Small Actions, Big Impact w/ Dr. Resa Lewiss & Dr. Adaira Landry
0:00 There are few things that make people successful. Taking a step forward to change their lives is one successful trait, but it takes some time to get there. How do you move forward to greet the success that awaits you? Welcome to Next Steps Forward with host Chris Meek. Each week, Chris brings on another guest who has successfully taken the next steps forward. Now here is Chris Meek. Hello, I'm Chris Meek, and you've tuned to this week's episode of Next Steps Forward. As always, it's a pleasure to have you with us. Our special guests today are Dr. Dara Landry and Dr. Risa Lewis.
0:43 Dr. Landry is an assistant professor at Harvard Medical School and an emergency medicine physician at Brigham and Women's Hospital. She studied and trained at the University of California, Berkeley, University of California, Los Angeles, New York University, and of course, Harvard. Dr. Landry has nearly a decade of experience mentoring students and early career professionals. She's also a healthcare contributor for Forbes, an entrepreneur, and a keynote speaker. She co-founded Writing in Color, a nonprofit that teaches the craft of writing. She lives in Boston with her three daughters and husband. Dr. Lewis is a professor of emergency medicine at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. She's also a TEDMED speaker, Time's Up healthcare founder, entrepreneur, award-winning educator, mentor, and point of care ultrasound specialist.
1:26 Dr. Lewis studied at Brown University, the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, the National Institutes of Health Howard Hughes Research Scholars Program, Harvard Emergency Medicine, and Mount Sinai St. Luke's Roosevelt. She hosts the Visible Voices podcast, amplifying content in the healthcare, equity, and current trend spaces. She lives in Philadelphia. Earlier they authored Microskills, Small Actions, Big Impact, which was published by HarperCollins in April. Dr. Landry and Dr. Lewis, welcome to Next Steps Forward. Thanks for having us. It's great to be here. So we have a 57-minute show, and I think I just used up 50 minutes of it with your introductions and your education backgrounds.
2:07 Before we start getting to the conversation, what don't you two do? It's amazing. There's plenty. And I think based on what you generously shared with the audience, a lot of the ways we're able to accomplish, the skills we learned to accomplish what we accomplished. For you to be able to share that long list, we put it right into this book of Microskills to help everybody be able to accomplish everything that brings them joy that they want to in their professional lives. And we certainly don't do it all at once. I think Risa and I have had waves of periods of time where we were really busy with lots of titles and responsibilities, and waves where we've been able to have more free time, more creative space, more energy for just self-compassion and self-care.
2:58 I love it. Well, let's get right into it. Let's start by defining what Microskills are. How are they different from regular skills or what we tend to think of as traditional workplace skills? Yeah. I'll start with, it sounds like what it is. These are small, fundamental building blocks or steps to accomplish, for example, large goals, large projects, even habits that you think some people have it and some people don't. We really think that when you have those feelings in the workplace, you can break things down into small building blocks that not only are additive to help you accomplish that large thing, but also they translate so that to the best of our ability, we wrote a very comprehensive business self-help book.
3:45 If there are things that we didn't cover, and to be clear, there are things we didn't cover just because, it's a way of thinking that we want the reader to take home, that they can then apply to those things that they encounter in their professional journeys. I think Risa and I have both been in situations where we needed help with a large goal, like how to become a better public speaker, how to become a subject matter expert, how to navigate conflict. We might have gotten varied responses from people around us, or maybe we got no response. We wanted to write a book that felt like a guidebook, like a playbook, a toolkit that was full of very actionable, concrete skills, because we know what it's like to want something and to not be sure where to start, to feel overwhelmed by change and what needs to occur, and just not knowing really how to take some ambition and really put legs on it and make it move.
4:48 You make the point in the book that it's built on one core, easy-to-learn principle, which is every big goal, complicated task, healthy habit, and what we think of as character traits can be broken into small, learnable micro-skills that can be practiced and incorporated in real time. Has the concept of micro-skills been around a while? Is it based on new science research, or is your perspective a new approach to micro-skills? Actually, no, it's not a new concept. It's been used in different arenas, in education and sociology training. It's been used there for, I think, I've seen research going back decades. The way I have first seen it myself was in medical education, teaching doctors how to do certain procedures.
