw a post the other day, somebody said, oh my God, my husband like will not share his charger. Cause I've lost three already. And so sometimes it's just, like you said, having little checklists and because the more that we do things. That's how they become habits, right? Because it's so easy to build a bad habit or to build a good habit.
And, and the people that work with me know that I don't like using the word good and bad because I like effective and inefficient. Even the bad ones or the inefficient ones. They still give us a result because we're doing them. What if on purpose, we decided we wanted to have fun time and like block fun, time off. Right? And then the systems we use were efficient to actually protect that time off instead of seeking into it. Right?
[00:17:47] Dr. Katrice Brooks: Absolutely. I am obsessed with habits. So that was kind of my. Before I realized that I had neuro a neuro divergent brain. It was like, you know what, if I do things in a certain way, I get better outcomes. So like, I read all the habit books. I'm working on a habit app. I am obsessed with habits because our habits, you know, over the long term, that is the result of our life. And so that is also optimize my habits. I'm constantly tweaking them. I'm constantly is this efficient and effective. I also use that as well.
When I was younger when I was in first grade, my, my teacher told me I was lazy. And that, you know, this is like just inner. I got like a D in handwriting, probably this ADHD. Right. But the thing is, I was just efficient. I preferred efficiency. Right. So I like things that are efficient and I'm always seeking efficiency in my life.
And I'm always re reevaluating those habits, all of them, because I want to maximize efficiency. And, you know, there are days where I don't, you know, days where I'm off and it's like, okay, You know, I've protected this time. I've blocked off this time to be off, to not do things, but in order for me to run and optimize and have the life that I like living, that brings me joy habit, it served me.
Dr. Diana Mercado-Marmarosh: Yeah, that's so good. So tell me, how do you engage in your selfcare? That's probably been one of the most to me self-care has been what has been so radical and life changing for me. Is there certain things that you do that you feel like empower you or help you or recharge you?
Dr. Katrice Brooks: Yeah, I actually feel that self care saved me and this really roundabout way. And cuz I got ADHD. I like to talk, but at the beginning of the pandemic in 2020. Was it yeah, 2020. I actually got like, almost obsessed with taking care of my hair. The salons were closed and I'm just like, oh, I have to do this. So I joined this like group and the group actually fell apart and that gave me more time.
And then I'm like, well, what do I wanna do with my life? But self-care is paramount for me. So literally every day I take the bath, I call it my water therapy. I get home from work. I run my bath every single day. Like when I, when I do locums, if my hotel does not have a tub, I need a different room because this is a part of my self care.
And sometimes I can't do it. Right. So we do have to be flexible if I'm traveling too much or there is none, then I won't. But as soon as I get home every day, you know, my bath. Part of my bath is my whole routine. Like I have a skin routine that I do in the morning and in the evening and my hair routine, and this really helps to, center me and sustain me.
And I found actually the same with patients. I found patients that had, I have patients that are literally on F M L A, that could not leave the house. They were just having a really hard time because of anxiety, but we could talk about their skincare and how to get their skin together. And they really put in the work for their skin, but they had a hard time literally leaving the house and exercising, but I again met them where they were. So it's like, okay, well this maybe gives you dopamine doing the skincare. You feel good about this? Let's keep filling you up with this and using that to maybe do the other things that we wanna do.
So self care for me is absolutely paramount. Sleep is paramount. I do not like if I don't get enough sleep, I am grouchy. And so I make sure that I protect my sleep. I, in terms of my systems, I absolutely have to be in bed by 11. I've known that since I was probably 18, that like I always known that I have to get sleep.
And if I don't, I do not work. So sleep is super important. Literally the self care of, you know, finding time to relax, finding time to even connect with other people. You know, sometimes I find that I like to be a hermit. Part of selfcare is, you know, making sure that I talk to my sister and my family and, you know, connecting and recharging because that helps fill up my cup as well.
So those things are just as important as my work.
 Dr. Diana Mercado-Marmarosh: Yes. That's so good again, if you know how you're taking care of you, then it's so much easier to be empower others to do the same, right? Yeah, because we, you probably see this in your patients. Like they come in and they have a no awareness. And it's okay.
It's not their job to figure out that's why they're coming to us. But thing is sometimes we don't even have awareness that we're burned out or we're tired. Right. Because we've been told all along, like, keep going, keep going, keep going. And we don't realize that taking that pause, like you just said to go and to take your bath on purpose, to feel your skin on purpose, to breathe and know.
These few minutes are mine. Yeah. Like I don't have to do anything, be anything to anybody, whatever these are mine. Right. Helping them to do the same. Oh my God. It's like, when I tell patients like, okay, today's meeting, we're gonna see quick meds. We're taking off. And they look at me like what usually you're putting on and I'm.
Well, anytime we have more than five, they play around. So then I'm getting meds to cover to cover the side effects of the meds, right? So like what can we take off? Or what can we go down on? Or what can we do? Right? And so incorporating exercise and like you see routines tapping different things that can increase the dopamine level goes such a long way.
 Dr. Katrice Brooks: Absolutely. I also wanna mention the exercise and eating. I'm a lifestyle medicine doctor, so I, have to, and I didn't, but you know, exercise is fundamental as well. I found that, I do daily in the morning, Ash chaga. And if I don't, then my life can still run. Right. Like I can push through, but it doesn't cause me to thrive as when I'm doing, you know, yoga every morning, which has, you know, meditation and movement. And, you know, when I'm eating my fruits and vegetables and trying to get my daily five, you know, I have more vitality and more energy, right. By really feeding my body good fuel. I'm able to work better, you know, work better, sleep better, be a better person.
And so, you know, it's, sometimes those things fall apart and self-care is probably one of the first things that fall apart. That's how I kind of know when something is going on. It's like, Ooh, I haven't washed my. You know, I haven't done my full routine in a few days. It's like, something's going on with me? Let me do some introspection to see what's up. Right? Like it's these habits that I normally have that are doing so well are slipping up. Let me dig deeper.
 Dr. Diana Mercado-Marmarosh: That's so important that you have that insight to not be judgemental, but to be curious, because you'd be surpised. My clients are like, but I was doing so well. And then I just stopped and that's it. I'm broken. I'm like, no, you're human. something else took priority. Absolutely. Let's look back. What was working, what was not working? Why did this fall by the website? And don't make, can be mean a thing. It it's normal like, like routines, like, you know, we all been taught.
21 days or whatever, but we looked it up the other day when we were in a group coaching session. And I remember I heard it from the one thing podcast, 66 days or something and we Googled it while, you know, we were in the thing and it said anywhere. From 21 days to 221 days. Every person's different. And so then that's why they average it and they say 66 days, but give yourself grace, you've been doing certain things for how long, and now all of a sudden you, it came into this awareness and then now we're trying to change everything. Right? So it's so, so nice. So tell me, how do people work with you if they want to be part of your holistic approach, practice that you have?
 Dr. Katrice Brooks: Awesome. So pick people can work with me in a variety of ways you can join my clinic. the website is quench.clinic. So that is literally my clinic's website. If you want to become a member, you can join. I am available in Wisconsin, Illinois, and North Carolina. That's where I'm licensed. But if you are unable to work with me clinically in my clinic, I do have a Facebook live show that I have, weekly and I'm on Facebook.
Take all the socials I'm on them. Um, I'm on them literally as Katrice Brooks, MD, or Dr. Katrice Brooks. Very, very easy to find. If you Google me, you will find me I'm out there. Happy to help. If you wanna ask me any direct questions they can email me at hello@KatriceBrooksmd.com. But not medical questions, but you know, happy to help. So yeah, I'm out and living in the world.
 Dr. Diana Mercado-Marmarosh: Awesome. So where do you see yourself in three years? For fun? What are you gonna be doing?
 Dr. Katrice Brooks: That's a good question. I think I'm working towards a more nomadic life. So hopefully in three years, say three years on this day, I will be say maybe two months in another country enjoying it, but also doing some telemedicine and just living my dreams.
That I'm doing that now. So life is a joy and more of it. I also hope that you didn't mention, but I hope that quench is, possibly multiple locations. So I'm serving even more people on a bigger scale.
 Dr. Diana Mercado-Marmarosh: That's amazing. So good. So what do you think is your one super powerful ADHD?
Dr. Katrice Brooks: Oh, good question. It is hyperfocus. My ability to hyperfocus. I think that has helped me become a physician. It's helped me to anything that I wanna learn. I can just make myself like, oh, I'm interested in that. And then my brain's like, know all about it, right? Like it's then will give me not unlimited dopamine, but it will, you know, an abundance of dopamine.
So my hyper focus. I love it's something that I I'm happy to have. Dr. D mentioned another colleague of ours, like follow the dopamine. Sometimes you can, sometimes you can't, right? Sometimes a dopamine will have you, plan, you know, money, money, or not money crush, candy crush all the time. But sometimes, you know, it helps you get through med school.
So I try to, to supplement my dopamine quest for things that are good and along the path of what I've picked, but I, I love that I can hyperfocus.
 Dr. Diana Mercado-Marmarosh: Awesome. Okay. So this is the last question. And people usually laugh when I say this, I say, because people with ADHD have wondering attention and you know, we all zoom out and then we're like, wait, what, what was, let's say they just started listening like right now, right this second, what would be the takeaway point you would want them to have?
 Dr. Katrice Brooks: So I have the three things actually that we talked about. I, I list them out and I'll just sum summarize them, right? So one is give yourself grace, this is a journey and we're on the journey. We're all trying to be better. And you're even wanting to be better. You're on that journey.
So give yourself grace and radically accept yourself. Two build community and other people that's, you know, mirroring body, body, doubling, delegating, you know, getting scribe and three is to optimize your habits. So give yourself. Use people and optimize your habits. That's it. You know, just rinse to repeat.
Dr. Diana Mercado-Marmarosh: Awesome. Thank you so much for your time. This has been such an incredible opportunity to chat with you and you gave us so much value, so much content. You're real, you're honest, and this is why I love you. That's my friend. Thank you, all your patience. Love you too. So thank you, you so much again.
 Dr. Katrice Brooks: Thank you, Dr. Mercado. This is amazing. You're amazing. Am so honored. Thank you. Thank you.
Dr. Diana Mercado-Marmarosh: As someone who understands that time is our most valuable asset. I am so honored that you have shared your time with me. Please click the subscribe button and join my Facebook group: Beyond ADHD, A Physician's Perspective so that you never missed an opportunity to create time at will. Do share this podcast with your friends they too can can learn to live life and stay in their own lane.

Beyond ADHD A Physicians Perspective: Self-compassion with Dr. Vanessa Calderon (ER Doc certified Professional Coach and Resiliency Expert)