5:34 Just to quickly give an example at a high level, if a medical student or a doctor-in-training, a resident, were to be asked to go, let's say, resuscitate a patient, like someone who's really critically ill, if they were just told to go resuscitate a patient, that might be a very overwhelming task. What a lot of educators do is instead break down the 40 or 50 somewhat steps that would actually constitute resuscitating a patient, so assigning teams. How do you actually assign people their roles? How do you do chest compressions properly? How do you pick which medications to give? All of those very small fundamental things allow you to get to the building block.
6:19 Those small fundamental things are micro-skills. They're skills that can be fine-tuned, refined, assessed. We really wanted to take that concept of there are these small actions that we make at work, and hopefully we get into some of those in this hour, that can really have very large effect as far as pushing us towards that larger goal. I'll share a non-medical way to think about this. Those of us that grew up tying our shoes, there were step-by-step ways that we learned to tie our shoes, and then perhaps then you could translate what you learned with tying your shoe to tying a knot if you were a sailor, and tying knots on a boat.
7:01 These translate, and they are actual behavioral how-tos that we talk about in the book. What inspired you to focus on micro-skills as opposed to larger competencies or hard skills in the workplace? I think Risa and I have very similar lived experiences in the workplace, especially as women in very hyper-competitive academic environments where it just seems like people are moving at different rates, sometimes slower, faster. For me, I'll just speak to the idea of watching some of my peers seemingly move faster in their careers, and it felt like they had it figured out.
7:45 There was this aha moment where I realized that it wasn't that it was just naturally coming to them. It was really that people were teaching them how to navigate a system that's quite complex. A particular example was when I was sitting next to a peer on shift, and I recognized that he was getting all sorts of accolades, awards, grants, large promotions. Everything was just coming his direction. I said, how are you finding all of these people to sponsor you, to support you, to nominate you? How are you finding these people to do all of that work on your behalf? He looked at me and he said, Adara, you have it wrong.
8:28 I'm leading this entire ship myself. I'm asking people to support me. The very first micro-skill I felt like I learned was that he was writing his own letter of recommendations. I had never heard of that before. It felt taboo. It felt like something I wasn't supposed to know he was doing, but that was the actual micro-skill that was allowing him to move forward was that if he wanted an opportunity, and let's say he wanted to nominate him, Chris, he might say, hey, Chris, can you nominate me for this award? I'll draft the letter of recommendation so you really don't have to do much. That small little skill allowed him to just totally spread his wings and apply for many more things because he wasn't burdening people.
9:09 It's sort of like the rules of the road, the skills of the game that I just wasn't privy to until someone explicitly told me that. That small little micro-skill totally changed how I approached work. I'll add that you asked about hard skills and soft skills. One of the stories that got us going in terms of this book is Adara and I had a conversation about mentorship, and we both value mentorship. That's a part of our education portfolio. We've both benefited from really, really, really stellar model mentors, and also we both have received awards for the role we've played as mentors for mentees, so it's important, and we realize its importance in the workplace.
9:59 Some people may think that's kind of a soft skill, and early on, Adara and I were speaking and we talked about writing about mentorship. Is that something that's publishable? Could you establish expertise in it? The answer was yes because that was sort of the source of some of our first publications together. What we are finding as we share the book and speak with audiences inside medicine, inside education, inside the business world is there's a lot of talk about skills and the skills gap and skills assessment. This book provides those skills through the micro skills approach, concept, thought process to really help level the workplace and help people that maybe didn't get the inside scoop, didn't get the book, don't have the family financial resources, didn't get the pedigree.
10:51 Whatever it is, we kind of acknowledge and we start this at the beginning of the book that the world is not equal and that learning is limitless if only it is accessible, so we're trying to create that accessibility. And finally, the third truth that we share right in our introduction is that time can only be spent. So we want the reader, the audience, the listeners to think about time as a currency. Learning is limitless. I love that. And given your pedigrees, obviously, it's lifelong learning and it just keeps going and going. And so thank you for sharing that phrase. I put a big flag in the ground, if you will, on education. My mother was a deaf education teacher, single mom, all that stuff.
11:33 And so I'm just thankful and appreciate all the work that you do out there. You both make the case in micro skills that, quote, the best strategies for success in the workplace are not so much taught as they are expected to be known. Worse still, there's a pervasive myth that some people have it, as you mentioned earlier, Adara, and some don't. What goes wrong when people make those assumptions and how can we fix it? I can go and start by saying, when I was in medical school, I had very little mentorship and support. And I think I was assuming that that would just come towards me and that someone would reach out to me and offer.
12:17 And I also assumed that my peers were just naturally good at networking and naturally good at figuring out what their goals and their ambitions are. It took me a really long time to realize that there are many of us who are struggling to figure out what does it mean to be successful? How do I balance my time out of work with my time at work? How do I figure out ways to build a brand, build expertise? All of these questions I think many of us are struggling with. I think because we don't talk about our struggles enough in a public fashion, it becomes assumed that when someone is succeeding, that's all there is to it, that they're just naturally doing well all the time.
13:06 There was this moment in time on Twitter where people were posting what's called a failure CV, a list of things that they actually haven't received recently, as an attempt to normalize that. For most of us, even people who have climbed the ladder to the top, there were still many obstacles in front of us. It's important for us to share those, to just normalize. It's typically not a natural path for anyone where we're just like, yes, yes, yes. You get some opportunity over and over again. There are lots of setbacks, lessons learned, obstacles, periods or points where you might have self-doubt. It's just a matter of us not being very public in how we share those moments.
13:49 You asked what happens if we don't pay attention to that concept of accessibility. What happens is people feel like they don't belong. People feel like somehow they just don't have it. They don't have the skills. They don't have the ability. As Adair shared, we both had this experience when we got to where we got in the doctor world, for different reasons and some of the same reasons. I'll share, no one in my family is a physician. There was an expectation about very traditional gender roles, about what girls to women do, what boys to men do. When I got there, when I was in med school, I'm like, I cannot believe I'm here. Wow. I watched people around me just know how to get things done.
14:32 I'll give a specific example of writing. I just thought I was not a good writer and I didn't know how to write. Somehow everybody knew that about me because I wasn't on any writing projects, but meanwhile my classmates were. Then I realized that's not what's it. That's not what's going on and it is related to what Adair shared about you're in charge. No one's coming to save you. You are in charge of your own education and you're in charge of your professional journey. One of the things I'd like to point out is when we were preparing our proposal for this book, basically you have to provide comp titles, comparative titles.
15:12 Adair and I did a lot of reading and a lot of deep dive into the literature on business self-help and many of these books tell you to go out and do something, but they don't tell you how. Telling people how, explaining to people how you're getting the award or how you decided to become financially healthy, that how, those behaviors are what we talk about in the book. That shows our intention to pay attention to the fact that some people don't have that accessibility. So we're trying to make it accessible to the reader. In chapter one, which focuses on self-care, you encourage people to quote Marie Kondo, their life instead of just their space.
15:57 Tell us what you mean by that. Well, I think there's many different ways to approach the Marie Kondo. For me, it was a matter of quitting things that no longer brought me joy. There was a moment in time, a large moment in time, where I was under the impression that I needed to say yes to everything and to take all sorts of tasks and put them on my plate and draw them out to conclusion. As I'm sure both of you know, and the listeners know, sometimes we say yes to things without actually doing any sort of investigation, without knowing if it's feasible or if it's something that's actually aligned with our interests.
16:40 And so I was someone who did that. And I remember having multiple significant titles, not very large titles, but significant titles, two children, and then all sorts of tasks that were on my plate that could have been described as non-promotable work. So just work that felt like busy work, like attending meetings or hosting mixers, mentoring students. It might not have been something that would add a line to my CV, and also I felt responsible to do it. And so I think when it comes to the Marie Kondo aspect, it's really this idea of taking a look at what's in front of you, what's on your plate, and asking yourself, does this actually bring me joy?
17:28 Is this aligned with my definition of success? Is this something that my boss values, that my institution or my company values? And then having a discussion on your own with your personal board of directors, which is a concept we can talk about in a second, but this idea of people who support you, and also your supervisor. This doesn't have to be done in isolation or in secrecy, bringing people onto the table and asking them like, hey, this is what I'm doing. I would like to take some of this off my plate because I'm unhappy and it's not all bringing me joy would be a first approach. You know, just remind me of something with my wife.