Dr. Vanessa Calderon: Once you realize that there are two things happening every day of your life. There's the truth. What's the actual truth. And then there's everything else and everything else are your thoughts. And when you don't have awareness into everything else, the thoughts it's like the matrix. When you have the blue pill or the red pill, the point of it is that you're either living a life in your head.
Where like you're just living in your thoughts or you're living in reality. Self-compassion is not a soft skill. Self-compassion is one of the hardest, most impactful skills to cultivate. It's the one skill that's gonna open you up to allow love to come in, but also for you to love others more. If you want to do something that's hard, I challenge you to start practicing self-compassion.
Dr. Diana Mercado-Marmarosh: Hi, welcome to Beyond ADHD, A Physician's Perspective podcast. I am your host, Dr. Diana Mercado-Marmarosh. I'm a Family Medicine doc, with ADHD, practicing in a rural setting in Texas. I am a mother to two very energetic toddlers who are three and four years of age.
And in the past year, I have undergone radical transformation after discovering ADHD coaching, and life-coaching. For the past decade, my typical day consisted of having 300 charts backlog, a graveyard of unfinished projects, and a lack of time awareness. I didn't realize that I was not filling my own cup. I was running on fumes. The last year I figured out the secret; learn to stay in your lane. So now my mission is to help others develop systems that tap into their zone of genius. So they too can reclaim their personal lives back like I have.
I am so excited today to have a very special friend, Dr. Vanessa Calderon, she's a board certified ER doctor with over 20 years of experience in leadership and of course serving her community.
And she is a life and executive coach for many, many leaders. And she's gonna tell us about this today. So I'm so excited. Would you tell us a little bit about yourself, Dr. Calderon.
Dr. Vanessa Calderon: Of course. Thank you for having me, Diana. Hi everyone. It's so nice to be here with all of you in this community. So yeah, as Diana mentioned, I'm an ER doc by training, prior to my life.
As a physician, I was a healthcare activist and social justice activist. So I did a lot of organizing work, grassroots organizing work, which led me into leadership because once I started my career as a physician, I realized I wanted to affect change on a systems level, not just. On the one-on-one patient level.
However, patient care is still a passion of mine. I love the one-on-one patients that I get to take care of in the hospital, but I started doing leadership work very early on in my career, and it became, you know, chief resident in residency ever since residency, I was doing leadership work. And immediately after that, when I started as my first year attending, I was doing an admin fellowship in leadership. And it became a department chair about a year after residency and had been doing department chair, medical director work. And in fact, about a few years ago, I turned down a chief medical officer role because I decided that my passion really was in teaching and inspiring and empowering other leaders to stand up and lead, which is why I transitioned into executive coaching.
Dr. Diana Mercado-Marmarosh: Awesome. And so throughout your life, and as you've been doing with all this. What have you noticed has been like one of the key things to get you to this like leadership roles? Is it confidence? Is it like being fearless? Like what have you noticed and what can support that confidence?
Dr. Vanessa Calderon: Yeah. You know, it's really interesting. I think there's two things. Yes, absolutely confidence, but there's another big one, which is having a sense of belonging. I think, Early on. I was the type of person that I never needed permission to be in a room. I never needed permission to raise my hand. I would show up to the meetings and I would sit at the board table.
I wouldn't sit in the chairs in the back and I don't know what it was inside of me that I never felt like I didn't belong, but I realized that it's not. A super common feeling. And when I started coaching other women, I realized something that a lot of women needed was that confidence that they actually belonged.
And, you know, as you, and I know because we're both coaches, that sense of belonging is a mindset. You need to build that before you step into the room and once you have it and you're in that room. It allows you to show up with that executive presence. You can sit at the room, you can sit tall with your back straight up.
You can speak confidently when you do raise your hand to speak. And it's not like you're not gonna feel insecure. You definitely will, but you always show up like you belong in the space. And that I think led me to continue to raise my hand to. Speak up for myself to highlight the work that I had been doing when I had created a project or a program.
So that was really beneficial. And I will say that as I've been doing this work and have sort of matured in my experience, what I've learned is that. That got me really, really far, but what continues to take me further, but now from a space of, cuz one thing didn't mention is, you know, I'm an Enneagram three.
So if you know your Enneagrams three is the high achiever, it's the person that never feels satisfied with what, where they are. And their biggest downfall is that they achieve from a place from like a wounded place like that. It's never enough. Like I'm never enough. I have to keep achieving. And for me it's a common story.
I grew up, you know, as a brown Latina, I grew up with so many inferiority insecurities. Like I wasn't smart enough. I wasn't good enough. I'm, you know, a daughter of immigrants. And we had a lot of scarcity stories around money in my house. And so I had a lot of these scarcity stories. And so achieving for me, I think was easy because I love to achieve I'm disciplined.
I'm committed. But also I was coming from a wounded place earlier in my career where I needed to keep doing it and faster and faster, which is no, you know, no surprise that I became a department chair so quickly, but I also burned out in my career really early on, which happens to a lot of Enneagram threes or hyper achievers.
And so when I came back from that. I realized I wanna continue to contribute to the world and I'm still really ambitious, but I wanna take care of myself and I don't wanna put myself in spaces where I'm gonna burn out or makes it easier for me to burn out. And I realized that the link between continuing to achieve from a place of sufficiency, as opposed to a place of scarcity, which is where I was coming before is really self-compassion.
And being able to love myself along the way and know that it doesn't matter if I don't achieve that next goal, I'm gonna be okay. Whereas before I was so afraid to feel disappointed.
Dr. Diana Mercado-Marmarosh: Everything you just said, like a hundred percent resonates with me. And I think that self compassion that you just described has been the hardest and most rewarding thing that has happened for me.
Like I, everything you just said, like I, a hundred percent resonate with the fact that, you know, being a minority and coming from like immigrant parents, like that's totally me. The only thing you didn't say is that you have ADHD, which you don't, but I think. The fact that I had that on top of it always made me feel like we had the opposite experience.
You felt like you belonged regardless. I felt the opposite. I felt like I didn't belong, but once I was in there, like, I couldn't be quiet. Like I had to say what was wrong. And so I made myself belong. even though in my mind, I had this internal drama that, who am I to speak up? Because of my ADHD, I spoke up and I just couldn't help myself.
And like I had to call bullshit everywhere. I saw that there was something wrong, either for my colleagues or for myself or whatever. And so I was very compassionate for everybody else, but I didn't have self-compassion. And that was the hardest thing, because that was my inner critic wanting to be good enough to be in the room.
In masking that they didn't know how much or how hard I was working to try to be there. And every time I go through the exercise of self-compassion with like my clients, or even with myself, none of us, none of us. And I don't know if it's like a physician thing, because I even done it with male clients and they still don't understand what I'm talking about.
It's like something foreign. Like you said, when you step into self-compasion and you actually start to embody it, we're so good at giving advice. Like, we can give you advice for everybody else, but we can't apply it for ourselves. And when you ask them, well, what if I just told you all that, that you just said, what would you tell me?
And like, their face just like sinks because they're like, oh my God, why can't I do that? Like, it makes so much sense. Right? And when you tap into self compassion, like you just said, your confidence sky rockets, because all of a sudden you accept yourself as you are. And like you said, you're not proving anything to anybody else.
Like you're just measuring yourself against yourself instead of yourself against whatever society has told you, you have to keep up with. Right. And like you said, sometimes we don't realize that because we just wanna keep improving. And it's not from a place that I wanna improve because I just wanna improve.
But it's because from it's it was from a place before, because if I get there, then I'm worthy enough or I belong in this room or blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. But now that you have this, self-compassion, you know, you always belong in the room and it's such a different feeling when it's from a place of acceptance because, you can't help, but to be confident because you're at peace with where you're at that day. Right?
Dr. Vanessa Calderon: Wow. Yes. That last thing that you just said, which is you are at peace with where you are, but also you are at peace with who you are a hundred percent. Yes. And let me tell you, you know, in the beginning of my journey, even though I felt like I belonged, I still was super insecure and I still have a ton of insecurities, but the big difference, now from before, because you know, I've been on this journey towards loving myself, rediscovering myself and creating that self-compassion for myself for, I don't know, at least, Seven years or so, but I've been in leadership and out there doing the work for, two decades. And so I just have to say that even though I'm on this journey, it didn't even become real or feel real to me probably until like, The last year or so.
And it was about the same time that I went hardcore and launched my business because when you become an entrepreneur and you're out there putting yourself out there all of the time, every deep insecurity, you have shows up to the very surface and it's out there for the whole world to see. and you have two choices.
You can hide behind overworking and continue to do that and continue to hustle and, you know, try to make everything perfect. So nobody judges you and work harder, harder, harder, or you can just let, go and love yourself and say, Hey, this might not be perfect, but it isn't for me, it's for the people that I'm serving, you know?
So it doesn't matter. And. I think once I decided that I was gonna be all in on the journey of being an entrepreneur and it's not like I was leaving a hard life, I had an incredible life as a physician leader and I loved my job and I still love being a clinician. I love being an ER doc. Before, when I was a department chair, I was sitting on med exec.
I had a fantastic job, a great lifestyle, a ton of time for my family and my kids. So it's not like I was running away from anything. I was fully choosing to do something else because I was ready to be in service in a different way. And when I decided to do that in it, and. It's not like it was easy, you know, it's not like you go into this and like flowers and rainbows and unicorns.
You're a success every night, it takes work. It's like a whole new skill set that I'm building we're building. Cause I know you're on the journey too. And a lot of my old insecurities were coming up. A lot of my old stories were coming up and that's when I learned, wow, I really need to love myself. Like I need to double down and I.
And I actually have a little quote right here in front of me on my computer that says I'm all in on you. Hey Vanessa, I'm all in on you. Like, I love you so much. I'm all in on you. And on the right of me, I have a little baby picture of me that is adorable. You guys can't see it, but Diana can see it. If I show her a little picture there and I have this little picture of me framed because.
You know, my inner critic is just as loud as everybody else's. And I think that the more you do the work of self-awareness and the more you do the work to grow, you start picking up on your inner critic so much louder. Well, you didn't even realize that was your inner critic, cuz you didn't have the awareness to separate those two things.
And now that I'm at a space where I can separate those two things, I realize, wow, my inner critic was really loud. And so now when it shows up. I just don't make space for it. You know, it still shows up. It's not like it doesn't, it still shows up, but I just catch myself and I say, Hey, I'm not gonna say that to myself today.
I'm all in on me. You know, I love myself. And so I, I just highlight that because it's a total journey, you know, and for me, it's gonna be a journey for the rest of my life. And one of the things that I think is so amazing about the journey of self-compassion is that the more you learn to accept yourself and love yourself, ultimately, what he does is it opens yourself up to receive the love of everybody around you, people around you that wanna be supportive, that wanna be helpful, that wanna lift you up.
You're able to be open to that, whereas before you were just so closed, And the other thing that's really beautiful is you are able to love at such a deeper level. And for me, what that means is I'm able to be in service at a deeper level. And my whole mission in life is to be in service to others. My mission in life is to empower others, to be their best selves.
You know, I've always lived a mission driven life, and even now my mission is to be in service. And the more that I love myself, the easier it is for me to be in service to others.
Dr. Diana Mercado-Marmarosh: Yes, everything you just said resonates again so much when we decide to step out of our comfort zone, like you said, not because you didn't enjoy what you were doing, but just because your soul is calling you to serve in a different way and how else it is to empower those professional people around you, who might be hurting because again, they haven't discovered what self-compassion means because nobody's told them. And because we all walk around thinking that we are a hundred percent our thoughts and some of our thoughts, we have never, ever questioned because they're facts in our brain. Like I'm too slow or I'm too disorganized or I'm not good with money, whatever thoughts come in your, into your brain, in your brain.
They're always like a fact. And you can sit there and tell me like three examples, how to support those thoughts, because they're a fact, right. But. The funny thing is that whatever we focus our brain onto, you're gonna discover evidence for it. And sometimes, you know, those thoughts. Could just be miscued right.
Like they're not really a fact, but your brain has a allowed your told you that they are. And sometimes we somehow think that to be strong means to do everything yourself and not to ask for help. Right. And so we don't realize that self-compasion just, like you said, You wanna be of service, but just like you're giving you wanna be receiving because if you don't, then the universe is not gonna help you because you think you got it all together.
Right. And what if you got even more help when you were in the right energy and you were taking care of yourself and you rested and I keep saying it, and I sound like a broken record. We are in self neglect if we're not really taking care of ourselves. I mean, it's not just self care. Like it's self neglect.
If you're not sleeping, if you're not eating, if you're not asking for help, like all those, tie back to self compassion, because you don't realize how much it is to take care of yourself and the thoughts that you're having could change. And, and that your circumstance, sometimes the circumstance, you know, is something that would just happens.
And, and it's how you interpret it. Like some people see it as good or bad. But it's always your thought about the good or bad and the beautiful thing about coaching and the beautiful thing about having these discussions with people who want to work smarter instead of harder, is that once you tell them that yes, your past happened.
But how do you wanna remember your past? You get to reinterpret it, however, it makes sense to you and they look at you, like you're weird. And you're like, okay, well then go walk around and carry that monkey for as long as you want or leave it there and see what it taught you. Right? Like, again, it it's how you look at it.
When you're able to see that your thoughts are not you and you can separate them. And like you said, you are willing to be all in on you. And sometimes we're a little silly and that's okay, because life is not meant to be a hundred percent serious. and, you know, it's so important to have these discussions because I don't think we slow down enough to feel and see if you just ask yourself whatever you're thinking, is it serving you or not?
Can we put it down and can I think something else that might be empowering? Like I, I heard a chord the other day saying like human human beings are so silly. They set up their own limitations. like, isn't that funny? Like, it's true. Right? Like we limit ourselves and sometimes it sounds silly, but like being a doctor is kind of safe in the sense that you have guidelines and you have.
Best evidence and da, da, da, da. And so you kind of like hide behind that. You're like, well, this I'm doing it right. You know, X, Y, and Z. And then you go to like the business part of it. And there's like, no rules. All of a sudden you have to do it. Like, however, whenever. And you're like what I have to decide, but how we always wanna know how right.
And they're like, Who cares about the, how you make it up as you go. You're like, no, that's not safe. And like you said, it brings up all our insecurities but at the same time, it lets you be aware that what if you did trust yourself? Like what if you did get it right? And so it goes back to finding that self compassion and being.
Willing to fall flat in your face, because maybe that's the more evidence that you needed or the more data that you needed to keep moving forward. Right?
Dr. Vanessa Calderon: Absolutely. There's so many good nuggets in what you just said. One of the things you said that I think for me is just so interesting. It's like this idea once you realize that there are two things happening every day of your life, there's the truth. What's the actual truth and then there's everything else and everything else are your thoughts. And when you don't have awareness into everything else, the thoughts it's like, you know, the matrix when you have the blue pillow, the red pill.
The point of it is that you're either living a life in your head, in your dreams, almost as cloudlike living words, like you're just living in your thoughts or you're living reality and an exercise that I've been using a lot, especially over the last few weeks, is this exercise of what is my truth. And I use it when something just like quickly triggered me or like something brought up something in my head, I'll ask myself, what is my truth in this moment?
And I just ground myself in that space because the only truth is that I can feel my feet on the ground. I can feel the air going in and out of my nostrils. I feel a little pressure in my chest, you know, or I feel my stomach kind of nodding inside. That's the truth. Everything else is just a thought, you know?
And so I ground myself in that because it's really important because what happens when you get triggered? For example, someone says something, they kind of trigger you it's they say something and then you make it mean a bunch of stuff in your head. It's your old subconscious thinking patterns, your habits. Right? So one of the things that's so important, I think, especially bringing this back to self-compassion and that exercise about what is my truth in this moment is that. Especially, you know, I have this morning journaling exercise where every morning I get up, I just ask myself one prompt, which is one of my thinking.
I let it all out. And then I get to see the old stuff that comes up because we all know the benefits of positive thinking. But of course our brain doesn't go to that as a habit. Because we have the negativity bias, right? Our brain goes to the negative more. And when you get to see all your thoughts on paper, I then choose what I actually wanna believe.
I see, like my only truth in this moment is that I have a pen in my hand and I'm sitting down right here. What do I wanna believe today? And then I get to choose the thoughts that will serve me. And that right there is how you create the reality. Of your dreams, you create the reality of your dreams by choosing the thoughts that serve you.
And for me, you know, I create the reality of like, I'm gonna be all in on me me. I'm gonna love me. No drama necessary. When I have a task, for example, this is a big one for procrastinators. Why do we procrastinate? We procrastinate mainly because we're afraid we're avoiding something. And what we're avoiding is not the task.
What we're avoiding is what that's gonna bring up for us, like what that's gonna make us feel like. And so for a big one, for me, for example, I often avoid things that I feel like I'm not gonna be good at, or I avoid things that I feel like I don't know how to do yet because I'm avoiding the feeling of overwhelm.
I don't wanna feel overwhelmed and I don't wanna feel sometimes I don't wanna feel like a beginner, you know, like, oh, I don't know how to do it. I'm gonna have to spend all this in my mind. I make up these stories. I'm gonna have to spend all this time researching to get it just right. And of course I'm a recovering perfectionist.
And so things need to be done, not just done, but done right. And so I'm avoiding this feeling of overwhelm. And so one of the thought errors that I catch is. Oh, no, but I won't do it. Right. And so the way I support myself in that is I see that as a thought error and I get to create grace for myself and say, okay, like, what is it that you need right now, Vanessa, you need a hug.
You need love and you need to be reminded. There's no drama necessary. Like, yeah, that's gonna be a new task. Yes. It's gonna be something different and yes, you might feel overwhelmed and we'll meet that overwhelmed with compassion. You know, when you feel overwhelmed, we'll love ourselves through.
Dr. Diana Mercado-Marmarosh: So the procrastination, I joke around a lot because people with ADHD were like, we have too much time.
That's like way over there. So we'll like outta sight out of mind. Right. And if we don't have enough time, we're like, oh my God. And the funny thing is that we don't only procrastinate on the things that are really important to us. We also procrastinate on the things that are boring to us, but for two different reasons, the things that are very important to us.