18:09 She's very similar to you, Adaira, in terms of she can't say no to anything. And recently she went for a walk with one of her girlfriends and she was complaining about something with the PTO or some organization she's involved in. And her friend said, Christine, if it doesn't bring you joy, why are you doing it? And so it's just, I love how you kind of made it that simple for us. And to clarify, I can say no now. I can definitely say no now. And I think what happened was in the beginning, it was quite terrifying because I thought if I were to say no or to ask to be removed from something, I might get fired. I might get let go. I might taint my reputation. So it definitely took some time, but you know, I wasn't fired and I still have my job.
18:57 I've been at my job for nine years. Right. And so I feel like if I was doing something wrong, there would be some signs in that direction, but there hasn't been. And so I think just sort of having that positive reinforcement that my job still likes having me there, I can continue to be strategic about what I say yes to. We codify it, codify it, however you want to say it in the book, all of us are given the messaging that we should always say yes to things, especially at work, because that might lead to the promotion. That might be the next big break. That might be the most amazing project. And it's called FOMO, fear of missing out. And we all succumb to it and we're all given that message.
19:38 And we really talk about flipping that to JOMO, joy of missing out. Now we didn't come up with these phrases, but we certainly like them and use them. And the more you can be thoughtful and say no to things that don't bring you joy, that aren't basically aligned with your goals professionally, and sometimes to be clear, you have to try a few things before you learn what those goals are. But we really, really, as a part of the mantra of self-care, want the reader to really be thoughtful about what they're saying yes to professionally. So I'm definitely going to share the phrase JOMO with my wife. So I appreciate you teaching me that phrase today. And maybe as a follow-up to your self-care comment, a main premise of microskills is that we must, quote, take care of ourselves before we can take care of the team and the work.
20:24 But beyond that, you make the point that self-care isn't just treating ourselves to a mani-pedi now and then. You have a very comprehensive definition of self-care and you describe it as, quote, always a work in progress. Give us your definition of self-care and why it's healthier for us to view it in your context. You know, we didn't come up with this comprehensive definition and we strongly, strongly feel that this is the way to go. Health is not just, you know, what happens when you go to the doctor's office and your physical body. Health is physical, it's mental, it's emotional, it's social, it's civic, it's financial. So these are all the parts of our life that make us functional human beings trying to live to the best of our ability, full lives.
21:11 And in the workplace, you're not taught, it's not prioritized to take care of yourself. You know, example we give in the emergency department is we never call out sick, ever. And we all have the story of colleagues who walk around with an IV in their arm with the IV pole and they're walking around and seeing patients. And it's sort of like funny, not funny, funny, not funny. Now thank goodness things have changed since COVID because when COVID happened, if we were infected, we were mandated to stay home. But that never generally happens in medicine for physicians. So the concept of our chapter one is microskills for self-care intentionally because we really want people to take care of themselves because everything starts with the self.
21:54 And this is not being egocentric, this is not being selfish, this is not being narcissistic. This is actually having a really healthy sense of self that you know that if you take care of yourself, you're going to be better able to show up for your team members. And then together as a team, you come up with a much better work product. How hard is it to not only develop microskills, but develop and maintain the right ones so we're effective and keep them going? We are very sympathetic to how hard it is to create change. Part of our job is to tell patients, take your medications, exercise, eat healthy foods.
22:36 And we know as we're telling that, that there's a lot of privilege packed into that advice and that not everyone is able to do these things equally. It depends a lot on who are your dependents? Do you have access to a car? Do you have access to insurance? Do you understand the instructions your doctor are telling you, given that there's a language barrier? All of these things can make it very challenging for someone to do what they even know is good for them. So, I think we wanted to take that idea of recognizing the human experience of being an employee, of being a coworker or a peer, and someone who has ambitions, and also adding in this element of like, we understand that it's really hard for everyone to chase their dreams because of various factors.
23:26 And so in the book, we have 10 chapters. Each chapter starts with a story, a vignette, or excuse me, each microskill starts with a vignette within the chapter. And after that, we go directly into why we think you should consider this microskill, and then why it might be hard for you to actually create change for yourself. And we added that element of why it's hard, because given our background as physicians, and even as educators and mentors, we know that if we tell someone just to quit tasks that bring you no joy, they might say, hey, you don't really understand me because I'm a young woman of color in a system where no one looks like me.
24:10 And if I do that, that might create more negative energy in my direction. So I can't just do what you're telling me to. So this idea of adding in, I think, a more sympathetic tone to the piece, I think, allows people to realize like, okay, yes, there are ways to do this. Also, the authors understand my perspective, and what is to follow should have that level of compassion throughout. And so we really tried to make sure that it felt like a compassionate guidebook as well. You're both emergency medicine physicians, and obviously that's a very challenging job. What micro skills have made the biggest difference in your professional lives?
24:51 We believe in all of them, and we could say all of them have been important. But day to day, interaction, interaction, and depending on what is on the to-do list for the day, different micro skills rise to the top. One that I think certainly is important, in fact, we dedicated a whole chapter to it as micro skills to grow your network. And I'll say like, I didn't completely understand the importance, nor did I even appreciate that I had a network until I think I was mid-career when I realized, oh, I have a network just by nature of the fact that I've gone to school, and I've gone through a few different echelons of schooling, meaning like high school to college, to med school, to residency, to fellowship, to a faculty position.
25:33 And each time, those people become part of your network. But network is not just your work groups. It's also if you pursue sports, whatever hobbies, if you have something faith-based, all of these are part of your network. But more so that there is an intentionality behind networking in terms of, Adara referenced the personal board of directors, and this is another phrase that we love and a concept we love. We didn't come up with it, but it's something that's talked about a lot in the business self-help literature in terms of leadership and team building. And your personal board of directors are the people that sit figuratively on your board.
26:14 There are no term limits. And these are the people, there's always an open chair. And some people are with you for a lifetime. Some people are with you maybe for one coaching session. But they have your back. They have your professional success in mind. And these are people you trust and people you go to for advice, for input, to give you feedback. These are people you can role play for difficult conversations. And these aren't one-way transactional relationships. These are actually two ways and intentional. And it's really important that not only you demonstrate members of your board gratitude, but also you try to help them as much as they're helping you or in ways to help them.
26:57 And so back to networking, your personal board of directors is part of your network. They can help you network. And this also ties into the fact that both of us feel very strongly about mentoring and helping other people and growing your mentee's network by even just bringing them along to one of your own professional events. There's many easy, simple ways to grow your network. And finally, what I'll say is what networking does, and it doesn't have to be creepy or inauthentic, it should be real connection. And it doesn't have to be big and loud and in a group. It can be quiet and one-on-one and taking a walk together and speaking about something for the workplace.
27:40 But by developing these intentional connections with people, you therefore have more people to call on for advice, for help, for that next opportunity. And it just sort of compounds many fold. Personal board of directors. I haven't heard that one before either. I use the phrase kitchen cabinet, so along the same lines. And so I'll start weaving that into my conversation as well. So now we talked about professional micro skills. How about your personal lives? Is there any particular micro skill or set of micro skills that make a difference in your personal lives? Well, I was going to say from the professional standpoint, I'm just going to quickly add in comment to that one.
28:24 The idea of avoiding or trying to minimize assumptions ahead of conflict. And I actually just witnessed this a few shifts ago where two people were having a lot of tension between each other. And I think it was for unfair assumptions about the other person's intentions. And so we talk a lot about approaching conflict with curiosity and trying to understand someone else's perspective and not really making assumptions about their intentions and why something occurred. Anyway, I just wanted to quickly add that in. From a personal standpoint, boundaries are really important.
29:05 I'm a mom of three. I have a pretty active academic life. I have a lot of hobbies as well outside of medicine, outside of healthcare that just helped me find peace. I'm not living as small as going on a lot of walks. I'm doing a lot of swimming now. I'm gardening. So those are things that just bring me personal joy and I like to carve space for that. So I think adding in boundaries took a while for me. And when I mean boundaries, I'm actually meaning like time on the calendar, like physical blocking of time and space in my life. And that took me, again, also some time to recognize that that's okay to do.
29:48 I started off first by just blocking off evenings because at the time when I needed to do that, my kids were two, one, three years, like in that range where they were unable to put themselves to bed. Now they're able to do that a little bit more, which is great. And needed me and my husband throughout like every step of the bedtime routine. And so I was finding myself in conflict with different demands when I was signing up for, let's say, a webinar at like seven o'clock or going to a mixer from six to eight. And then my husband's left with all three kids. And so just trying to be more protective of that family time, I think, allows me to be more present without feeling like, oh, I should be somewhere else right now.