If we don't get them, we might feel like a failure or we are afraid of the success either way. We're, we're gonna put it off because if it actually goes the way we want, all of a sudden we might be more busy and we have this like scarcity mindset around time. Right. Because we feel like there's never enough time.
And so sometimes we procrastinate, I think because of either we don't have a clear mind of what's gonna happen, which steps need to be taken, or we are trying to do everything at once instead of breaking it down, or if we actually do it, we are afraid that, oh my God, I'm gonna become so successful that this is not gonna work out.
I'm not gonna have time. Sometimes procrastination also means that maybe that was not like aligned or wasn't meant for you at that time. Right? It's, it's funny with the word procrastination, because some people don't know how to slow down sometimes and their body literally makes them. And so it's like, they're procrastinating, but it's also, like you said, it could be that you are on purpose or your brain is on purpose, trying to tell you to slow down, or maybe you are afraid that it's not perfect enough and therefore you don't hit submit.
But, I've learned to tell myself that, you know, a messy first draft is better than, than a perfect undone draft at all. Right? And so sometimes we just need to do things because then at least the intention is there. And then you can always ask somebody else for help to make it prettier to make it more acceptable, to get us to point B or C or whatever, but at least the jist is somewhere. If it's meaningful for you.
Dr. Vanessa Calderon: Yeah, absolutely. I agree that we all procrastinate for different reasons. And I think the most important thing is to be onto yourself. If you are someone that does it in an all honesty, everybody does it. So when I say, if you are someone I'm saying all of you, cause you all do it.
The difference is why do we do it? What's your reason behind it? And I know for me, it's because I'm avoiding a feeling and for many people, that's what it is, but there's also something called strategic procrastination where you strategically say, I have this idea. I'm gonna put it right here and I'm not gonna act upon it yet, but I know that the idea is there.
I see it every day. Like I do this sometimes and I'll put a little note card and I'll leave the note card about my bedside, for example. And every day my brain's going to work, thinking about it and figuring out like how I'm gonna make it really amazing. I'm not ready to execute on it yet. I wanted to keep mingling and what'll happen is as you're going throughout your day, you're gaining evidence, you're seeing things of how that's that idea's gonna work out. And then eventually when you're ready to execute, now you have all this awesome stuff inside of your brain, you know, that's ready to go. So I think, there's, there's different reasons why, I guess the important thing is to understand why you do it, but also is it's serving you.
So if your procrastination is not serving you and now you're in this, you know something to be called, like a negative, where you're procrastinating and it's not serving you now. It's time to reexamine. Now it's time to come to Diana and get coaching and figure out why am I procrastinating? So we sort of got off topic a little bit when we were talking about self-compassion and we spoke about procrastination, but I don't know if you wanna stay on this topic, but we could also jump back to self-compassion and talk a little bit more about like actionable ways that people can actually, you know, cultivate self-compassion.
Dr. Diana Mercado-Marmarosh: Yes, that'd be great. And I was gonna ask you if you knew, if there was a link between self-compassion and happiness or joy or anything of that sort.
Dr. Vanessa Calderon: Yes. That's a great question. Taking that second question first. Yes, there is a link. I mean, you can imagine right now, you know, my life as an example. In my professional career, when I was highly achieving, you know, I have a degree from Harvard, I was chief resident.
I have all these accolades behind my name and I was doing all of that and I was still feeling like I wasn't enough. Right. Like, I still had a super strong inner critic. I had a ton of insecurities. I had to keep achieving. And for me, when I was deeply insecure, some of the ways I would show up as arrogant, as opposed to humble.
And, you know, I like to think of actual confidence, confidence for me means showing up, trusting yourself. That's what it means for me and humility for me means having curiosity. Like being super curious and so humble confidence means trusting in yourself and being super curious, you know, knowing that you don't know everything, knowing that there's more to learn, but still being confident in who you are in that moment.
And the difference between that and arrogance is for me anyways, that arrogance is more of this like sort of fear based response. You're afraid of something. You're you think you're insecure, there's something else that's sort of guiding you. And so you think you need to put up this front. You know, where you show up, like, you know, everything and that's way different than humble confidence.
And everyone here that's listening knows somebody who shows up confident without arrogance and arrogance, you know, when they're really just afraid. And I know for me, one of my fear based responses, especially before, when I had really stepped into this work of self-compasion is, there were times where I was afraid, you know, and I would show up arrogant.
Like I wanted to seem smarter. I was super insecure. Remember the first time I got a department chair role, you know, I'm a five foot, a hundred pound Latina. And the people I was leading were people that had been practicing medicine for a very long time, much older, really tall white men. And I remember I had to sit at a department meeting and lead these people or counsel some of them that.
Doing things that I had to counsel them cause they were getting bad patient outcomes and a ton of insecurities would bubble up. I thought that to meet those insecurities, I had to show up as arrogant. And the truth is you don't like had I trusted myself, had I loved myself. Had I had the level of self-compassion I have now I would've been confident showing up with the humility that I needed, knowing that I'm confident in who I am and what I know I have this position for a reason, you know?
And so. Back to your question about how self-compassion and joy are linked really is when you love yourself, you can let go of all those fear-based stories, you know, all those insecurities and yes, of course, insecurities will always show up. As long as you have a human brain, you're gonna have an inner critic.
And the inner critic brings you insecurities all the time. What if you fail? What if you're not good enough? What if you know, and even the most successful think right now. I want everyone listening to think about who they imagine to be the most confident, successful person in the world. And I want you to know right now, as you're thinking about that person.
That, that person also has a super loud inner critic, just like yours. When they look in the mirror, they don't think they're good enough. They don't think they're smart enough. Sometimes. You know, I remember the story of, Barack Obama when he was sitting in the oval office at his desk and he looked up at the wall and he said, what the heck am I doing here?
Abraham Lincoln said at this desk, like, what am I doing? You know, and so I just want everyone to remember that, that we all have that and the more you can lean into self-compassion, the more you realize that you can love yourself in those moments and let go of the fear and really just lean into joy and just be proud of yourself, you know, from a place of humility.
Dr. Diana Mercado-Marmarosh: You know, the story that you just explained about Barack Obama sitting there and wondering what the hell am I doing here? Reminds me of Erica. She is a lawyer in our life coach school. She's actually the VP, yes. And she said, you know, We are our ancestors' wildest dream and it's crazy how we become who we become.
And then we don't like take ownership of it sometimes because again, our inner critic is there and it's so loud, right. And sometimes, like you said, our inner critic is just trying to protect us. Like nobody wants to be like, Ooh, how can I look like a fool today? Right. Like how can I make an ass on myself?
Nobody wants to do that. So it's meant to keep you safe. But at the same time, like this. Inner critic, because it's trying to keep you safe instead of like silencing it sometimes like just being like, okay, tell me what it is, Diana, what is it? And then you can like counteract it, whatever it tells you.
Just listen to it. Like you would listen to a friend, even though you're mad at that friend, you would listen to them anyways, like with the sore eye. Right. But you're still listening. And then maybe just saying, okay, I understand. I understand. I understand. But what if it could be this other way? Right. And what if this other way means I get to love you?
And I only get to love me and I get to accept me right. For me. And like the good, the bad and the ugly. And like, I think that's then how you show up, like you said, as in a humble humility where you know that yes, I belong here because I belong here. I'm choosing to belong here. Right? I accept all of me. I think again, it goes back, like you said, joy and confidence to that self-compassion.
And, and now tell me what are some ways that you practice self-compassion or how can other people practice self-compasion for themselves?
Dr. Vanessa Calderon: Yeah, so I practice self-compassion all of the time. So I'll share a few things that I think are tangible, that people can do. One is I really, 100% recommend if you're not already doing this to create some sort of morning journaling practice or journaling routine, just to really get clear on the thoughts that come out of your brain in the morning.
So my routine for example, is as soon as I get outta bed, I'll go to the restroom if I have to. And the very first thing I do, I usually get up before everyone else in my house is I sit quietly for 15 minutes and I journal, and it's incredibly important to do it in the very, very beginning, because that's when your brain is gonna share, show you everything, all your thoughts on default.
And what I wanna highlight for everyone listening is, the majority of our actions are taken by default 95% of what we do are taken by subconscious thoughts are patterned thoughts, who we become along the way, only 5% of what we do comes from conscious thinking. And so the work, especially all this like really important thought work and mindset work, what it's doing is it's rewiring your brain so that your new patterned thoughts, your new subconscious thoughts.
Are things that you actually wanna be thinking and doing, as opposed to who we were as kids, you know, the fears that we had when we were children, for me, for example, all of that inferiority that I was feeling, because I was a brown, you know, daughter of an immigrant, you know, not never feeling like I was good enough or smart enough.
So the very first thing I do is I get up and I journal. And when I'm journaling, I see all my subconscious thoughts and I choose what I wanna think on purpose that really serves me. And that I think is one of the most important practices of self compassion is choose your thoughts that will serve you.
Thoughts that really show you grace and love. And then the other thing is there's this really amazing researcher who I absolutely love on self compassion. Her name is Dr. Kristen Neff, and the way she describes this is this, she reminds us that human beings are mammals like all other mammals. And there's three things that human beings really love.
And you can imagine this by thinking about a baby. So how do you, how do you comfort a child? You swaddle them. So, one thing you do is you keep them warm human beings love to be kept warm. So when you're showing yourself self-compassion, if you're in a space where like you're feeling disappointed or sad or you're feeling rejection or whatever it is that you're feeling to love yourself in that moment, maybe all you need is a warm blanket or something cozy around your shoulders.
What else do, what else do babies need? What else do mammals need? We, we like touch human touch. So the hug or the kiss on the cheek that babies love. So I love to show myself self-compassion by doing two ways, in terms of touch, I give myself an actual hug. I'll put my arms around my shoulders and I will do that all the time when I'm being coached, when I'm sitting by myself.
And the other thing I do is I put one hand on my heart. Sometimes I put both hands over my heart and just really sit there for a moment and just love myself or one hand on my heart. One hand on my belly and just feel myself, breathe to ground myself. But another thing people love to do is you hold your hand, just put your two hands together and just hold your hands for a little bit and just love yourself in that moment.
Okay. So the first is warmth. The second is a human touch. And then the third thing is a soothing voice. You imagine when you swaddle a baby and you're holding them up to you, what do you say to them? You give them that soothing voice and that's what gets them to calm down. And so do that to yourself. How can you provide that soothing voice for yourself?
And so I literally talk to myself and I have no problem doing it now. And I'll say, Hey, what is it that you need, Vanessa? What is it that you need? Okay. Yep. I love you. Like, I hear you. I hear that. You need love. Okay. I love you today. Or I'll write myself a note sometimes when, like I receive like a really, like a really nice evaluation of some sort or someone just like reviewed my podcast or someone just gave me really positive affirmation.
And I'll read that and old me would read that and be like, oh, it's so nice that they said that delete go on with my life. And one of the things that we need to do to really remodel our brains, and this is neuroplasticity in action is the way you remodel your brain to tilt it towards positive is you take in that good with just as much time, that you would the bad stuff. Cause what do we do with the bad stuff? We sit, we ruminate without we like, think about how there could be wrong. You get super defensive sometimes. Or you start trying to talk about like how you can do it better next time. But when the good stuff comes in, you let it roll off your shoulders.
And that's, that's normal human behavior because the human brain is like, you know, it's like Velcro for the negative, the negative just sticks, but it's like Teflon for the positive. The positive will just roll right off. So one thing that's really important to do is to help the positivity stick. And so when I get a positive affirmation, I'll read it out loud.
And if it really makes me feel good, like I did this for a performance review, six or eight months ago, I got a performance review and it was awesome. And initially I wanted to push it away. How could that be true? No, maybe they say that to everybody. And I was like, whoa, what are we doing here? Let's sit and take it in.
And then I wrote myself a letter. Dear Vanessa. I am so proud of you. Listen to what they said. Like you really affected their lives. Look at these evaluations. You're always scoring this high. I'm so proud of you. And that for me was my own sort of soothing words. And so I encourage all of you to think about how you can use one of those three super easy things to show yourself love when you really need it.
And I used to only use self compassion when I was down, like when I was feeling sad or disappointed, or when I was. And now I realize I've shifted my brain to a point where I use it all of the time. I separate my thoughts, another really important practice, like I mentioned earlier, and this is a lot of inner critic work, but when your inner critic starts showing up, The first thing I do is I ask myself, what is the truth in this moment?
Cause that thought is not the truth. And when you do that, what you're essentially doing is you're bringing awareness to that moment, which turns off your amygdala. So your amygdala is your fear center and that's where your inner critic is coming from. All your fear is coming from those faces, but when you turn it off and you bring awareness to that moment, then you can shift your brain.
Okay, this is the truth. What do I wanna believe?
Dr. Diana Mercado-Marmarosh: Yeah, that's so good to help you ground yourself and to practice those things. I think, like you said, when I started a morning routine, that was the start of changing how I was thinking and being intentional and being mindful of what are the two or three things that I wanna accomplish today.
What are the two or three things I wanna feel today? What are the two or three things that I want to help myself? Right. And so. It's so important when you do it that way, because you, again are being intentional. Like you said, there's a golden hour, you know, in the morning and, actually the hour right before you go to sleep as well, where you shouldn't be on your phone, because then you go to sleep, you know, in a reactive state and you wake up in a reactive state, you touch the phone again.
When you on purpose are deciding how to calm yourself down, to relax, to sleep and what you're gonna do throughout the day. You're going to be a lot more aware of what it is that you're wanting to do instead of just being reactive all day. You get to be on purpose, deciding your life, how you want to do.
And so I'm so glad that you are doing this work to help others really step into their own self-compassion because that really is gonna boost their confidence, boost their joy, and obviously smash the inner critic and it smash that imposter syndrome. Right. So tell me where can people find you if they wanna work with you?
Because I mean, it, it sounds like, you know, this is very powerful work that you're providing.
Dr. Vanessa Calderon: Yeah. Thanks so much for asking. So, there's two ways people can find me. The easiest is just to find me on Instagram at @Vanessamd, or at VanessacalderonMD.com you know, I created this actually free guide that's awesome. That talks about all of this type of work. And so people can find that really easily at vanessacalderonmd.com/guide, and it's a five step guide that really teaches you why we do certain things like for a lot of us, it's people pleasing. Like why do we people please, and how do create boundaries and how to see no without guilt and that,
just that practice alone, frees you up to create so much more time to do the things that you love. And so for a lot of the people that I work with and that I help learning those skills and it's five super simple steps that you can start using right now. And then once you get good at it, you use it over and over again, you stop saying yes to things that just don't make sense, you know, or you go back and say, I do really wanna speak at that conference, but I don't wanna do it for free you, and then you go back with the confidence to ask for money, to get paid, you know, and all of a sudden they say yes, and now you're speaking at the conference and you're getting paid and it's a win-win. And so you, anyone can download that guide. I created it for free. And it's, vanessacalderonmd.com/guide. It's the ultimate five step guide to stop people pleasing.
Dr. Diana Mercado-Marmarosh: Awesome. Thank you so much. One more question. Where do you see yourself in three years from now? What are you doing for fun?
Dr. Vanessa Calderon: For fun. That's a good question. I was about, you know, when you said, where do you see yourself in three years from now? My eneagram three brain was about to tell you all my successes, you know, like where I see myself in my business. But for fun, we are gonna move. I currently live in California, but we're leaving the state. And so we're moving out of state. And in three years I see myself traveling with my husband and my two little beautiful cuties and exploring the world internationally.
You know, we've held off a lot because of COVID and our kids were young for a long time. And then my mom got sick and we. Are itching to travel. We both used to travel a lot before. And so, it's time to expose our kids to put backpacks on their back and rent a car and you have to try to eat the food wherever we are, you know, no matter what. And, that's what we'll be doing for fun.
Dr. Diana Mercado-Marmarosh: You know, I've talked to my husband about this and he used to think I'm crazy, but he, you know, the more you talk about it, the more it becomes like it's almost there, right? You can taste it. Like I'm telling him that in my ideal world. And I think we're in the same wavelength where, you know, maybe the summers, we just pick a country and we, there were there the whole summer and you get to learn and study and live the culture and do everything the whole summer, every summer, you know, at a different place. Why not? I mean, that's how I think we grow west people when we just get immersed in it. Right. Like you just take what you like and let go of what you don't and keep. Leveling up. Right.
So that's so fun. Awesome. That sounds so good. I'm pretty sure we'll be traveling somewhere sometime together. I love travel too. So one more last question. And this is the one that I say, okay, my listeners have ADHD and sometimes, attention goes somewhere. So let's say they just started paying attention right now, they didn't listen to everything else we said before. What would be the one sentence or two sentence you would want them to take away when they think of today's episode?
Dr. Vanessa Calderon: I want them to take away this, that self-compassion is not a soft skill. Self-compassion is one of the hardest, most impactful skills to cultivate.
It's the one skill that's gonna open you up to allow love to come in, but also for you to love others more. So. To be in service more. And for a lot of us, you know, especially if you're physicians, we are wired to heal and we are wired to be in service to others. And we have a tremendous capacity to be in service to others, but we cannot do that well or to the fullest when we have not first filled our own cup.
And so the one thing I will say is if you want to do something, that's hard, I challenge you to start practicing self compassion.
Dr. Diana Mercado-Marmarosh: Yes, like you said, that was one of the big things that really started to heal me and allow me to start speaking from a place of a healed wound instead of an open wound. And, it was such a powerful thing.
So thank you so much again, for sharing with us, all the important things that you're doing in the world. And I can't wait to see all those fun pictures and, continue to see your business blossom.
Dr. Vanessa Calderon: Thank you. It was so wonderful to be here with you
Dr. Diana Mercado-Marmarosh: As someone who understands that time is our most valuable asset. I am so honored that you have shared your time with me. Please click the subscribe button and join my Facebook group: Beyond ADHD, A Physician's Perspective so that you never missed an opportunity to create time at will. Do share this podcast with your friends they too can can learn to live life and stay in their own lane.
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Beyond ADHD A Physicians Perspective: The Difference Between A Coach And A Therapist

Dr. Diana Mercado-Marmarosh: Hi, welcome to Beyond ADHD, A Physician's Perspective podcast. I am your host, Dr. Diana Mercado-Marmarosh. I'm a Family Medicine doc, with ADHD, practicing in a rural setting in Texas. I am a mother to two very energetic toddlers who are three and four years of age.
And in the past year, I have undergone radical transformation after discovering ADHD coaching, and life-coaching. For the past decade, my typical day consisted of having 300 charts backlog, a graveyard of unfinished projects, and a lack of time awareness. I didn't realize that I was not filling my own cup. I was running on fumes. The last year I figured out the secret; learn to stay in your lane. So now my mission is to help others develop systems that tap into their zone of genius. So they too can reclaim their personal lives back like I have.
I wanna talk to you guys about coaching and therapist, because I feel like one is not better than the other. In fact, I feel that if you use all the tools, you might actually land on something that might work for you.
So this week's topic is a very important one to me. I wanna describe the difference between a coach and a therapist. And I also want to give you insights on how to choose a good coach, especially for ADHD. I think it's so important to be able to have this mindset or frame of mind that way, you know, how to help yourself. First of all, I wanna say that it's very common still for people to not be even aware that.
There's ADHD, life coaches out there. And, you know, I wish I would have known this when I was going through med school and residency. I did not know that there would be other tools when I got diagnosed. I just kind of got told. Okay, well, here's a medicine and, good luck. And part of the diagnosis, I was very ashamed about the diagnosis.
I, I think the stigma of having something like this, I was making it mean that I was broken. And I think because I didn't know any better, I didn't know, to go ask for my medication to be adjusted because it wasn't working as well. It should. And I didn't realize that, you know, I was given Lin five milligrams and it worked great for a few hours, but then when it didn't, I made it mean all kinds of things about myself.
And even though I was a first year medical student, and again, in the medical field per se, I was not aware of how medications worked and that, you know, regular medication. Not extended release medications only lasted in your body about four to six hours. And that extended release medications would last in your body about eight to 12 hours.
So it is known that 6.1 million people in the 2016 were diagnosed with ADHD. And it is known that about four to 5% are adults that have ADHD, right. And even in 2016, there was a study that showed that 30% of medical students identified themselves with ADHD. And so I'm hoping most of those medical students made it through.
And they're now attendings. So that just tells you that maybe people are not talking about this. So if you're not somebody who has ADHD or know a colleague that has ADHD, it just might be that they're trying really hard to not show you how hard they're working. One in four Americans, you know, still feel like ADHD is a stigma.
It's a mental stigma. And so I wanna talk to you guys about coaching and therapist, because I feel like one is not better than the other. In fact, I feel that if you use all the tools, you might actually land on something that might work for you. And yes, while I am a physician. And of course I do believe in ADHD medication.
I'm not here to say that medication is the only way I've been a blessed enough to use medication that has helped me. But I understand that not everybody's able to use medication. In fact about 20% of people cannot tolerate medication. It's important to know that when you at least have the diagnosis, then at least you can start to open up your brain and become curious and understand how it works so that you can start to figure out tools to help you.
So with that being. A coach. So when you look at a coach, you're looking at somebody who's gonna help you with certain things like a coach will look where you're currently at, like your present state of being and will help you to get to where your future state of being is. So it will help close the gap of what you haven't accomplished yet.
So it works more on behavior per se. Techniques to get you the behavior or the outcome that you want. So with the coach, they might be able to help you gain more clarity. They will decrease your own self judgment. They'll help you with like self-esteem issues or figure out communication. To help improve relationships.
They will help you with planning and creating schedules and figuring out how to break up tasks that seem too daunting. And of course, with time management and especially with ADHD, we will also work with emotional dysregulation. Basically with a coach, you're kind using a shortcut to help you to get where you want to be so that you can get rid of that irritability, those blocks and habits that maybe are not as efficient for you with the therapist.
It's more like you're looking at pathology. So it's more like you're looking at what's going on. What happened in your past? Like you, you're looking at your present and you're looking back, like what happened in your past to get you to where you are today? And so it's more dealing with like mental illnesses or more like, with anxiety, depression, post traumatic stress disorder, stuff like that.
So with a therapist, you have somebody who's licensed. They have a medical code of ethics. So to say with a coach, you don't have to have a specific license of some sort for you to call yourself a coach. So that's where sometimes it gets tricky because, you know, you wonder whether that person can help you or not.
And like, how do you know if they can help you? With this being said, sometimes you just have to talk to different people, different coaches and see if their experiences. Or their abilities align with what you're looking for. You know, sometimes that is more important than them having just a formal diploma or training or whatever, like whatever kind of experience they have that might be useful.
So there's not a regulating body per se, for coaches. Of course there is where I trained is the life coach goal. And then the certified, the international certification school for like the other coaches. But with the ADHD is specifically, there is certain organization that is called ADHD coaches organization.
It's just a list of people who, you know, are professional coaches. But again, nobody can specifically tell you that this person is better than the other based on their diplomas. It's gonna be more of an experience. Who do you relate to? What can they help you with? Right. What is important is that when you are looking for a coach, you have certain questions in mind.
So you might wanna ask the coach like, Hey, what kind of work, you know, have you done with your clients? What kind of results should I expect to do? And you might want to see. If you're looking for a coach, like short term or long term, or are you looking for a coach to help you with a specific task or like a specific problem?
Like maybe you want a coach who's gonna help you close your chart. Like that's the type of coach I am. Or maybe you want a coach who is going to help you clear your clutter? Like that's my course geared towards that. Like I have, Rosemary who is the declutter ADHD coach who will have three sessions with them and then they'll personalize it.
So like you have to ask the coach, like, what are you gonna offer me? Or can you help me with X, Y, Z problem? Like you gotta tell the coach, Hey, I'm working on not being late or I'm working on procrastination or I'm working on completing this thesis. Can you help me walk me through this? And so you might also want to know if that coach has a specific niche or like, do they feel like they can help just kids? Can they help adults? Can they help physicians? Can they help nurses? Can they help professionals, teachers? Like who do they usually work with? Those are questions to ask the coach. The other thing you could ask them is like, do you do private sessions?
Like, is it one on one or is it like a group session? And then like, you can also ask them like, how are we going to meet? Like, are we gonna meet in person, are we gonna do a phone call? Are we gonna get on like Facebook messenger or like zoom? And then you can ask them like how long the sessions are, what is the time investment?
And then of course you want to ask them, like, what kind of experiences have your previous clients gotten? If you already coached people in this area? Like what, what do I expect to get for like example in my group coaching program? My model or my thing is I help physicians. They don't have to have ADHD, but they, you know, if they feel like they have a time blindness or chronic procrastination problem, I help them create systems so that they can enhance their zone of genius.
And so that they can reclaim, you know, 10 plus hours per week of their time. And so my goal is for them to leave work at work so that they're able to use their free time to do whatever they want, whether they wanna start, you know, a side business, whether they wanna be able to pick up their kids every day at school, whether they want to start that book that they've been wanting to do, whether they want to practice medicine in their own terms.
Right. So you. To ask them specifically, what can those clients expect to get? So that, that way, you know, if that coach or that group is your ideal, Another difference between therapy and coaching is the investment with therapists, you can use sometimes like your insurance, like some of your insurance might pay for that again, because it's considered like medical condition that they're treating and it's licensed professionals. With a coach, it is not considered like a medical condition that they're gonna be treating. It's just more of a partnership. For the coach is gonna help you to accomplish X, Y, Z result. Right? With that being said, there's still some similars and differences. So the cost is pretty much about the same as a therapist. Usually some people can do some pro bono sessions and then it varies anywhere from three to $1,500 per month.
It really depends, on what it is. So when you have private, that's more time that it's one on one versus when you have a group. So it just depends. They tend to have you sign an agreement or they give it to you in an outline of what it is that you are agreeing to. Like, are you signing up for a three, six, one year program?
Are you doing group or, private in general, coaches are gonna require the payment upfront for a couple of reasons. One is because they're doing this for you. I know it sounds silly, right. But no, the investment that you make, the decision, when you say I'm all in on myself, when you put money to back it up, it really sends like an internal message to yourself that you are totally worth this investment.
And, and it allows you to commit yourself to the possibility of changing whatever your current situation is, to what you want it to become. So it's in that investment that you now have the probability, the chances just go up dramatically. So it's for you, it's for you to be able to be all in on yourself so that you can have that outcome that you want.
Most of the time, it is a full payment up front, and sometimes they make exceptions. They do monthly payments or something like that. But again, the reason is because usually most people will lose interest by like the first month, like in the. Fifth to sixth session, they'll be onto something else. Or maybe they haven't made the progress as fast as they wanted to.
And they'll think that it's not working and they'll wanna give up, but if they have already paid up front, then it helps them to continue going through the program. Right. And here's the thing, like most of us want that magic pill. Right? just gimme the pill so that you could go away. But it's not gonna happen.
Like with ADHD, you need to be able to allow yourself to use different methods. You know, coaching is a partnership. The coach cannot, cannot. I agree. Cannot, cannot, cannot care more about your outcome than your. Own outcome. What does that mean is that you need to be all in the coach is not gonna run the race for you.
You need to put in the work, but the coach is gonna provide you with tools and techniques to create shortcuts, intellectual, emotional shortcuts, right. So that you're not having to work as hard. You're gonna work smart. And so a lot of us don't want to get off this damn hamster wheel. Right. Because we're so used to going.
And when we say, okay, get off the wheel and you're like, no, I'm like, get off the bike. You're like, no, I can't. This is working. You're like, but if you get off, I have a Ferrari over there that kind of has, you know, GPS and we can get you there faster. Sometimes we need that external accountability to be able to allow others, to see the shortcuts for us, that we haven't been able to see this investment is for you to be all in on you.
And so the faster that you decide that you are worth this, the faster you get to your. And so here's the thing. Coaching is just like going to the doctor in the sense that if you missed appointments or you cancel, you know, within less than 24 hours, like, they'll count that as a session. Because remember that coach on the other side, they had to make arrangement.
They probably got a babysitter or they did whatever it needed to happen so that they could be readily available for. right. So you gotta make sure that you treat this when you're ready. Like we're never gonna feel a hundred percent ready, but you gotta give it the importance that it is because as you invest in yourself, you are your best investment.
The outcome of it is gonna just be like a thousand fold and come on, we all know like how much money have we invested in trying to get our medical degree? I mean, most of us unfortunately walked out with like two to three to $500,000. Right. And we're still paying student loans. Some of us, I guess, were lucky that might have had people who helped us pay for it, but not all of us are in that same boat.
Any investment that we've done, we've done it because we think it's gonna get better. You know, you could ask if your physician, if to write a prescription that says that you need ADHD coaching for your condition, and you could use it after you talk to your tax accountant or whatever, you could use it to write off.
To write it off on your taxes. Right? So that could be something that could be like, you could use it as a business expense, if you're self-employed or if it's helping you manage your work. Right. If you're a physician like working with me, you could use that because you're gonna get continuing medical education.
In my program, you get 20 CME's for my three month program. You could use that as, you know, a financial investment for your career. Right. But it's a lot more than that. I mean, how much would you pay to be able to have your systems that support you and you don't feel like , you don't know what is coming or going, so you can feel like you're not having your brain being pulled in so many directions.
With that being said, like each coach is gonna set up their own thing. Like you get to decide, most people will coach for anywhere from three months to a year and they can decide that they want to do private weekly, classes, usually after three to six months, people will ask to be when they've gathered tools and techniques they'll they might paste them out to like every two weeks or once a month, or they might decide that they want to do group coaching all along.
It doesn't matter. You get to decide what works for you. There is pros and cons on private versus group coaching. With me, I feel group coaching is amazing because it normalizes the situation. Like you'd be surprised how many different specialties are represented in my program. Like I have people that are OB GYN. I have internal medicine. I have psych, I have PS. I have family medicine. I have nocturnist, I have surgeons. I will say that it's probably 90%. Female and 10% male right now in my program. I don't have any bias against men. It's just that, as I was told by one of my clients, who's a male. He told me, you know, it's probably cuz males are having their wife or significant other do a lot of the task males don't tend to feel like they have to do all the things like some females do sometimes.
So I don't know if. Why, but Hey, if you're a male listening to this and you're a physician and want help, please come in. I don't have anything against you guys. Anyways. The point is that you gotta figure out what works for you in a group setting. You get to just hear what other people are saying, and you don't feel like you're always the one on the spot.
Although I tend to, you know, give you that possibility to speak up if you want to or let you pass. And so coaching. I know it can feel kind of, you know, weird, especially if you never come across it. But like I said, it's not the magical remedy. It's just one of many tools that you could use, like to tame your ADHD.
Like you could use exercise, you could. Use journaling, you could use therapy, you could use medicine, right? It could be many of those things, but it is important to realize that coaching is evidence based and, you know, physician leaders can guide other physicians who might have ADHD to seek professional help and support them and reinforce that there's coping strategies that can help with their wellbeing.
And so it, it is important to know. You know, our wellbeing matters and being in the room where everybody is trying to level up and trying to get their work done at work so that they can have more impact at home. Right? Most of us work really hard at work so that we can provide for our family and like, People at work, get to see us at our best.
And then we get home and we're like drained and we're like irritable and bitchy and you know, all the nine yards . And so what if on purpose, you decided that things that were draining you, you don't have to continue to do, and we set up some boundaries so that you can become the person you want to. And if you're already doing all that kudos to you, I'm so glad you're ahead of the game.
And I'm so glad that you are doing this for yourself. So anyways, I just wanted to do a short little talk with you guys today to just talk about how coaching versus therapy is different and how you can use both tools to help you to realize why you've done what you've done and where you're going.
Coaching can be very, very powerful today. During one of our coaching sessions, I had somebody who shared that they felt like they were wasting time because they were on leave and that they didn't like change. And that change was hard. However, I reflected back to that person that I had seen them grow as a person in so many levels.
And do all kinds of things like reclaiming their garage back, stepping into their stone of genius, being willing to say what's on their mind without feeling like they had to be people pleasing. And it's been so powerful to see how courageous that person has been. And when I reflected back. That whatever they were sharing with me were just some of their thoughts and nothing rooted on facts.
They reflected on the fact that they have made a lot of progress. Our human nature just always wants to focus on negative things. and those negative things can unfortunately keep us from continuing to grow. I've been reading this book called the gap in the gain, and it talks about if we keep measuring ourselves against our quote unquote shortcomings, we're never gonna feel like we reach X, Y, and C thing.
And we're always gonna feel like a failure. It was talking about, we should use our goals as a measure to look forward to, but not as like, if we accomplish it, all of a sudden we're worthy and if we didn't accomplish it, we're not worthy. But we should look at as, as where was I when I started this goal?
Like, what was I doing? Like if you're constantly just measuring yourself against yourself, then it's not a competition. It's human nature for us to be looking around and see what. Everybody's doing and wondering if we're doing it right too, or if we're fast enough, slow enough, you know, whatever. But what if you just compared yourself to yourself, like how you were, you know, one month ago, how you were one year ago, what was important to you five years ago?
Like, that's so important because when you start to look at. Then all of a sudden you start living in the gain instead of the gap. So the gap is where you feel like you're not incompetent because you didn't reach X, Y, and Z. And you always feel like shortcomings versus the gain is where you feel like, oh my God, I'm making growth.
I'm in progress. Like compared to a month ago, I've done all this. I've learned all this. And so it, it allows you to be more joyful and spontaneous and more kind to yourself. And so if you applied the same things to your relationships, like if you look at your kids and you're like, wow, look at the girls they've had in the last three months, instead of looking at like, oh my God, this is your shortcomings.
You can easily see why some of our self-esteem issues stem from there. It's like, you know, if you had ADHD and you didn't know you had ADHD, you can see how much you wanted to accomplish certain tasks, but you just could not accomplish them because you didn't know how it's like you being, you know, you're being blind.
And you don't have glasses and we're asking you to just look harder, but how can you look harder? Or it's like asking you to write, you know, with, with a right hand when you're lefthanded, right? Like you can't instead. What if I came and I gave you the left handed desk and the lefthanded pen. And what if I gave you the glasses?
Like all of a sudden, you're not judging yourself for your shortcomings, but what if we celebrate you for how you got here without even knowing that you had ADHD, you kept going because you wanted X, Y, and Z. And we all know there's nothing a person with ADHD cannot be made to do anything just because it has to be aligned with us with our values so that it could be me.
Because we call ourselves chronic procrastinators, but we know we can spend time whenever we want to. Anyways, that's what I got for this week. I just started my group coaching session, my new cohort, this June 20th. So a few days ago. So if you guys are interested in being on the wait list for the future ones in October, Reach out.
I do have monthly free webinars and you're welcome to come and check out all the stuff so that we all can start living and practicing medicine in our own terms
As someone who understands that time is our most valuable asset. I am so honored that you have shared your time with me. Please click the subscribe button and join my Facebook group: Beyond ADHD, A Physician's Perspective so that you never missed an opportunity to create time at will. Do share this podcast with your friends they too can can learn to live life and stay in their own lane.
Link to my website to register as waitlist for Oct 2022 Cohort:
Transformation Physician Group Coaching
Email: overachievewithadhd@gmail.com
 