30:39 And it also gave me more courage to just define what brings me value, especially after I sort of created that initial boundary and I wasn't fired. My boss has never... I don't even know if my boss even knows that I have that boundary. And so I think just believing that it'll be okay was important for me too. After I blocked off that six to nine window and I realized, oh, wow, nothing's actually happening to me, I extended that to weekends. And I do very little as well from a professional standpoint on the weekends. I try to really just dive into the moment with my kids or with my husband or even on my own doing stuff for myself with my girlfriends and just taking that time really, really seriously.
31:23 I think actually as a consequence, I've been able to move my career faster and more in a vertical direction because now what I say yes to, I feel like I've really put a lot of thought into it. I've thought about, is this actually going to have measurable impact? Is there going to be clear reward? Are people who are going to be benefiting actually recognizing the benefit of what I'm doing? Because there's sometimes work that we do that we think would benefit folks, but they might not appreciate it. And so just being very thoughtful of what I say yes to has allowed me to feel the sense of peace that I don't think I've had for a long time.
32:07 I don't know that there's a large separation between the personal microskills and the professional microskills. In fact, they flop. There's a lot of Venn diagram overlap. If I could point to one chapter today, I would point to microskills to manage your task list. And when you are in medical school and you're on rotation, many of us are taught back in the day we would carry a pen and an index card and create the list of patients that we had to see. And there were boxes, and then you would check the boxes of all the to-dos for each patient. And then that's how you'd walk your way and work your way through your patient care to get things down rounds for the morning.
32:48 So in the same way, many of us were taught to create a task list. And it may be obvious to some people how to prioritize tasks. What we found is actually everybody has different ability and skill around organizing a task list. So in that chapter, we really break it down and talk to the reader about prioritizing perhaps by what you'd like to do the most, prioritizing by timeline, prioritizing by what your supervisor says, I need this sooner rather than later, and helping to have people think about organizing their to-do list. And that translates to the home because sometimes there is the self-care, sometimes there is managing the household, whether you have pets or elderly parents or children, is it time for food preparation?
33:42 Is it time for sleep and talking about intentional sleep? We also talk about something called deliberate rest and the importance of taking that time to yes, move, exercise, yes, sleep, but also naps, walks in nature, sharing meals with people that you love that love you. All these things help you be even more focused and even more efficient when you actually sit down for the deliberate practice, which is the work. How can developing microskills improve overall performance in the workplace and how can microskills contribute to building stronger relationships or enhancing collaboration within teams? Our goal is to really help people identify their own knowledge and skill gaps and create a plan or path forward.
34:31 And I think that is rooted just in our experience being an educator and teaching people various aspects of being a physician. And Risa and I have both technical training in that. We are both trained in ultrasound, which is like a handheld device that we use to image people's bodies. And so we have taught many people how to do this particular skill and that always starts with what do you know? What don't you know? And really assessing those movements of the hand and of the eye and of the machine. So a lot of it is really just trying to learn where are the problem areas. When we created microskills, our goal was to just allow people to see, yes, under polished communication there are at least, because we've identified at least seven or eight microskills that will help you become a more polished communicator.
35:27 Take a look at the list and see what is the thing that you are not so strong at. Perhaps it's eye contact, body language, perhaps it's your use of emails, right? So there's various aspects of communication that you might want to focus on compared to others. And so the idea is really just seeing what is it that is my weak point? What are my strengths? And what should I focus on first? You mentioned that we are lifelong learners and we are ambitious. And one of our author talks, the moderator arrived and basically said, this book is a lot. And it was really refreshing and great feedback to hear that.
36:11 And I had a friend that says, you know, Risa, I need to do this step by step because there's so much in here. It's a very dense read. And as Adair mentioned, it's a toolkit and you can jump in, jump out. Our table of contents is really, really granular intentionally so that people can flip to what they need to read on or want to read on. You can do it and read it cover to cover. It's a very efficient read, but also it can be a reference manual. And that's to say is in the comprehensiveness and in the content, you know, intent to make it accessible, we know that the person that's going to really resonate with this book has a growth mindset, wants to be better, wants to grow, wants to be efficient and wants to figure out, as Adair just pointed out, those gaps.