Beyond ADHD A Physicians Perspective: The Power of Tapping or Emotional Freedom Technique

Dr. Diana Mercado-Marmarosh: Dr. Diana Mercado-Marmarosh: Hi, welcome to Beyond ADHD, A Physician's Perspective podcast. I am your host, Dr. Diana Mercado-Marmarosh. I'm a Family Medicine doc, with ADHD, practicing in a rural setting in Texas. I am a mother to two very energetic toddlers who are three and four years of age.
And in the past year, I have undergone radical transformation after discovering ADHD coaching, and life-coaching. For the past decade, my typical day consisted of having 300 charts backlog, a graveyard of unfinished projects, and a lack of time awareness. I didn't realize that I was not filling my own cup. I was running on fumes. The last year I figured out the secret; learn to stay in your lane. So now my mission is to help others develop systems that tap into their zone of genius. So they too can reclaim their personal lives back like I have.
Hello physicians. I want to invite you to go to my website, ADHD-lifecoach.com
This is the perfect time for you to realize that, June 20th is right around the corner.
That's when my 12 Week Physician Coaching class is going to start, it consists of 20 CME credits. Make sure you get on my waiting list and you can do that also by sending me an email on my website, you can contact me. You can get all the details. All right. Take care.
Well, hello. I am so excited to be with you guys today. Yesterday, I had an amazing class with my group coaching clients. And we talked about, I brought in a special coach, Dr. Jill Winner, and she's actually a physician who talks about tapping or what is called the emotional freedom technique. And the reason I asked her to come and be a guest in my program was because I felt like my clients needed to hear from an expert who uses this on the daily and really show them yet another tool that could help people with ADHD manage our own emotional dysregulation or overthinking or anxiety or our focus that happens.
And so the way all this started was, during the pandemic, I felt like maybe I was just a few thoughts away from like, " always losing my shit in clinic". I know it sounds funny, but at that time I didn't realize that. It was my ADHD that was causing me to sometimes just become flustered, you know, like I didn't realize that there was boundaries that I needed to create and I didn't realize that I wasn't slowing down enough to see, okay, what do I need to do?
I think I would just become overwhelmed because you know, they would knock on my door. And asked me to sign for orders or do different things that were not necessarily an emergency. And I was getting distracted or as soon as I would walk out, I would feel like I was just flustered because they would ask me to do this.
Or the ER was calling or the hospital was calling or the nursing home was calling. And I felt like I was being pulled in so many different directions and I didn't realize. I could say, hold on, what is really important? What do I need to address first? Why don't I need to address? So I didn't realize that, you know, it was just my, sometimes my ADHD acting up when I would " blow up on my nurses" or whoever was coming to ask me different things.
It's just that my brain could not be pulled in so many different directions anyway. When I discovered life coaching, I realized that, okay, maybe there's more to just my thoughts or whatever. In my inner critic. And slowly I started listening to different podcasts. And I remember coming across one of them that talked about tapping, which stands for emotional freedom technique.
And I looked that up. It was talking about a different form of meditation. And while I tried meditation, I was always in my head wondering if I could concentrate long enough or not. I was always wondering if I was doing it right. I remember the first time I went to a meditation class. Like there was like, it was an in person thing and it was before this whole COVID thing.
And I remember like we, we were being guided through the meditation and like, all I could see was black. like, I couldn't see anything. And the person next to me was talking about this beautiful rainbow, like scenario that she had gone through and some beautiful things and, just remember turning over to my friend and being like, what the hell?
Like, is she on something like, how come nobody shared ? So I always thought that meditation sounded cool and I had read stuff, but I just could not relate anyways. When I heard about tapping. At that point, the tapping solution was an app that was being advertised. So they had a promotion or something going on for healthcare workers where you could download it for a certain amount of time for free.
And then after that, like you could decide if you wanted it. And so, you know, yesterday when I shared with my group, I have used it myself to keep me " insane", from going insane. 2,838 times. And my app here says that I've used it 497 hours and nine minutes. And so. Somebody pointed out to me, that's like 21 days.
And I was like, oh my God, I didn't realize how much I was leaning into this. So the emotional freedom technique or tapping is an intervention that draws on acupressure and psychotherapy principles to like try to decrease stress and emotional issues. And it's really quite simple and benign. Like there's nine areas in your body that you tap, you usually just use your fingers and tap across these key points. And these are the areas that if you were going to go get acupuncture, that's the same areas where they would insert the needles. And so the cool thing about it is that it's evidence based and there's been lots of studies that show that it does decrease cortisol levels.
So I thought, well, why not? Like, why not use this Meridian points? Like I said, there's nine areas and you usually just use the tapping to the top of the head, to the face, to like under the eyebrow and the nose. Clavical area. And then like the side, like on the axilla area, and it's meant to help decrease or clear or process emotions or trauma, it can help with PTSD, anxiety, stress, phobia, chronic pain, anger, resentment, chronic headaches, or sleep problems, or any other conditions.
So it's meant to kinda relax or sympathetic nervous system. And deactivate or at least bring down or flight or fight mode. And so it's supposed to just bring us down. So with the cool thing that I like about tapping is that it's not meant to cause you to just ignore or think of the opposite feeling it's meant to help you sit with it and feel okay with it.
And so I think it's really a really cool technique that if you never tried it, you should, because. It can help you be able to process things. So what I've noticed is that when you're tapping, there might be areas where they, it feels more tender than others. And usually that's where maybe there's a block, an energy block that you might be experiencing.
I even use it like for my kids, like at night so that they can go to sleep cuz, oh my God, I feel like they have more energy. And so usually, you know, take like five minutes. We'll do the child one and they'll go the fall ride to sleep. So this is a really good thing to use. So I wanted to just share about this tool
 
As someone who understands that time is our most valuable asset. I am so honored that you have shared your time with me. Please click the subscribe button and join my Facebook group: Beyond ADHD, A Physician's Perspective so that you never missed an opportunity to create time at will. Do share this podcast with your friends they too can can learn to live life and stay in their own lane.
 
Link to my website to register for June 2022 Cohort:
Transformation Physician Group Coaching
Email: overachievewithadhd@gmail.com

Beyond ADHD A Physicians Perspective: Latifat Akintade (Gastroenterologist - Founder of MoneyFitMD)

Dr. Latifat Akintade: I like to remind people about the concept of seeds. Imagine it will look at an orange seed and we're like, it's small, it's too small. The chances too small. It's impossible. It's a small seed. How can you expect to have a juicy orange from something as tiny and dry as this. So maybe it is possible. So I like to remind people that whatever is in your hands, like, look at your hand, do you have seeds in your hands?
It may be the knowledge you already have. Maybe the resources you have access to. It may be the podcast you're on right now. Maybe the podcasts that I have or what I'm talking about money, like where is the seat? And what are you doing with the seed? Are you planting the seed? Are you sitting down thinking it's impossible?
The chances low. Thank God. The farmers don't think that at the beginning of the season, because if they do, we would all be screwed by now because how dare we think that it's possible to have like a big plant of corn that grows many corn from one seed of corn. So what seat do you have in your hand?
Dr. Diana Mercado-Marmarosh: Dr. Diana Mercado-Marmarosh: Hi, welcome to Beyond ADHD, A Physician's Perspective podcast. I am your host, Dr. Diana Mercado-Marmarosh. I'm a Family Medicine doc, with ADHD, practicing in a rural setting in Texas. I am a mother to two very energetic toddlers who are three and four years of age.
And in the past year, I have undergone radical transformation after discovering ADHD coaching, and life-coaching. For the past decade, my typical day consisted of having 300 charts backlog, a graveyard of unfinished projects, and a lack of time awareness. I didn't realize that I was not filling my own cup. I was running on fumes. The last year I figured out the secret; learn to stay in your lane. So now my mission is to help others develop systems that tap into their zone of genius. So they too can reclaim their personal lives back like I have.
Hello physicians. I want to invite you to go to my website, ADHD-lifecoach.com
This is the perfect time for you to realize that, June 20th is right around the corner.
That's when my 12 Week Physician Coaching class is going to start, it consists of 20 CME credits. Make sure you get on my waiting list and you can do that also by sending me an email on my website, you can contact me. You can get all the details. All right. Take care.
Awesome. This morning, I'm so excited. That's the word? Awesome. That's how I feel when I talked to Dr. Latifat. Awesome. Awesome. Awesome. So I have an amazing treat for you guys. Dr. Latifat Akintade is a practicing gastroenterologist and she's the founder of money coaching school for bad-ass women physicians. She's also the host of the Money Fit MD podcast, and she combines her interest in personal finance.
Her training as a certified life coach and her passion for physician wellness. So her mission is to equipped every physician with the tools that they need to be financially liberated and find their purpose to live out their calling. So listen here, she's helping you guys live and practice medicine and your own terms.
So it's such an amazing, awesome experience that we're going to have today as we chat with her. So please pay attention, Dr. Latifat, would you mind telling us how you got here? This sounds so amazing.
Dr. Latifat Akintade: Thank you. Thank you so much for having me. It's a pleasure to get to hang out with you finally right now. Thanks for having me here for those that I haven't met, I'm Dr. Latifat, I'm a GI doc like Diana mentioned, and I live in California. I'm the mother of three little ladies that are absolutely absolutely love, they drive me nuts. And it's great. And I have the distinct honor and pleasure of being the owner, the creator, the coach and the director, really all of my Money Fit MD Money School For Bad-Ass Women Physicians.
It's a community that's growing for women physicians. That want to be bad-ass at money. And the reason why that is important is, you know, it's interesting. People tell me that. I help women become bad-ass at money. And I have this thought and this belief that every woman, physician, every physician, actually, every human has what it takes to have money.
So people already have the inner, I think about them like an onion. They already have the core of bad-ass theory. And what I literally do is just help them remove the layers, like the onion skin, and then they shine and we add some knowledge. From financial education to that. And poof people do crazy stuff in the world, including have money live well, decrease burn out, change their own generation or direction and generational trees and really create the life that they want to have.
Dr. Diana Mercado-Marmarosh: Yeah, that's great. Now, were you somebody who was always good with his money situation or like the necessity get us here?
Dr. Latifat Akintade: Necessity is the mother of invention. It got me here. No, I knew nothing. Absolutely nothing about money. The only thing I knew about money was that to spend it. And it wasn't a way I wasn't even spending frivolously, but my centrals were probably at that point in my life more than a lot of people's essentials.
So I have financial responsibilities in my family. And even as a med student, as a resident, I needed to, I was the one with the more money out of my siblings. And we lived together, even though my source of income was literally student loans. But I didn't know anything about money though. I had debt.
I didn't know how much I owed. I didn't know who I owed. I know that I got, letters from auntie Sally. But I didn't know. She was the only person that I owed or not. I just knew that she was the auntie that was all up in my stuff, but I didn't really know how to address the money stuff. I was busy as a resident and then as a fellow, but the interesting thing was no one had also taught me.
So here it was, no one had taught me. I had, life was busy. I chose to ignore it. And so those two things together created me with the fear of what was going to happen to my life if I didn't get my money and stuff together. So, and that happened during fellowship. At that point, I had two kids and I remember sitting down one day looking at my daughter and thinking, if I did not get my money issue together, we were going to create a life that was me overworking, burn out, not having a choice in how I practice medicine, not having a choice to be the kind of mom that I want to be. And that scared me to pieces. And that was the only reason why I decided to get my money crap together. And that was literally six months ago, six years, not months, six years ago.
Dr. Diana Mercado-Marmarosh: Yeah. So what I hear you say is you made the decision to understand money, even though nobody had ever taught it. So this is something that we can learn to do for ourselves.
Dr. Latifat Akintade: Absolutely. I mean, no one, I taught me, I didn't know how to do it. And even when I started the language was really foreign to me.
Right. I was learning the same lingo, like 5 billion times. I mean, at some point I was like, wait a minute, what's going on? I'm a physician. I do crazy stuff. I learned all this amazing stuff yet. I can't even figure out what a 401k is. Right. Yeah. So you can realize that it's not about the actual knowledge and learning, because if it is every physician would be like a multi-billion a year, because we're incredibly smart.
But there are reasons why that information doesn't seep into us there's a reason why we don't retain it. And part of it is the way that it's been taught can seem really complicated, right? Can seem really. Just trained and really it's a lot of, money's also shameful judgment full, and those actual things makes it hard for it to attract us and makes it hard for us to sit down and learn it and assimilate it.
And so for me, even when, even though I was at one stage, I didn't know. But after I decided to, once I jumped into it, it wasn't happening for me because of those baggage. So I pretty much had to figure out how to make money into a language that I could understand. And then I finally started getting, I was like, oh, I don't have to do it that way.
I don't have to hate myself. I don't have to cheat people. I don't have to like, you know, be like negative talk myself. Like you mean I can act. Learn to do this in a way that is kind and the, where that is simple in a way that is loving in a way that's not judgemental. And that's how I had to learn it for myself when it came to money.
Dr. Diana Mercado-Marmarosh: Yeah. You know, I think both of us have had this conversation, you know, when we've been in, in different places, I've been the, have the privilege to hang out with you in, in some conferences where, you know, we don't realize that we are carrying around. The beliefs of other people about money or about, you know, education or about whatever.
And that, like you said, we have some limiting beliefs that we never questioned because that's just what has been taught to us. And like, sometimes we are not even aware that " " money feels this way or that way or whatever. And that actually prevents us from really stepping into, you know, living the life that we want, because money is a neutral thing.
Like it's not good or bad, but most of us, because of whatever we're carrying around our, I don't want to say baggage because some things could be actually very helpful. Like when we, maybe we're thinking, okay, if I invest in education, then I'm going to have a better outcome. And I'm living proof of that.
Like my parents, my dad was a welder, right. My parents were immigrants. And so they knew that if they invested in my education, then I could, here I am, I'm a doctor. Right. They knew that some investment, like some loans are good. And then some things like maybe we go spend money on some things that maybe are not as best assets to us, but we don't know at that time.
That's the beauty of it, like understanding that when money comes, like, how can I take care of it? How can I use it towards me to help me and benefit me instead of like all of a sudden being like, well, I'm used to being stretching every quarter or in looking for coupons, because then we have all these other patterns that we don't realize that.
And so you, you know, that I have ADHD and, and the people who are listening here have ADHD. And because part of it is like, we want that dopamine high of like finding something cheap. We buy all this shit that we don't really need because we found it cheap. Right. And then we forgot. We have like 10 things of that because we bought it on sale.
And then, it's like this thing where you're like, really now you're spending $20 to host 25 cent items in there. And so it's this thing where you have to realize that sometimes getting things for cheap. You pay for it in the long run because all of a sudden you're hoarding stuff and all kinds of stuff, but at the same time, you, you didn't go and compare, oh, which medical school is the cheapest.
So I can go into that one. Like you were like, wherever they accept me, I'm going right. And so it's so interesting if we don't question our beliefs. And if we don't realize that money, if it's not aligned with our values can get us into trouble.
Dr. Latifat Akintade: Absolutely. And I love that. I mean, I love the, so much, you said that I want to dig into and some people may go, oh, you know what?
The limiting beliefs I'm make it even more simple. Cause I love simple. I'm like, we can do complicated, but we don't have to. Why not? Right. And it's just like literally thinking about it, like the sentences in our brain. Right. And we'll have multiple sentences in our brain every day. Some more than others, some can be 6,000, some can be like tens of thousands.
Right. And just sort of like the sentences that are landing in our brain. And all of our sentences is a lot of times with tend to choose sentences that feel familiar. To us. Right. We feel like, okay, the ones that are familiar to us, it's like, oh, you know, you looking in this, it's like, you go to a buffet.
I'm Nigerian. I love Nigerian food. I like other foods as well. But if you put me at a buffet, the first thing I'm going to grab me and be like the Nigerian popup, because I'm like, okay, I know what this tastes like. Right. So what happens is we're getting all the sentences in our brain and we choose them, the ones that feel familiar. And the ones that feel familiar, that feel comfortable are the ones that we've lived in, right. Things that we've heard from our families, from the society, right. Things like, you know, women should be stay at home parents or, you know, guys should be the ones in charge of money or money's the root of evil.
We choose those thoughts that are familiar. And sometimes we don't question them. You know, I'm not going to say good or bad, I'm going to say, does it help you achieve what you want or not? So the thing is, if you're choosing sentences that feel familiar and it's creating the status quo, but you don't want the status quo, you want to create something else.
Then that means that you may have to choose something that may feel uncomfortable, not familiar, but you know, in your excellence that it's going to get you the result that you want. So if you've been thinking that money is hard, that could be a sentence. That's literally a sentence in your brain. That's come from generations.
And because. You know, again, we choose what feels familiar. You have evidence you're like money feels hard. And then you look around for evidence and like, oh yeah, there was that one time that I couldn't do 5099.29 plus 10,000 at 29.559. And they're like, see, money is hard. But that was the time that I heard my grandma say money was hard because she went out to the store and forgot her purse at home.
See, money's hard. Like we start to make ridiculous, crazy evidences just to support that comfortable sentence that would pick in. So in order to change, just like, you know, if you're going to the gym in order to like, get a different results, you have to work out and he may be a little uncomfortable.
And that is choosing new sentences that may feel uncomfortable, may feel different, but you know that if you continue on that line, it's gonna feel more familiar and you're going to get the muscle that you want. So that's where that I think about, when it comes to choosing those sentences in your brain, that's going to work well on may, help you produce the result that you want.
The other thing I wanted to address is with ADHD and also other people, like there's always something happening in this world that. Me reasons to distract you from creating what you want to create. Like there's life, that's always happening. There's never a perfect time when things are so together, right.
That you don't now it's like altogether. And what I like is I want my women to be able to have their kids. Right. So maybe your brain is one that is like newer divergent, and you have like 10,000 stimuli coming at the same time. You doing all this other amazing stuff. But the question now is because we know your brain is beautiful and there's nothing wrong with you and your brain is amazing.
In fact, I pay one of my coaches that I pay multiple five figures every year. I pay her for her brand and she's a neurodivergent brain. I love her. Right. So your brain is value. Your brain is an asset. However, what we'll want to do is how can we make it so that you are building your wealth, your net worth is growing even while your brain is braining and doing what it does.
Right. And that's how you. Create systems for yourself. You create automated system where it's like, okay, what decision am I making about where I want to invest? And every month it's scheduled to go automate into that. So while your brand is here, braining and doing what, your, whatever kind of brand you have, your net worth is still growing because you've already automated.
And so if you're like, I still want to go buy 20 things, which there, you know, of course that's what Dan is doing here to help you optimize your life and helps you grow the life you want with whatever kind of amazing, beautiful brain you have. And while you're doing that, you're networking can still be growing.
So it doesn't have to be. Either or, and what we don't want is for, you know, you've been a single mom, you've been a married person. You've been the primary breadwinner you with a newer divergent brain. You with your neuro-typical brain, we don't want whatever, but to be the reason why you don't have money, I want you to have money and also get to leave the full experience of the kind of amazing brain that you have.
Dr. Diana Mercado-Marmarosh: Yeah, so many amazing gems that you just pointed out. So like you said, sometimes the thought money is hard. People also associate that with, I have to work really hard to get the money, right? Like they, they put those two things almost side by side. And so, like you said, Some of us with neurodiversity brains, if it's too simple, sometimes we're like, that's boring, but if it's complicated, we're like, okay, sign me up.
But then somehow the money comes up and you're like, oh no, that's too hard and money. I don't understand. And then they walk away. Right. But like you just said, why can't you just look at those simple sentences that keep coming up and then focus, whether that sentence helps you or hinders you? Like, is it getting you closer or farther away from what you want?
And like we said, money is not good or bad. The more money you have, if you normally are doing your thing and have a high energy, and like you're investing, you're going to find more ways to make it work, to help yourself, your family, your community, right. Yeah. The more you have, the more you can invest in do stuff.
Right. And like she just said about automation, you know, it could go both ways. If you have your credit cards saved in your Amazon and you quickly go and purchase everything because it's so easy, then maybe that's not something you want to automate, but yeah. You know that if you have yourself, your credit card saved to pay your water bill to pay whatever it is, then you're not going to get the fee.
So that's where you want to automate. Right? But like she just mentioned, if you have it in your calendar, that this is how I'm going to build my wealth every single month so that when life happens, You don't look back and you're like, oh my God, 10 years just went by. I forgot to even fill out my w four or whatever form I had to do.
And I didn't even realize I never paid money into it. You'd be surprised how many people. Oh, I forgot to fill that form for the FSA or I didn't know. I had to use that money or dah, dah, dah, dah. And so again, it's so good to get to talk to physicians or to talk to anybody else who understands money. If it's not coaching financial advisors, bookkeepers.
This is the fastest way for you to get somewhere. When you yourself don't have a tool, like sure. You can figure it out by why do you, why can't you take a shortcut? There are some shortcuts, like Latifat had to learn it years of learning it, but now she can give it to us in like a cool package. that you can do it yourself.
Dr. Latifat Akintade: Absolutely. And I think that part of it too is whatever that is. We all have our baggage for lack of a better term, right. We've learnt a lot of amazing stuff from our families. And we've also learned some things that may have served our families, but not serving us. And they did their best and taught us. What helped them survive, right? So maybe for you, you know, for you, maybe your family immigrated from somewhere and they have to hustle and work crazy and work day and night. And for them, that action was what led them to have the money, to be able to take care of you. They did the best that you can, but in my opinion, now they've ended the Baton to.
And we get to take that to a different level. If we keep doing it the same exact way, we keep creating the same exact cycle and we're going to create the same pathway for future generations, but we get to take what they've ended the Baton. Now we're going to take that with our M D R D O R M D BS degree, the access we have to internet the access
we have to coach it that maybe they did not have them. They may think coaching is a waste of money because they didn't have money to even take a break from anything, talk less. Right. And that's been the thing, honestly, when I find out, found out about all this like mindset mentality, I actually cried because I was like, wait a minute.
You mean, this is the key. And no one has been telling us this and we've been told to work harder and grind hard. And that really was not the key to this. And I literally cried. And that is why, like my goal and my mission in this season of my life is to give this like, to the ends of the earth, because I'm like with those tools, it doesn't have to be a hustle.
Like it was right. It doesn't mean that life is going to be perfect. We are humans. Life is never going to be perfect. But what gets to happen is as life is happening, we still get to elevate our generation. With to get to elevate and do it better and differently than the other, you know, the feed the past generation had, my parents wanted me, like, they encouraged me to be a physician as well.
And in fact, with, you know, business or all that stuff, That was unfortunately late right now. What I said that was a waste of time because for him, he thought that being a physician is the ticket to success. That having been a physician means you have secure finances. Being a physician means automatic.
Well, those were the sentences in his own brain. And so for me now it's not to now take the center. That it was in his brain and automatically wrapped myself in it. If that's not, what's going to help me. Right. It's me understanding that. Okay. What was the goal that he wanted? The goal was for his kids to have a good financial future.
And now I get to create the, how that may not be how he thought, because now I have resources that he did not have. And that is what I wish we would all do is learn about the mission. But the, how has. And that is about investing in ourselves. It's about automating, it's about learning the ABCs of the financial world.
It doesn't have to be complicated. I don't do complicated stuff. I can, but I just choose not to. And it doesn't have to be shame or judgment full.
Dr. Diana Mercado-Marmarosh: Yes. Or so many gems there. Yes. Like if you look back, everybody's always doing their best. Right. I don't think they wake up and they're like, how can I make this harder on myself?
How can I make this harder on my family? Right. Like, I think everybody's functioning from a place of, I'm just trying to do better, than my parents did and their parents did, and their parents did. And I always tell people, you know, the more, you know, more decisions you made, but then more comes up, right?
And so data comes in, you pivot data comes in, you pivot, right? And so this is the key, keeping it simple. Trying different thoughts, trying different systems and seeing which one is getting you closer. And like you said, sometimes it is a little bit uncomfortable or a lot uncomfortable, right. Because we're not used to.
However, this is a beautiful thing. If you know where you're going, if you can envision yourself being, and it doesn't necessarily, and wealth, yes, we're talking about money, but we're also talking about the wealth of your soul. We're talking about the wealth of the time of freedom, right? Like all kinds of wealth that you can get to, if you decide to.
And if you look around and see who has done that, are they walking the talk, you know, and can I talk to them? Can I get their advice and then knowing, okay, how can I personalize it for me? Right. Because everybody's way might not be your way, but if you're at least in the room, when you're seeing several people getting it, then it's a lot easier.
Dr. Latifat Akintade: Absolutely. And I love that cause it's so we're also different and that's the beauty of it. I'm so pro diversity because I mean, I'm a black woman talking about money. I want every human to have money because I truly believe that we're not meant to fit together. We're all meant to be different and that's a beautiful thing.
Right. And so I'll give you an example, like in my money school, there was literally someone in there who had been. You know her challenge with money, she has been struggling with money, how to do it. It just fell hard. And I said, listen for you specifically, what gives you joy? What fuels your soul? What gives you joy?
And for her, it was like light and play. So her path to money, her path to money is play. So she started playing and her goal, her work was to find a way to play everyday. Do you know that when we chose to take that approach with her within a week, she had accomplished things that had taken her months.
She'd been stalling for months. We're all different. And the part of the problem is we think we have to do with the same way. We don't have to. It's a matter of figuring out the path that works with you and that's why it's so like, we cannot ignore the mindset part of it because the mindset, the way I think about. For those that are in healthcare, it is like our genotype, right? It's like the genotype and then the phenotype gets to be different. But when we get the genotype, right, then you have, you can change the condition and choose different actions and still be successful. It is so, so important for us to make sure we're not trying to do it exactly like someone else.
 Yes, they can be an example, but that example doesn't have to be just in the actions they're taking in the mentality that they have that is helped them succeed. And that is what we can learn from.
Dr. Diana Mercado-Marmarosh: Yeah. So that, that brings me up the mindset of like fixed versus growth mindset. Right. And I hadn't really even learned about those concepts until this last two years.
And to me, like, I dunno when I make goals, I might not know how I'm going to get them done, but if they're so important, I know I'm going to try A through Z until it gets done. And, sometimes you don't realize that maybe that is a growth mindset, right? Because you have decided it doesn't matter that you will learn and you'll figure it out.
But somebody with a fixed mindset, they don't put themselves out there because they might be a little bit afraid that they might fear they might disappoint somebody or something. With a fixed mindset. It's really hard because you don't realize you're the one telling yourself, no, you have no awareness that you already, that nothing's going to ever change because you're not seeking the possibility of a change.
And so the best example I give, and I always talk to my patients about this now that I've realized, I said, you know, I tell them, you know, It's what you're thinking. And they look at me like I'm crazy and I said, no. If you had $10,000 in your bank account and you needed to buy a truck, you might think, oh, that truck is for 40,000.
I can't, I can't buy that. But that's your fixed mindset? Another person can think, well, I have 10,000, but I don't think I can spend all 10,000. Well, maybe I, I keep five there just in case. Okay. I just need 35. What can I do to find $35,000? Like that's a growth mindset. It's still the $10,000 in the bank and that hasn't changed.
Right. But if you're now thinking of possibilities to get that 35. You start thinking, oh, I might sell some tamales. I might have a raffle. I might buy some stuff to cut lawns. Or like you start to think, you're not just gonna be like, no, well, that's a good idea. I mean, but I can't afford that truck. I mean, nobody in my family can afford that truck and that's it.
Like they never leave that. Right. So this growth mindset and fixed mindset makes a big difference.
Dr. Latifat Akintade: Absolutely. Absolutely. And it's very, so I love that analogy. I love that explanation. One that I like to share with people is it's it kind of fits into growth and scarcity mindset, right? Because growth mindset is also based on scarcity mindset.
It's ignoring the fact that there may be other options. It's like, you know, having a key that's like hugging like one toy and say, no, I'm never going to let go of this toy. You're like, it's fine. The toy is dirty and it's to be washed, like I'm never going to. So that is like fixed mindset and also scarcity mindset.
And I had a, one of my amazing friends. Her daughter was having some issues and I got to speak with her daughter and I said, it's literally like facing the wall, staring at the wall and saying, there is no door in this. There's no door. There's no door. There's no door. It's like you are literally staring at one space only.
Is it possible that there could be a door behind you? No, there is no door, right? That is a choice that we can choose. Or we can say, is it possible that they may be aware out of this room? Is there possible there's a window. And the only way you're going to do that is by one, acknowledging that maybe it's possible.
That maybe it is possible and be willing to take the chance I'd exploring that small chance of possibility. And then moving, doing something different, it takes a move in your body. It takes a changing your actions, it changing your mindset, which is uncomfortable because you move in your muscle. Right.
And then looking around, oh, actually that may be a door. Or maybe at first look, you don't see a door. Cause it's like wall filled with curtains and now you manage. That father and go move the carton out of the way and that same way it is going to help you grow your life. And it's going to help you grow your wealth because maybe you've made mistakes in the past.
And you're like, all investment is bad. All right. It's like, maybe is it possible that there's a human in this world? That's a good example of what money should look like. Is it possible? That's a way of investing that is ethical. Is it possible that you can learn money and help other people learn? Is it possible that, I mean, yes.
I know that your parents tried, they invested in stuff, but is it possible that you are the one in your family that's going to cause a change in the financial direction? Is it possible like, no, it's not possible. No, it's not possible. No, it's not possible. Maybe it is possible. Maybe there's a 1% chance.
Right. And the thing is this, I like to remind people about the concept of seeds. Imagine, imagine it will look at an orange seed and we're like, it's small, it's too small. The chances too small. It's impossible. It's a small seed. How can you expect to have a juicy orange from something as tiny and dry as this. Right? So maybe it is possible. So I like to remind people that whatever is in your hands, like, look at your hand to have seeds in your hands and you'll see maybe the clinical income you're earning. It may be the knowledge you already have. Maybe the resources you have access to. It may be the podcast you're on right now.
Maybe the podcasts that I have a what I'm talking about money, like where is the seed? And what are you doing with the seed? Are you planting the seed? Are you sitting down and thinking it's impossible? The chances low. Thank God. The farmers don't think that at the beginning of the season, because if they do, we would all be screwed by now because how dare we think that it's possible to have like a big plant of corn that grows many corn from one seed of corn.
So, what seat do you have in your hands? Are you going to plant it? Right? Are you gonna plant that seed? Are you going to water it? Are you going to take the actions? Are you going to invest your money? I ain't going to look at where your money is going. Are you going to do it on any emergency fund? Are you going to ask for more money at your job?
Are you going to stop billing appropriately? Are you going to rest? Are you going to take time off? Are you going to pay to have someone take care of your kids from one extra hour or two extra hours so that you can breathe. Those are all invested into your wellness, or are you going to stay stuck and say it is not possible.
This is the only way is it possible or there's another way. Yes, maybe it feels like 1% chance, but thank God for 1% chance then God for that one. Spot of corn that is now growing into this big tree that is going to be able to feed our family. Like, what if it's possible?
Dr. Diana Mercado-Marmarosh: Yeah. Like so many gems there, again, you know, that 1% chance brings up for me, I'm thinking of, atomic habits and how he, how James talks about that.
What have we just tried to improve ourselves 1% every day? Like what would it look like at the end of three months at the end of six months? 30 years, right? If every single day you're just trying to improve yourself 1% and not because we have to, because we need to be better, but we were always home. But what if it would just help us to become who we want to, who we're dreaming too? Right? What if 1% is all it takes and the 1% makes a big difference. We might think it doesn't. And I always share this analogy from that book too, he talks about like 1% could go both ways. So 1%. If you don't correct it. Like if you thinking today, doesn't matter, I'll start tomorrow. Today. I'll eat that extra cookie today I will skip exercise. Today, I won't close my notes that 1% compounds. And before you know it all, you have all of a sudden, you have systems that are not supporting you because of your routine that you're allowing 1% to build up. Right. But the opposite holds true. 1%. If you start saving your money, if you start closely, and if you start taking that self care time, like it compounds too.
And he explains like that an airplane can take off. And if the pilot does not correct that 1% diversion with the flight that it's moving, that the airplane that could make the difference between landing at New York or like Washington DC. And 1% does not seem like a lot but makes a big difference.
And so this 1%, like she said, could be like the little hinge that opens the big window, right. To get you to where you're going and the possibility of what if. Instead of, no, I can't. What if I could, what if there was a better way to make more money to exercise more, to get more rest, to go on that vacation, to have your charts close, to decide on purpose that you are in the right environment by that work or in your family or whatever.
Right. That 1% really does make a deal.
Dr. Latifat Akintade: Completely agree 1% and the power of compounding, right? Because a lot of times, part of why we don't start is because it looks overwhelming and it looks like a huge fountain, but if you don't start walking up the mountain, you don't that climb. And it's always going to feel like that.
But everything compounds, you know, you may look up money and go, I've heard that I need, you know, 25 times what I spend per year to be financial independent, you know, that doesn't have to be just what you put in. Everything compounds, but if you don't start investing, it doesn't grow. Right. So that's a key and I need women physicians to be in the game.
I need minority women. I need women of color because we get to be an example of what's possible for those that are looking around and also saying there's no one in my family, that's done this. You get to be an example of what's possible. So when you just start right start where you are and nothing is too small to invest, you have a hundred, let's start. Do you have a thousand? Let's start. And before you know it, you get more excited cause it start seeing it builds. And suddenly you start investing more, your money grows, your knowledge grows, your life grows, and it's just the most beautiful thing. So one of the biggest fallacy that I hear is I don't have enough to start.
I can start. Right. Just start, just start because you don't, you will never succeed if you never start. And if you keep waiting for the perfect time, you just wasting time and we'll know the time in the market, when it comes to investment is the most important thing. So yes, absolutely. Love it. Love it.
Dr. Diana Mercado-Marmarosh: Is there any like books or any resources? Of course, you're going to give us all where they can find you a little later, but is there anything that you think that they should start and granted, I know that there is a difference between reading and then again, having the network and the support to help you implement what you're reading. If we're planting that seed, like you said, where could they even start at least?
Dr. Latifat Akintade: Absolutely. Absolutely. I mean, I have a podcast where I talk about all things, money and mindset. You literally can go in there right now and go listen to it. It's a Money Fit MD podcast. I talk about building wealth from the inside, out where you start from otherwise in terms of books, depending on where the major challenge you have is because I have people that read and don't execute or take actions.
So there may be even a knowledge gap. The white coat investor has a good book that I think is good for the basics of that. Check it out. Absolutely recommend a rich dad poor dad also has a good book that talks a lot about the mindset stuff. I'm writing a book right now that is probably going to be released at the end of the year or early in 2023.
I know I'm excited about it and it's literally. Putting together, the things that I wish people had taught us when it comes to the foundations of money so that we can actually execute and create the work that we want. Because what I find is that many times the information we just taught is not helping us.
Right. We're taught, like cut all the expenses in the world. Listen, you're going to cut until you bleed. Right? The bottom line is that's not how people build wealth. Yes. You take your money and redirect. But it also has to like go in from being a consumer, to being an owner. It goes from like going from being a saver to being an investor, like closing your hands, but going from that to like opening your hands up, like there's certain principles of money that will not be.
The other thing I think is really important is our relationship with money is super duper important. And unfortunately, there aren't a lot of books that talk about that out there. So I think that all of that is going to be important when it comes to money. But if you asking, where can I start right now?
I would say, absolutely go check out my podcast that is free. I have a lot of free resources on my, you know, my website that you can take advantage of. And of course I have the money school as well for women physicians that are like, okay, I just don't want, I don't have all the time in the world. I'm busy, but I want to learn the essential information.
And I want to have the sort of like the mindset piece that I need. And I want the community of women that are going to normalize this experience so that we can grow wealth together. And that is what I've created in the money school that I've created for women physicians.
Dr. Diana Mercado-Marmarosh: And what I hear is it's simple so that, you know, don't make the excuse.
Oh, I have ADHD. I don't have any time to go do this. She is packaging it in a way that it's a chewable implementation and she'll hold you to it that you implement it, so that, at the end of the day, we've talked about this so much. Like there's no project out there, or course out there, or coach out there who is going to cost you or make you do the hard work.
You know, everything is hard work, but why not do it in a place where you're going to be supported? Why not do it? Knowing that you're in a relationship that is going to, that has your best interest in mind and that you're going to do it both ways. Right. So, yes, please check out all her stuff. We need to all get our wealth aligned because nobody's gonna be like, oh my God, do you want more money? Let me give it to you. So you have to decide if that's something you want, whether for you, for your family, for your generations to come. And if that's something that you do want go talk to Dr. Latifat so she can give you the short cuts.
Dr. Latifat Akintade: Absolutely. Absolutely. You know, you still work, but for me, when it comes to money, my MOS simplified, I love things simple. I want it to be joyous. I want it to be effective and I want money, that's going to augment my life, not money that's going to grind me or burn me out, but money that's really going to be a reflection of what I want it to be.
And I truly believe that. And I don't care if you check out my program or not. The bottom line is if you're listening to this, I truly believe that you care about yourself and care about your life and you want the world to be a better place. And the way that I think about money is that money. Tool for that.
So whatever way you need to do in order to create that, I think you definitely should. And stop procrastinating. Just take one step because a lot of times we, like, we want to wit on two we're confident, but what we don't remember is that confidence comes through taking action, right? Because imagine every time you want to do the first time you deliver a baby, like, I want to be confident before I do my first week as a resident, we're never going to have any OB Docs.
So, what do we do? We learn the knowledge we take action. And the more of that confidence comes through taking action. You don't get confident. And then you take the action. Confidence comes, yes, you learn the truth because the OB docs, they had to learn the stuff, right. They had to learn, but you will tell, they would tell you that their confidence grows.
The more action they've taken. And that is why I want every single one of the guests who commit today to take an action. Any. I want to hear about it. Share with me, find me on social media. Let me know you took an action and I will high five you, because I'm truly, truly believe that women physicians are going to solve a lot of problems in this world and women in general.
And that's what it means when you have money in your hands. It's a great thing for the world. And I cannot wait to high-five you.
Dr. Diana Mercado-Marmarosh: Awesome. So tell us, where can we find you on the social media?
Dr. Latifat Akintade: So you can find me on Instagram and also on Facebook Money Fit MD, or you can go on my website, moneyfitmd.com. And also you can go on my podcast, which is The Money Fit MD podcast.
And I will be in your ears talking to you about how we can help you have money from the inside out.
Dr. Diana Mercado-Marmarosh: Awesome. Well, this has been an amazing, interview, and I'm just going to say this last part, which people laugh when I say this part, you know, because we have ADHD, sometimes we zone out. So let's say we just started paying attention right this moment. What do you want to tell them? So they can take this tool away.
Dr. Latifat Akintade: I want you to go find my podcasts, The Money Fit MD podcast. That's one. And I want you to take one action today that you've been avoiding taking, but you know, it's the exact direction you need to go with your money and don't forget to find me on social media Money Fit MD.
So I can high-five you, celebrate you, because the more we celebrate you, the more wins you're going to have. And I'm all about that.
Dr. Diana Mercado-Marmarosh: Awesome. Well, thank you so much. You have. Imperfect action is better than perfect inaction. So get to it, have a blessed day.
As someone who understands that time is our most valuable asset. I am so honored that you have shared your time with me. Please click the subscribe button and join my Facebook group: Beyond ADHD, A Physician's Perspective so that you never missed an opportunity to create time at will. Do share this podcast with your friends they too can can learn to live life and stay in their own lane.
 
Link to my website to register for June 2022 Cohort:
Transformation Physician Group Coaching
Email: overachievewithadhd@gmail.com
Dr Latifat is a practicing Gastroenterologist and founder of The Money Coaching school for badass women physicians. She is also the host of The MoneyFitMD podcast. She combines her interest in personal finance, her training as a certified life coach and her passion for physician wellness. Her mission is to equip every physician with the tools they need to be financially liberated to find their purpose and live out their calling.
Website: https://www.moneyfitmd.com/
YouTube: MoneyFitMD
Podcast: MoneyFitMD
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Beyond ADHD A Physicians Perspective: Dr. Rebecca Berens (Women’s Health and Breastfeeding Medicine Founder of Vida Family Medicine)

Dr. Rebecca Berens: Whether you're a physician or a patient taking those eating symptoms that you're feeling seriously, not feeling stigmatized, talking about. Because it's so life-changing to not have an eating disorder anymore. And when you're going through it, you feel like it's never going to end. But if you are feeling any of those symptoms, discomfort around food restriction, bingeing purging, any of that, please just talk to someone about it. And get the right kind of help because it is life changing.
Dr. Diana Mercado-Marmarosh: Hi, welcome to Beyond ADHD, A Physician's Perspective podcast. I am your host, Dr. Diana Mercado-Marmarosh. I'm a Family Medicine doc, with ADHD, practicing in a rural setting in Texas. I am a mother to two very energetic toddlers who are three and four years of age.
And in the past year, I have undergone radical transformation after discovering ADHD coaching, and life-coaching. For the past decade, my typical day consisted of having 300 charts backlog, a graveyard of unfinished projects, and a lack of time awareness. I didn't realize that I was not filling my own cup. I was running on fumes. The last year I figured out the secret; learn to stay in your lane. So now my mission is to help others develop systems that tap into their zone of genius. So they too can reclaim their personal lives back like I have.
Hello physicians. I want to invite you to go to my website, ADHD-lifecoach.com and register for the masterclass that is going to be happening on May 28th at 11 central time. It's going to be a really good masterclass that is going to teach you how to leave work at work. We are going to be talking how to chart with ease. When you come to this master class, you are going to be able to walk away with practical tips that will help you to develop an empowering mindset for efficient charty.
And you will also learn how to implement boundaries that will improve your patient care and free up your time. Of course, you're gonna recognize which distractions might be getting in the way of you closing those charts. So sign up, go to my website, ADHD dash life, coach.com. And also this is the perfect time for you to realize that, you know, June 20th is right around the corner.
That's when my, uh, 12 week physician. Coaching class is going to start it constantly. 20 CME credits. Make sure you get on my waiting list and you can do that also by sending me an email on my website, you can contact me. You can get all the details. All right. Take care.
I'm excited today. I am speaking with Dr. Rebecca Behrens, she's a family medicine and she's also a breastfeeding lactation consultant. So exciting. She grew up in Houston and she has stayed in the area. Lucky her right? And the nice traffic I'm being the seizures because obviously I stayed at myself, you know, during med school and residency in Houston.
So I am so happy to be speaking with Dr. Berens today. Her family medicine residency was actually at Georgetown University and she's worked for several years in F Q H C in south Philadelphia. And. Came back to Houston and has shortly opened her private practice. And she treats individuals and families of all ages, but it specializes in women's health and breastfeeding medicine.
And the really cool thing about Dr. Berens is that she does. It's a holistic approach to her patient's care. And she takes patients and otomy very, very serious. she works together with, with her patients to help them meet their health goals. She herself suffered from an eating disorder while she was in college and in medical school and her recovery has greatly shaped her practice.
Since she works with many of them who are recovering from, or have recovered from this eating disorders. And so she's the example of what is possible. So this is her mission and she's pursuing a lot of other endeavors. Okay. I think I butchered that last part. Tell me, what are you currently a member of?
Dr. Rebecca Berens: It's I'm sorry. It's the International Association of Eating Disorder Professionals. And that CEDS is, Certified Eating Disorder Specialist.
Dr. Diana Mercado-Marmarosh: Awesome. Thank you so much.
Dr. Rebecca Berens: Sorry, I should've printed that out for you. I apologize.
Dr. Diana Mercado-Marmarosh: So today, like I said, we have a very special guest and you guys really have to lean in because this is something that unfortunately is not talked about enough.
And when we think ADHD, all we're thinking about is somebody who is not focusing. Right. But we're not thinking about why they're not focusing or what they're using to try to get themselves, to focus right? This is why this is important because the body's going to get what it needs. And sometimes, unfortunately it's going to be through wine or it's going to be through food, or sometimes we're starting out to like unconsciously get, start running or start meditating. Right. And so that we're hoping the latter is what's happening, but sometimes we'd not even aware that we're using wine or some substance abuse for other things. So, today we're going to have a very special talk. So Dr. Rebecca, you tell us a little bit about why this is your mission in which I kind of already alluded to it. And anything that you've noticed in terms of maybe ADHD coming into part with this.
Dr. Rebecca Berens: Yeah, absolutely. So, so as you said in my bio, I did, I suffered from an eating disorder in college and medical school. I had anorexia and as I was going through my recovery it's as many eating disorders do, it shifted from restrictive, purely restrictive anorexia to, purging and bingeing. And this is the very question of how eating disorders happen when you're going through recovery, if you're not getting adequate support. So, you know, going through that experience, I really did not have a lot of support from professionals during my recovery, until much later. and so, it's just something that I've always had in the back of my mind whenever I'm treating a patient, I like to ask about it because I know it's common and I know it's not often brought up and I want to make sure that any patient that I'm seeing is going to get better support than what I got when I was going through it.
I never actually intended to treat eating disorders because I was concerned about being triggered or, you know, having difficulty with that. But I'm at a place now where I feel very comfortable with it and I feel very passionate. About treating these patients. And so I think what I've noticed in my current practice, I have many patients who have ADHD who are seeking care for me because in my private practice setting, I have a membership model.
I have a lot more time to spend with them. So I'm really able to better care of the patients who have ADHD, who are often turf to psych by primary care doctors, because we just don't have time. And so in talking to several of those patients with ADHD, I noticed some symptoms of binge eating disorder, or of other, you know, other types of eating disorders.
And I wondered, I wonder if this is related to ADHD in any way, because I, it was literally three people in a row that I saw that all had very similar stories. And so I started to do a little bit of digging and I found out there is actually a link between ADHD and some eating disorders. So, something that I've just sort of realizing I'm trying to better treat my patients.
Dr. Diana Mercado-Marmarosh: Do you think it's because they're using the food as a way to increase the dopamine, to get them to do certain things? Or what do you think is that correlations?
Dr. Rebecca Berens: So I'm in the research that I've done in the patients that I've seen, who have these, I think it's a couple of things.
You know, eating disorders are rarely about food. They're usually emotion. They're usually about trying to take control over something that you can control because other things in your life seem out of your control, which I know for many people with ADHD, There is, a feeling of being out of control because you don't have the ability to do the things that you need to do.
Your brain is blocking you from doing the things you need to do, and you know, there's a lot of, as you all know, everyone who's listening and you certainly, it's a big problem. And so that's usually. The predisposing factor to an eating disorder, it's usually ends up being triggered by someone being told to lose weight or trying to get healthier, and then trying to take more control of their eating.
And then it becomes an emotional control as well as this weight obsession. And so that's usually how it starts. And then there are some factors that predispose someone to, because a lot of people diet in the U S it's very common. It's something that we talk about all the time in our culture problematic, but it's a thing.
And plenty of people who diet don't have eating disorders, but there are certain people who are going to have personality traits or neurochemistry. That's going to predispose them to then develop a full-blown eating disorder when they start engaging in a dieting behavior. And one of those traits is Alexithymia.
Which is, a trait that basically it's a personality trait and it basically means difficulty understanding or explaining the emotion that one is feeling. And so if you're not able to, to understand, explain, you know, talk about what you're feeling, you're going to try to control. Unexplained feeling in some other way.
And that may present itself in an eating disorder. And it's a sustaining factor in eating disorders. And that trait is actually associated with impulsivity. So I suspect that has part of the connection is coming from that trait. The other thing that I think is, is a predisposing factor for someone with ADHD is if you do have any level of impulsivity, you may have a binge episode kind of impulsively.
Because you're feeling bad or something's going on in your life, or you did meet anything all day because you were distracted and then you're super, super hungry. And then you binge and, you know, any of those things could happen. And then you may feel like, oh, I feel so full. And then you may try to impulsively do something to correct that.
So it's such as a purging behavior. And so the eating disorders that are most correlated with ADHD are bulemia and binge eating disorder. Not surprisingly because. It is a more impulsive behavior than a restriction, which requires overtime constant focus on restriction. This is more of an impulsive in the moment behavior that then becomes a habit that then becomes sustained by all the other factors that contribute to the eating disorder.
Dr. Diana Mercado-Marmarosh: Wow. That's so insightful. I had never put that together, but like, now that you've mentioned it, you know, I do see sometimes in myself and sometimes in my clients that it was not until I discovered coaching that I started to get in tune with like my feelings and that awareness, because I had no idea, like I had no idea why I would all of a sudden be okay.
And then like two minutes later, I was listening to my shit, like, you know, and I don't mean that in a way, but it's like, I would be so overstimulated or so much stuff was asking for my attention that I would just be like, yeah, Leave me alone. Right? Like, and all of a sudden there everybody's looking at me like what happened?
And I'm like, well, why did you pull me out of the room? Like, why do I need to sign that right this second? Why is the phone ringing and why is the patient asking me 5 question you and again, I can say, then you forgot you haven't eaten. Right? And so like, you mix it in with all these things and those that are in your, this irrational person to everybody else, but it makes sense, like you just described.
You were not even aware of the motions that got you to that place or the steps that got you to there. Like now of course I can look back and be like, well, of course you didn't set that boundary there. You didn't set that boundary there. You didn't tell them not to double book. You didn't tell him not to like open the door and list.
There's fire, you know, like there was so many things that I didn't have any awareness. And even now when I'm coaching somebody or even when I'm being coached, they're like, well, where is it in your body? And I'm like, well, why are we talking about my body? And they're like, well, what emotion are you feeling now?
Are you angry? Are you sad? Are you? And I'm like, why does it matter? They're like, well, just lean into it. You know? And so it's funny because yeah, I had no awareness and sometimes my whole day. Revolved around, like, what do I feel like eating today? Like the whole day, like it was consumed with feely, like what I wanted to be sometimes.
And so it's so interesting. So, I don't know that I ever suffered from Bulimia, I think I enjoyed every single pound that I ate. But you know, I think it was providing that emotional support or comfort in the moment. And I can see that how the times that I was so stressful because I was running in high school.
I didn't gain that much weight. But then when I got to college, you know, all of a sudden I went up in weight and then I started running and then I lost weight. And then I got to med school. I went up in weight and then I started running. Then I lost weight. And so it was this period. Have you seen the food, like you said, maybe as a way to not feel my emotions because I didn't even know that I did regulate them or anything or have awareness of it.
Dr. Rebecca Berens: Yeah. And I mean, it's a super common, it's a super common phenomenon and, you know, there's, there's diagnostic criteria of when it is this emotionally eating disorder, but you know, it, if you are someone who is predisposed, neurologically, And based on your socioeconomic situation, your family dynamics, you know, all of these things are gonna play into, to the development of an eating disorder.
But if you have some of these predisposing factors that ADHD will predispose you to, it does increase your risk of progressing into an eating disorder. And so, it's something that, you know, since I've noticed this link between in some of my patients, I am, super mindful. Now every time I do see a patient with ADHD or really anyone because it's so common to ask about eating habits, ask about, you know, doing some screening for meeting sources. There are verified, validated screening tools for eating disorders that I think should be more widely used, and what you discussed specifically about that transition from high school to college college, to med school, you know, these periods of time, especially high school to college where you're finishing up puberty and your life is changing and your stress level is changing and your control over your life is changing. Your independence level is changing. That is the classic time when an eating disorder starts, because it's so much for you to cope with. And if you don't have the tools at hand, and if you're, you know, genetically biochemically and neurologically predisposed, it's very easy for an eating disorder to develop very quickly and progress very quickly.
Dr. Diana Mercado-Marmarosh: So would you give us any tips? I know there's some of us who are physicians who are hearing, how can we ask this question? And I know you said their screening questionnaires, and maybe you can tell us later on which ones and we can put it on the link.
How could I be sensitive enough to ask so that it doesn't like, you know, trigger them or not the trigger then, so that I'm, I am being mindful, you know? How could we ask
something like that?
Dr. Rebecca Berens: Yeah. So the two validated screening tools are the scoff S C O F F, and the SDE. those are the two validated screening and I personally think we should use those, like at an annual wellness exam for real. I mean, it's obviously eating disorders are more common in women. Overall binge eating disorder is actually roughly equivalent between women and men. But anyone, any woman really from mid to late adolescents until forever.
Really? I think it's a good screening tool to have. It's a very quick, it's just a few questions. And it can be an opening point for a conversation. And so I think adding that screening tool would be very valuable and especially in a patient who's predisposed, like if they have ADHD or if they live in a larger body, if they have a family member with an eating disorder or another mood disorder, these are all people who are going to be at higher risk.
I think just adding that screening tool into a preventative exam or an ADHD followup, or, you know, any of those kinds of things or mood disorder follow up. Just asking the questions because there's a lot of stigma about it and people are not necessarily going to bring it up. But I think even more importantly than that is the language that you're using around weight with a patient, because there's a lot of stigma that comes from doctors to patients that is very triggering.
And obviously, you know, as doctors, we're on health promotion and we want to make sure we're helping our patients reach their best level of health, but making the end point. Is rarely helpful because it's not always, it's not always directly correlated with the person's metabolic health and someone who genetically lives in a larger body.
It may not be realistic for them to get to a, you know, quote unquote normal BMI that may not even be healthy for them. Focusing on the behaviors that are healthy, you know, eating fiber, getting enough exercise, getting enough sleep, getting enough nutrients, focusing on these health behaviors rather than on the number on the scale, I think is a really helpful way.
And it also just helps these patients feel less stigmatized. A lot of the patients that I see are patients who maybe haven't seen a doctor in years, because they're so traumatized from when they did see a doctor, patients who live in larger bodies and have an eating disorder who went to a doctor.
And all that doctor told them was like, you just need to eat less and move more and lose some weight. And you, I've had patients with all kinds of conditions that are 100% not related to their weight. Like I have a patient who has ulcerative colitis. I refer them to a GI doctor. That was the first thing the GI doctor said.
I was like, this patient has an elevated fecal calprotectin and all the signs of IBD and the GI doctor talked about the weight before talking about getting a colonoscopy, which is the reason I referred them. And so, you know, I think part of this is driven by these insurance metrics, these hospital metrics, focusing on BMI and counseling.
But if we, as physicians want to try to address this problem, we need to be focusing on our relationship with the patient, focusing on the patient and their health and not on some arbitrary number.
Dr. Diana Mercado-Marmarosh: Yeah. And I think again, in the last two years, I think my mind has expanded so much now that I've been coached on it and seeing how we're, how sometimes we make other people's words mean something more than they are and how traumatizing it can be that you hold on to them for a lifetime.
And it was something. Somebody said like in two minutes and in sometimes if it is your, your doctor, I mean, for me, obviously my doctor, when I was, you know, then I graduate from medical school, said, Hey, you know, you're, you're about to be actually residency with residency. They're like you, you're about to be a full attending.
You need to get. Psychiatrist, like stop coming to the student health clinic. Right. And so I thought, okay, it's Houston, right? Like I could find any doc and they should understand ADHD professionals. So I go, and then the physician tells me you're a physician. You should know better. You outgrow ADHD. And like that two minute interaction caused me to ignore myself and my ADHD for 10 years.
Right. And so, again, it was. Something that somebody says in passing that could really like get cemented into you. Again, now I understand now I have tools that I can say, well, that doctor said words. Like that's a fact, he said that, but what did I make it mean? Now, if I would go back, I would say, well, you just met me.
You just had a two minute interaction. If you're not comfortable with treating adults with ADHD, please refer me to a professional. This is their specialty. Like now I could have said that, or maybe I wouldn't have even said that I would have just walked out and being like, okay, well that one, off the list next, right?
Because there are so many docs. Right. But at that moment, because I was in my head about the shame. And like you said, I wouldn't have asked and I didn't ask for help again. And so. We forget that it is important, the language that we're using, like you said, what it would mean. And me, I have this conversation with them all the time.
When, when I do see that they're overweight, you know, I say, Hey, you know, let's do some labs, like, have you been trying to lose weight or, or are you happy or what's going on? And we joke around. I said, if you're happy with your weight, then why are we having this conversation? But if you're not happy with your weight and want to do something about it, let's go for it.
And I say, you know, we're going for five to 10%, because then that can really decrease how much, you know, one, if you lose 10 pounds that can decrease one ton of pressure on your knees. And like, I want you to walk up the stairs if you want to. Right. Like, and so when we get to the why, like you said, the behaviors is what is gonna all of a sudden be,
I'm a person who exercises, even if it's five minutes a day, you are the person who exercises, not the person who doesn't marathon, but you're the person who exercises. Right. And so this is why then they have buy-in to do whatever they do. Right. Because they know the why behind it. And I'm not there to be like, well, you know, you have to lose a hundred pounds.
Otherwise it's not worth me talking to you. Right. Like that that's unrealistic. However, I will tell you, oh my God. Rybelsus has been amazing, even though they're not meant to be for weight loss, like. Because I understand the mechanisms. I sometimes, you know, use it for other things if that's what the patient wants and if they're willing to, and, and there is a correlation, even though you say that, you know, eating disorders don't happen because of food sometimes, and it's an emotional component, there is a correlation.
People sometimes do use the food for the dopamine and they end up with diabetes, ADHD and people with diabetes. And then all of a sudden I start treating them for the ADHD and guess what? Their diabetes reverses, because they were only using the food for that fuel that they needed. Right. And they didn't realize that they were being impulsive to try to help themselves to complete say tasks. Right. And so there is a lot of correlation that that can happen with that.
Dr. Rebecca Berens: Yeah. And I mean, you know, the, the FDA approved medication for binge eating disorder is Vyvanse. And I think there's a lot of underlying neurochemistry things that are am, and so I think, you know, it's, it's not necessarily appropriate for every eating disorder certainly. There are a lot of patients with binge eating disorder who I think it is, you know, if their ADHD is better managed, they are able to cope better in so many other areas. And, and they're able to do that. And, you know, I think, I mean the most important thing with all of our patients in any situation is always to look at them as an individual and not make any assumptions.
Dr. Diana Mercado-Marmarosh: Exactly.
Dr. Rebecca Berens: Don't make assumptions that because someone has a BMI of a certain number that they were lazy or they don't exercise, or they don't eat well. You know, there are people who are genetically in very different sizes of bodies. And we don't ever give people a hard time about their height. We also should not give them a hard time about their weight and.
You know, we don't expect people to lose or gain height by doing anything.
Dr. Diana Mercado-Marmarosh: So I wish it could be taller.
Dr. Rebecca Berens: You know, it's we, we ha we have to, yeah. There's heels. Exactly. We have to look at people as individuals and not make assumptions about them. And I know this happens to patients with ADHD because I have so many patients with ADHD.
Who've told me I was treated like I was a drug addict. You know, because they went to seeking care for their ADHD. Right. That's inappropriate. And you know, we, we want to make sure that we're being mindful and, judicious with use of substances, but we can not make assumptions about people. We have to treat them as an individual and that's, that's the underlying most important thing.
Dr. Diana Mercado-Marmarosh: And, you know, you bring up a really good point that, sometimes we don't, again, the body's going to get what I need. Right. And sometimes we don't realize that they've been using smoking or marijuana or sometimes cocaine or other things, because again, they don't have it. And so it actually having undiagnosed or untreated ADHD, right.
Substance abuse is a risk factor for that. Right. And so that's so important to know because you can't just say. That person has cocaine or has marijuana in their system. And therefore I cannot treat them for their ADHD because if you and I had that conversation and I'm telling you, you're probably using that because of X, Y, and Z.
And. Decide that you're going to take the chance on them. And you're going to be checking the urine, like, you know, whatever contract you decide it with them. You'd be surprised how many people like come off of that things because now they are being treated so well. And now then are able to keep a job.
They're able to get married. They're able, like so much stuff can happen if you are open-minded and just treat them where they're at and not make all these assumptions. And, and, you know, they usually say one strike and you're out, you know? And so we have a conversation. I mean, sometimes I give two strikes and then I'm like, dude, like, we're all human, but you and I have this thing and I ain't trying to lose my license and because I want to help all the other people.
So like we, we have this like talk to talk. Right. And I think, like you said, not judging. Understanding where they're at. And, and one thing that I want to say here, which I think maybe you already know, or maybe you don't, but you know, in Europe, emotional dysregulation is one of the things that they use to, to diagnose ADHD, here in the U S it's not used for that.
Because they're like, well, how can we say you're too emotional or whatever. Right. But like, I just described how, you know, dysregulation has happened if I just blew up and everybody's looking at you, like what just happened? And then five minutes later, you're back to your PG self because you just needed to like, like reset.
So it was safe. Right. And so again, understanding that emotions really can get us to go one place or another. And then the difference on how the rest of the day goes or doesn't go, right, can really be so mindful. And in the more than maybe you can teach ourselves or teach our patients how to, like you said, be able to name that emotion mainly that would be a tool for them to like self-regulate so that they can do whatever tasks they have on file throughout the day.
Dr. Rebecca Berens: Yeah. And I mean, that's certainly something that, that is a big part of eating disorder treatment, you know, in going through therapy or even in, um, with dieticians, like talking about that emotional connection and what it is that you're feeling when you're making a decision, because it plays such a huge role.
And, and like you said, the body's going to get what it is. That is so true in an eating disorder like that perpetuates eating disorders because when you are restricted calorically, your brain will focus on food all the time, because it wants you to eat? Unfortunately that's a negative feedback loop because then it, the person's, you know, mind over matter is like, well, I'm going to restrict food further and it just creates this spiral, but it's, I mean, it's so true.
The body's going to get what it needs and we have to be able to draw out what is the underlying issue here and how can we feed that issue and fix that issue, or at least learn to manage it.
Dr. Diana Mercado-Marmarosh: And like, I always explain this to my patients too, with diabetes. I'm like, look, I know you want to go eat sugar. And I know you're like wanting to like punish yourself for that because you know that your sugar is high, but. Your body doesn't know that your blood sugar is high. Like your organs are not getting it. Your A1C is above nine. It's not going through. So of course it's asking you get some food out here. Right? And so when you explain it to them at that level, Then they understand, and they're not punishing themselves or not restricting themselves or doing X, Y, and Z. Right. And so now it's not their behavior. It's not their brain telling them to do whatever it's again, understanding that there. So these other mechanisms.
The body's trying to save you, not trying to sabotage you, but it almost feels like it is sabotaging you. And like you said, things that we do is unfortunately become habits. Right? And sometimes they become, you don't realize, so the body's going to use. Good or bad habits and theirs, because they're still going to support you somehow.
And so it's in being mindful and being able to get to a provider like yourself, who's holistic and can see you. And like you said, you have more time. It's not just like, okay, your time's up. Great. See you next time. Right. Where you have a little bit more time to then be able to spend with them and tease out where it is that they might be sabotaging unaware. Right. Because it's not like we purposely wake up and we're like, how can I make my life harder today? Like nobody does that. Right. So, yeah. So this has been such an amazing conversation. Like tell me where can people who are in Houston have the privilege to come work with you. Tell us all the things.
Dr. Rebecca Berens: My practice is located near the Heights in Houston. My practice is called Vida family medicine, and my website is Vidafamilydpc.com. I'm on Instagram and tick talk @Rebecca Behrens MD. And I actually treat patients from all over Texas. I have quite a few patients who don't live in the Houston area and they come see me a couple times a year, and we do a lot of things virtually.
So even outside of Houston, I can still take care of you here in Texas.
Dr. Diana Mercado-Marmarosh: That's amazing. That's so good. Now, what are your like big goals in the next two or three years? Or if you want to share a dream with us? There's no, there's no police here. You can, you can dream with us. Tell us.
Dr. Rebecca Berens: So, you know, I, when I first opened my practice, I had a mindset of I'm going to get to X number of patients and take care of them and do primary care and it's going to be great. And I'm really starting to feel pulled towards these patients who really struggled with the healthcare system. Particularly people who have recovered from, or are recovering from an eating disorder.
like I said, I never set out to treat eating disorders. It was not something that I thought was in my life path, but. Patients appeared in front of me who had it. Whether they were attracted to see me for some way. Like they knew that I would understand, or I was able to draw it out of them because I have, I don't know.
But, I'm feeling a pull towards that. So I'm not really sure what my practice directions are going to go, but I'm, my goal has always been to try to provide access to health care to people who are underserved in the space. And these patients certainly are because it is very hard to find a doctor who understands all that complexity, or if not understands has the time who address it.
Dr. Diana Mercado-Marmarosh: Yeah. That's, that's such a amazing, niche that doing. And I think I relate to so much that you're saying like, again, and right now in my practice, it is family medicine. I treat a lot of people with ADHD, with diabetes, with anxiety and depression. I obviously I have ADHD. I don't have all the other stuff. But because agan. I, feel like I can relate to everything and I can see the correlations. It's like, they're drawn to me. Right. And I think that now I'm able to, and probably you too, you're able to relate to them so well, because that wound has healed. It's no longer open. And so you're able to speak from a healed wound and you're able to see.
Past, and you're able to, like, before they even tell you, like, I can complete that sentence for you because you have had that, or you have been coached through that or gone through therapy for that, or, or you've done X, Y, and Z. And so I think it it's just that people can come to the people they feel comfortable with.
And like you said, you just know which question to ask, because that's the question you wish somebody would have asked you right? Yeah. So it's such, such an amazing thing. So what are you going to do for fun in the next year or three years? You tell us all the things come on.
Dr. Rebecca Berens: So my fun is, I like to sew, i sew clothes for myself. I don't sew for other people, people always ask if I'm going to make like clothes for my kids and I'm just like, it takes way too long. And then to grow out of them, I don't know about that, but I like to sew, and I really am hoping that I'll be able to make some more time for that and go, my practice has only been open for about two years.
So it's been a busy two years and it's been a COVID two years. So there hasn't been a lot of time, but I'm hoping to make some more time for that. And, Yeah. Just, you know, enjoying time with my husband and my kids and that's my fun.
Dr. Diana Mercado-Marmarosh: Awesome. So you heard it guys, you need to make sure you follow her, tell us again, the website or your handle so that way they can reach out to you.
Dr. Rebecca Berens: Yeah, my Instagram and Tik TOK are both @RebeccaBehrensMD and my website is Vida VIDAfamilyDPC.com
Dr. Diana Mercado-Marmarosh: awesome. So this is the last part, and I always joke around, you know, we have ADHD over here that people who are listening and sometimes we tune out. So if you just started listening, like right this second, like what is one little nugget that you would be like, yes, this sums it up , or this is what I want you to walk away with.
Dr. Rebecca Berens: I think what I want people to walk away with is: whether you're a physician or a patient taking those eating symptoms that you're feeling seriously, not feeling stigmatized, talking about them because it's so life-changing to not have an eating disorder anymore. And when you're going through it, you feel like it's never going to end.
But if you are feeling any of those symptoms about like discomfort around food restriction, bingeing purging, Please just talk to someone about it and get the right kind of help because it is life changing.
Dr. Diana Mercado-Marmarosh: Thank you. You heard it get the right type of help. It's life-changing and she taking patients, all of Texas. So please reach out and definitely remember the holistic approach. And remember that, you know, you need to be your own advocate. Nobody can read your mind. And unfortunately, even when we do advocate for ourselves, the other person on the receiving end might not know how to help us. So it's okay to go get a second or third or fourth opinion because in doing that, you keep advocating for yourself and then the right person is going to hear you and it's going to see you.
And it, it is going to be life changing. So don't give up, don't wait, 10 years. Like I did, you know, be an advocate. Then you can turn around and tell your story and help those around you.
Well, thank you so much, Dr. Rebecca Berens. This was such a delightful conversation and I am so happy that we had it.
Dr. Rebecca Berens: Yeah, thank you so much for having me. I appreciate it.
Dr. Diana Mercado-Marmarosh: As someone who understands that time is our most valuable asset. I am so honored that you have shared your time with me. Please click the subscribe button and join my Facebook group: Beyond ADHD, A Physician's Perspective so that you never missed an opportunity to create time at will. Do share this podcast with your friends they too can can learn to live life and stay in their own lane.
Link to my website to register: 
Transformation Physician Group Coaching
About Dr. Rebecca Berens
Dr. Berens is a family physician and IBCLC. She grew up in the Houston area and attended Baylor College of Medicine. Her family medicine residency was at Georgetown University/Providence Hospital. After working for several years at an FQHC in South Philadelphia, she returned to Houston and shortly after opened her private practice. She treats individuals and families of all ages but specializes in women's health and breastfeeding medicine. She takes a holistic approach to her patients' care and takes patient autonomy very seriously- she works together with her patients to help them meet their health goals. She suffered from an eating disorder while in college and medical school, and her recovery has greatly informed her practice. She takes a Health at Every Size (TM) approach with her patients and works with many patients who are recovering from or have recovered from eating disorders. She is currently a member of IAEDP and is pursuing CEDS certification.
Website: vidafamilydpc.com
Email: info@vidafamilydpc.com
Instagram: vidafamilymedicine
Facebook: vidafamilymedicine

Beyond ADHD A Physicians Perspective Ep 25 Dr. Funke Afolabi-Brown (Board-certified Pediatric Pulmonologist & Sleep Medicine Physician)

Dr. Funke Afolabi-Brown: Sleep is your superpower. And just make that like an appointment. I usually say, make your appointment, make it like an appointment with your sleep. And because sleep has so many health benefits. Think of it as your appointment with your doctor, you wouldn't just like call your doctor and be like, Hey, sorry. I'm running late.
Dr. Diana Mercado-Marmarosh: Hi, welcome to Beyond ADHD, A Physician's Perspective podcast. I am your host, Dr. Diana Mercado-Marmarosh. I'm a Family Medicine doc, with ADHD, practicing in a rural setting in Texas. I am a mother to two very energetic toddlers who are three and four years of age.
And in the past year, I have undergone radical transformation after discovering ADHD coaching, and life-coaching. For the past decade, my typical day consisted of having 300 charts backlog, a graveyard of unfinished projects, and a lack of time awareness. I didn't realize that I was not filling my own cup. I was running on fumes. The last year I figured out the secret; learn to stay in your lane. So now my mission is to help others develop systems that tap into their zone of genius. So they too can reclaim their personal lives back like I have.
Hello physicians. I want to invite you to go to my website, ADHD-lifecoach.com and register for the masterclass that is going to be happening on May 28th at 11 central time. It's going to be a really good masterclass that is going to teach you how to leave work at work.
We are going to be talking how to chart with ease. And when you come to this masterclass, you're going to be able to walk away with practical tips that will help you to develop an empowering mindset for efficient charting. And you will also learn how to implement boundaries that will improve your patient care and free up your time.
And of course, you're going to recognize. Which distractions might be getting in the way of you closing those charts. So sign up, go to my website, ADHD-lifecoach.com. And also this is the perfect time for you to realize that June 20th is right around the corner. That's when my 12 week physician group coaching class is going to start.
It comes with 20 CME credits. Make sure you get on my waiting list and you can do that also by sending me an email on my website, you can contact me and you can get all the details. All right. Take care.
Link to my website to register: 
Transformation Physician Group Coaching
 
I am so excited for today's episode. I have a dear friend of mine here, one of the leading experts or the expert in sleep. So it's going to be such an amazing treat for you guys today. So Dr. Funke Afolabi-brown is an assistant professor of pediatrics, as well as a board certified pediatric pulmonologist and sleep medicine physician. Wow. All the hats, right? Yeah, I totally it's a big treat. So she helps children sleep better and breathe better.
And by extension, she helps improve the sleep of their parents. Ooh. Where were you when this was happening to me? Okay. In addition to teaching and seeing patients, Dr. Brown is a speaker. She's an educator and a writer of the founder of Restful Sleep MD. She is passionate about helping busy professional women and their children prioritize sleep to achieve their optimal health and live to their fullest potential.
Okay. And so when I say she's a speaker, I mean, Jesus speakers, she speaks in. All over. So, we're talking like national and international and she goes to wellness retreats and she helps some of our coaching groups. And she's actually one of my really expert guest coaches. So it's such a treat to have her here.
And so when you need to talk about somebody to somebody about sleep, this is your go-to person. So Dr. Funke, thank you for coming. Tell us all the things.
Dr. Funke Afolabi-Brown: Oh, thank you. Thank you. I'm like, who is she talking about? Okay. Okay. It's me. It's me. It's me. I'm owning it. Yes. Thank you so much for having me. I've been really, really looking forward to our conversation. I'm just so excited to talk about all things sleep to your audience.
Dr. Diana Mercado-Marmarosh: Yes, and you know, we've had this private conversation, but you know, a lot of us don't realize how ADHD can be impacted by sleep. Like, and then you understanding the sleep and pulmonologists aspect of it. You can give us this unique perspective, right. Do you mind telling us a little bit about how, what connections you make.
Dr. Funke Afolabi-Brown: Yeah, absolutely. So, you know, it's so funny when you look at, you know, first of all, when we talk about the benefits of sleep, one of the things I usually talk about is the fact that sleep is not just a luxury sleep is not something that you do at the end of your day.
Okay. Most places are closed. I'm just going to shut down or it's dark outside. Sleep is not just a cure for sleepiness. Sleep is a fundamental biological requirement. Like every organism has to have that period of sort of quiet sense and sleep. Because of the functions that it has on our brain on rest and recovery on our hearts, on our hormone system, on our metabolic system, on our mood and our health, our decision-making just go from top to bottom, I'm telling you sleep impacted. And so when we flip that over and don't sleep, then we start to get into a lot of issues, both with our physical health, our emotional health, our immune function, and as well as our mood now, one of the key features or one of the key functions of sleep and benefits of sleep is to help with executive function, to help with creativity, to help with decision-making to help with, Making those emotional connections.
Okay. If we don't sleep well, then we're not as creative. We have issues with executive function. We have issues with impulsivity. And so it turns out, especially they've done a lot of studies in kids and adults and the symptoms you see when you don't sleep. Well, it almost mimics ADHD like symptoms.
So when we talk about. You know, just that like difficulty with full costs , you know, impulsivity, like I said, just like even anxiety. All those things can occur with sleep deprivation. And I seen a lot of people. I mean, ADHD is very, very common in children, in adults as well on a similar, a lot of people who may have been diagnosed.
It sounds too. I've had ADHD for years and really on meds and there's been difficulty with controlling their symptoms. And then they've been referred to, you know, to see a sleep specialist. And we found out, oh my goodness, they sleep deprivation. They sleep issues that are underlying this and addressing that, I mean, will not take away the ADHD, but it literally is the missing piece.
So it's so imeshed. Right. It's almost like a bi-directional relationship, like, literally almost pretty much co-exists, you know, up to 70% of people with ADHD, depending on where you, what literature you're looking at, also have some kind of sleep issue or the other.
Dr. Diana Mercado-Marmarosh: Yeah. Wow. So insightful. Would you say, like, I was going to say the more we sleep, the more we rest, but you also can't always be asleep for 10, 12 hours, then you can't really function. Right. And that might be assigned to something else, maybe depression or something else, but would you say like five hours are okay, or would you say like, and again, I know everybody is different, but there's a certain amount that is needed for us to like really get some rest.
Dr. Funke Afolabi-Brown: Absolutely. So there's some genetic conditions where you, they call them like short sleepers.
It is like ridiculously rare. So when people tell me that they survive on five hours of sleep and they need only five hours of sleep, I suspect you probably either have that genetic condition, which again, is ridiculously rare or. You're just not being truthful to yourself because we, we have norms okay.
Of the range of sleep that's required for everyone. And it varies by age. So of course children need more sleep. So, you know, we're talking about newborns who sleep up to like 17 hours a day to teenagers that speak about eight to 10 hours. I mean adults. The range is also pretty wide. It's about seven to nine hours.
Again, it varies from person to person. Some people need less, some people need that nine hours to be able to function. Well, it's not like a magic pill. Like, oh, I must get nine hours of sleep or I'm doomed. One of the exercises I recommend that, you know, my clients do is just give yourself time, maybe like a weekend, a couple of weeks, or you're on vacation where you don't have an alarm clock set.
You don't have some kind of urgent meeting and study yourself, go to bed. Regular time and see when you wake up without the alarm. So that really will let you know if, how much sleep you really need really. And so most people, once they do that exercise, even if they've been sleeping about five, six hours, they realize, oh, actually I need seven and a half, or I need eight hours.
So that will really be the judge. And then you can't walk back when you get back home from vacation or whatever, and slowly start to try to extend your sleep towards that goal.
Dr. Diana Mercado-Marmarosh: That's great. Now we've all have heard about this and we, maybe we all do it to some extent, but I think the people with ADHD definitely do it.
You know, this asleep procrastination or like revenge to not go to sleep. Right. And then we're like, I should know better. I don't function well the next morning, but we still do it the moment. Could you speak on that a little bit for us?
Dr. Funke Afolabi-Brown: Absolutely. Revenge procrastination. It is a thing. And you know, we're seeing it more and more with just, you know, our 24 hour lives, our lives, our world, our society that never shuts down.
And so I see it more with that, like personal you've been going, going, going all day. And maybe now at the point where you feel like I deserve. Some time to myself, I deserve just some time to wind down, but then what do we choose? We made them choose things like maybe watching some TV and just like, okay, I'm just going to relax here for like an hour.
And so that hour becomes two hours and we slowly start to push back on our sleep time. And then the problem is now we're going to bed later than we should. And then we are waking up. At the same time. So our sleep is short. And so then it becomes this whole vicious cycle that, you know, it's at the end of the day, we were hurting ourselves.
But you know, it's a mental thing to thing of, okay. I've had, everybody has had a piece of me today. I want some time to myself, but then it's our sleep that ends up suffering. Because we're trying to buy that extra time, extra TV time or extra time to binge watch your show or whatever like that. And then we slowly just to push back on our sleep time.
Dr. Diana Mercado-Marmarosh: And so one of the things that I tell my clients and my patients, you know, is, we know that we all want rewards. Right. So instead of waiting to the last few hours of the day, on purpose scheduling, like, I'm going to be 20 minutes on Facebook from like noon to one or whatever, right?
Like if you have blocked it out, what you're going to be doing, then it doesn't become like a need that you need at the end of the day. So then that's the way that kinda helps out. Right. What other techniques do you think other than us trying to set up an alarm, I always tell people, like, maybe put your phone to charge in the other room.
So it's not like right there with you. And of course we've already. Some people know not to have a TV in their bedroom. I do have a TV in my bedroom, but I try not to turn it on after a certain amount of time, because I know I will get sucked into it.
Dr. Funke Afolabi-Brown: Yes. Great question. So I followed this acronym that I created is called CREATE, healthy sleep habits. I think that's a great place to start or maybe a little bit before that is the fact that everybody can sleep weel, so understanding that mindset shift of, I understand how important sleep is. Even if I have not made the best decisions to promote goods before myself, I can start and I can start tonight because sleep is free.
Right. And so then you then say, okay, where do I start? And then you go online or you try to Google sleep hygiene, and then 20 Steps come in and you're like, okay, forget this I don't think it's for me. And so I've kind of distilled it to like six most important things that you can pay attention to that you can follow because it's evidence-based.
And so the first thing is C-onsistency. And that's the thing with the prevent procrastination. If we go back and bend your sleep time starts to be flippant. We'll start a flip on flop and your body doesn't know when it's going to sleep, but we watching another Netflix show tonight. Or are we going to just be on Facebook? Like set a time? I love the idea of the alarm and me. I usually to set boundaries. Right? So. You need to be able to set boundaries, to be able to be consistent. So whether you say by 10:00 PM, nobody can gain access to me. Right? You don't have to train people, do people that like bombard your phone at very late hours.
Once you put like either a do not disturb on your phone or something like that, they know they can't reach you. Of course you can leave. Of course, people that need you in the case in the times of emergency, make sure they can have access to you. But other than that, you're going to sort of train people to say, you know what?
My sleep is really important to me when I sleep well, when I wake up, I can help you solve your problems. I can be a better person. And so really starting from that consistency and it's consistency to your bedtime consistency to wake time. So depending on when you wake up in the, in the morning, right? If you wake up, I give someone that wakes up at 6:00 AM.
And you're supposed to get seven hours of sleep that , come back. How many that would, that would be, that means you should be in bed by, you know, or eight hours of sleep. For instance, I mean, you should be in bed by 10:00 PM and just make that like an appointment. I usually say, make your appointment, make it like an appointment with your.
And because sleep has so many health benefits. Think of it as your appointment with your doctor, you wouldn't just like call your doctor and be like, Hey, sorry, I'm running late. Like you wouldn't get an appointment. Right. That's it. Right. And so that's one, the consistency and consistency. When you go to sleep consistently, when you wake up, because you're training your circadian rhythm, that internal clock and your QA for sleep.
And then,
Dr. Diana Mercado-Marmarosh: I was going to ask you, you know, I think, that is something we can definitely work on. And like you said, treating it as an appointment that can be like a game changer now. I believe you have some kids, right? How easy or how hard was it implementing some of these techniques with your own kids when like, obviously you and I have like an idea of what we want them to be doing.
And then what they actually do sometimes are like two different stories, right? And like, what are some tricks that have helped you with your kids or any insight that could help us? Because obviously if they're asleep, then we can go to sleep. Right.
Dr. Funke Afolabi-Brown: That is awesome. And let that be the motivation to really make it like a house thing. So not just you, you have to get everybody else on board. Like if you're, if you have a teenager who decides I want to have a party at 10:00 PM, you're not going to sleep no matter how much you set the intention. So we literally have it like before bedtime, because bedtime can be chaotic, especially if you have young kids and they're bouncing off the walls, they sort of have this energy rate and the attention seeking during that time, because they're overtired. So that consistency needs to include your family and say, listen, everyone, we're going to start bedtime routine. So even if you set a bedtime at 10:00 PM, that's all, when you're going to go upstairs. Right. Your kid, depending on their age and depending on the number of hours of sleep they need, they, you literally have to go to. Get them ready have a routine for them. The second part of that, my acronym R-outine is not just for our children. Really. We talk about, oh, they have a bath. We sit and get som we read a book. We as parents need that routine as well, just to show be a role model. And so have that routine for them where they are anticipating what's coming up next. And we're doing it over time and really staying ideas to be consistent. This is what we do. We're going to keep it simple. You know, we read two books, we sing one song. We have this no more.
I need to pee. I want to get a glass of water. I need another hug. We set limits, you know.
Right. Think of you, you know, as parents, of course, you know, we want to, especially as busy professionals, you know, we want to cater to our children, want them to feel loved. You've given them the whole day for you to show them that love.
So at night, all that stuff is delayed tactics. So I think really when you drill down to like, okay, we need to set limits, this is what we do in this family. They will follow through. There'll be some pushback, but if you stick with it, That's it, that consistency piece they will get on board. So that's definitely something that.
Dr. Diana Mercado-Marmarosh: Yeah, that's such great advice, you know? So tell me, how did you decide that this is the field of medicine you wanted to go into? Is this something that you have always been like, so passionate about? Like as far as you can remember?
Dr. Funke Afolabi-Brown: Absolutely. I'll answer that. I just, so just. Rumanian part of my acronym before I forget no problems. So there's the a is, (CREATE) A is A-ssigned the bed for sleep and sleeping bed. Don't use the bed for your desk, your office desk, your dinner room, your movie theater. And then E, is having, an E-nvironment, that's cool, that's dark and noise free.
Sorry. There's E M then there's a, and then T is T-ackle-Technology, which we've talked about. Put charge your phone outside. That's perfect. And then the last E is E-liminate caffeine, alcohol. All those things can affect the quality of your sleep and I'll share those resources at the end of today. At the end of our talk.
Now, when it comes to why sleep medicine, I struggled, I struggled, I had insomnia at some point during training. It was a combination of sleep deprivation and insomnia, I would say because what was happening was I was trying to burn the candle on both ends. I am not a night person. I'm someone that literally, if I could go to bed at eight 30, that would be my sweet spot.
But then I was trying to follow the crowd. Right. So when everybody else was going to study, I would go to study and then they would wake up at evil, odd hours and I would wake up then as well. So I was burning the candle on both ends and it made me really anxious, stressed out. I was working 10 times as hard for the same results.
And so, you know, once I realized that my superpower was sleep and I figured out how to make sure I got enough sleep and I just saw how it changed my life. I'm like, oh my gosh! Oh, my goodness. People need to hear this. And so, and that's been my mission. And then of course, when the kids came and then, oh my gosh, they took my sleep away pretty much right.
Working through that process as well. It really motivated me then to say, I do need, so I'm going to go. I'm going to get additional training to really learn the science of this. And the evidence behind this and everything I had done, even before I did my sleep fellowship was, you know, was what I ended up learning more.
And so then that really pushed me and motivated me to, to help women like myself who are doing all the things. And we have so many competing priorities, you know, not necessarily prioritizing sleep, which really is like a critical element to our ability to do the things that are important. Right. So, that's really been just a story really of how I ended up here.
Dr. Diana Mercado-Marmarosh: Yeah. I mean, if we think about it, one third of her life, we spend it asleep, right. Or we should be spending asleep. But sometimes like you said, we don't prioritize it and it could be a couple of things. Maybe we don't have the ideal bedsheets or we don't have the right lighting in the bedroom or, we have too many distractions and you were able to see that one of the denominators that. Helped you show up how you wanted to was the more you like rested and slept, the more you were able to show up instead of like you said, trying to do everything. And, and some of us sometimes don't have that awareness that we need to slow down. And reevaluate the situation and then like speed up. Right? Some of us just want to keep going and going and going. I know where that there's no gas and eventually you're going to be pushing the damn car.
Dr. Funke Afolabi-Brown: You're running on fumes. You're running on fumes that is so true. And it's harder. It's so hard.
Dr. Diana Mercado-Marmarosh: Yeah, I had you just stopped and say, okay, I have one fourth of a tank. Let me fill up right now
Dr. Funke Afolabi-Brown: Exactly! Before we start to go uphill. So I'm not pushing the car.
Dr. Diana Mercado-Marmarosh: Before it doesn't become a community problem. When everybody has to push you uphil.
Dr. Funke Afolabi-Brown: Exactly.
Dr. Diana Mercado-Marmarosh: So tell me, what are you up to these days? I know you were just. I'm doing a TV show, right? Like I'm so excited about all this. Tell, tell me, tell me about all the things.
Dr. Funke Afolabi-Brown: Oh gosh. All the things. Yes. But while I say that it does sound like a lot, but one of the things I want to say is because I prioritize sleep, I kind of can drill down on the things that are going to give me the best. Sort of literal bang for my buck in that sense, teach me how to build systems in place. So I don't get burnt out on so that my sleep does not suffer. Right. So I just want it to profess that. Well, I was recently, you know, part of what with baby center to create a course for babies' sleep, which is been such a need and such a desire in my heart.
And so BabyCenter, if for those that don't know, is this incredible organization that literally take you through the Fest moment? You realize you're pregnant till your child is older. So they go through so many steps on developmental milestones and things. And one thing they just introduced is a course, which literally takes you step by step into what you should expect for your baby sleep, right from the moment you bring them home from the hospital to like, or even before then, from how to arrange your baby's room and set it up so that we can sleep well when you bring them home to like taking care of naps and sleep training and things like that. So that was an incredible experience. And, you know, I'm going to put the link.
The link is also going to be on my website, restful sleep md.com. So you could sign up and gift it out to new moms in your life or moms who are struggling with sleep and things like that. The other piece I also have is the other end of the spectrum, is Kids Sleep Course for Teens. So I have a teenage sleep course as well, which is really driven and created for our teenagers who also feel like they are invincible.
They don't need sleep. What we know they are so exhausted. So that that's for them. And I didn't leave the mamas out as well. In fact, I have. The special touch for moms. And so I do have one-on-one coaching for moms. So like you guys get the icing on the cake where I literally walk you through how we can get you sleeping well, how we could get you setting boundaries so you can prioritize your sleep. So you're not running on fumes. And the best place to find me is, my website, as well as on Instagram @restfulsleepMD.
Dr. Diana Mercado-Marmarosh: Yes. You've shared so much of your tips today, but guys don't get full. Well, she's only shared, although she, you can see she, she's serving here from a place of abundance, you can see how her knowledge can be in, in burst into all the stuff that she's doing. So you, you already know that your network, it really becomes your net worth. So you gotta make sure. You know, if you know somebody who, who can benefit from their kid, learning how to sleep, or you have that teenager, or you yourself know that something's has to change because we cannot continue to, you know, run without gas.
Right. You need to make sure you reach out to her. And the same thing, like maybe. You know, you've been telling your teenager this, right. And they're not paying attention yet. Guess what? Let's get a physician to tell them that this is why it's needed. Right. Because sometimes we already know, even though we're saying the same thing to them, they just don't accept that.
What we're telling them until somebody. Yeah. Tells them and, and who better than an expert in that field, right? So don't hesitate, like run, like run to her webpage, run to her Instagram. You need to see everything that she's saying. And if you have any retreats or any, lectures that you need her to come and talk about, definitely reach out because you might just change somebody's life, you know, because sleeping might mean, not an accident the next morning, because they have enough awareness and enough reflexes. Right. So I always tell my people. You know, uncontrolled diabetes, it can be like drunk driving and lack of sleep can be like drunk driving because of reflexes are so not on point. And we don't realize the importance of it.
And so yes, please, please reach out.
Dr. Funke Afolabi-Brown: Awesome. Thank you so much. I love that. I love that analogy you just gave the same way we wouldn't want to share a road with a drunk driver. We don't want to share the road with a sleepy driver and we don't want to be that sleepy driver. And so, yes, please prioritize your sleep as much as you can.
Dr. Diana Mercado-Marmarosh: Awesome! Well, thank you so much for being here with me. This was a treat. Reach out to her and, definitely send us an email telling us how sleeping impacted your life. Okay. All right. So last question. I always do this. So, you know, we have ADHD. And sometimes we space out.
So let's say my listeners just started paying attention, like right this second, what is the one take home point you would want them to take away with?
Dr. Funke Afolabi-Brown: Oh my God. I love that SLEEP IS YOUR SUPER POWER!
Dr. Diana Mercado-Marmarosh: Awesome! Sleep is your super power implement it today. Tonight do that today. Thank you, Dr. Funke.
As someone who understands that time is our most valuable asset. I am so honored that you have shared your time with me. Please click the subscribe button and join my Facebook group: Beyond ADHD, A Physician's Perspective so that you never missed an opportunity to create time at will. Do share this podcast with your friends they too can can learn to live life and stay in their own lane.
 
Link to my website to register: 
Transformation Physician Group Coaching
 
About Dr. Brown
Dr. Brown is board-certified in pediatric pulmonary medicine and pediatric sleep disorders. As a double board-certified pediatric respiratory sleep medicine physician, Dr. Brown helps her patients breathe better and sleep better. By extension, she helps improve the sleep of their parents.
Dr. Brown is a speaker, an educator, a writer, and the founder of Restful Sleep MD where she helps busy professional women and their children prioritize sleep to not only achieve their optimal health but also thrive and live to their fullest potential. She does this through courses and programs focused on educating and empowering busy professional women to make sleep a priority as a critical pillar of their health. 
Website:https://www.restfulsleepmd.com/
Instagram: restfulsleepmd
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Linkedin: Funke Afolabi-Brown
Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/c/DrFunkeBrown/featured