36:59 Because, you know, we're usually aware of what we're good at and where we have found success or get praise, but it's those other pieces that might fill in some of the Swiss cheese holes that will really sort of round out the professional picture. We all want to excel at work or at least look good for the boss. How can micro skills help individuals stand out and advance in their careers, especially in highly competitive fields like medicine? I love this question. And I think it's probably just worth clarifying to the audience that this book is, yes, written by two physicians, but it's, I think, we think for anyone in any field at any stage of training, we do think that this book would be most helpful for folks who are entering into the workplace for the first time, or maybe it's one of their earlier jobs.
37:52 Just because that's when you're learning probably the most, though we think, you know, for a lifelong learner, you're going to be learning throughout your career. I think, one, we hope that this book removes a lot of the sort of hidden curriculum that many of us are not taught. I was never taught to understand the organizational chart of your department or of your office. I remember showing up for my first meeting, it was like a big meeting of like 70 people and various folks were talking most of the time and the rest of us were listening. And I didn't really understand like the hierarchy and who I would report to for certain reasons. And of course I eventually learned that, but it would have been nicer to understand that every company has like a reporting tree and there's really no true flat hierarchy.
38:42 There's always going to be someone in charge. And so understanding that dynamic was something that I just had never considered. Another thing is, you know, when I was a chief resident, we would get all sorts of emails about our schedule, as you can imagine, from tired doctors not wanting to necessarily work seven days in a row. And I learned that the harms of sending an angry email at 3 a.m. can really have longstanding damaging effects on your reputation. So we talk a lot about reputation and how important it is to protect it because it takes a long time to build up a positive reputation and like an instant to ruin that.
39:26 And so there's a lot of stuff that no one's going to tell you in a classroom. You're not going to necessarily learn all these details on your orientation day or when you're onboarding at a new job. So this is just an extra toolkit in your pocket that you can reference when you're like, let me make sure I don't do anything egregious and I understand just how a workplace functions. I love the email you talk about sending at 3 o'clock in the morning because that's business 101. You know, nothing good happens professionally after 9 p.m. at night. And so if you want to draft something, fine, but draft it and save it to look at tomorrow morning. We have a cup of coffee and the sun's up. So I really appreciate that comment and can totally relate, unfortunately.
40:10 If I can dovetail, we have found that mid-career and late-career, read the book. And as Adair shared, this is useful no matter what your stage, but the one micro skill we hear over and over that the mid and late career people say they really learned was on email. And all of us think we've navigated, we've championed email communication. It's a part of every single workplace and workplace culture. That's something very simple, like what you just shared, this example. We talk about, go ahead and put it down, like, you know, get the thought down on paper, you know, draft the email. If it's sort of, you know, chock full of emotion, maybe draft it not on an email so you don't send it accidentally or don't put anybody in the two line, but sort of don't send it, you know, schedule it to send during the light of day.
40:59 So it enters someone, someone's inbox during work hours, or to your point, don't send the emotion filled email, you know, save it, reread it and reevaluate sort of what your goals are before you put that out into the universe. Because we text emails, we really emphasize in the book a few times, everything can be shared and forwarded. And Adair, you talked about reputational risk and that's it. I mean, that's everything. It can take you decades to build your reputation and be lost in one angry, rage filled, accidental email at two o'clock in the morning after my beloved New York Yankees lose the World Series.
41:40 And I appreciate you not raising that, being in Boston or Philly. I was going to say, what about the Red Sox? They're golfing right now. That's okay. We can talk about that. So Adair, you live in Boston, Risa, you live in Philadelphia. How did you two get connected? I was in residency thinking about moving to Boston. So I went to residency at NYU, so I was in New York City and wanted to move to Boston for personal reasons. And actually, truly the power of the network, as Risa mentioned earlier, I asked someone I knew if they had any connections to Boston and they connected me to Risa. She and I had some preliminary discussions about Boston hospitals.
42:24 I ended up moving here. And as you sort of alluded to earlier, we had a few follow-up conversations and one was probably the most pivotal was when I was telling her about some of the mentoring that I'm doing. She was very supportive and actually ended the conversation by offering to continue working together or continue staying connected. And the exact phrase was something to the extent of, if you ever want to write together, let me know. And I think, I'm sure, Chris, you've heard people say, yeah, let me know if you want to work together, hit me up, send me an email, and nothing ever happens. People don't follow up. I did because Risa at that point had a reputation of being a critical thinker, critical writer.
43:08 And so I was like, oh, this could be a chance for me as a very self-declared non-writer to learn a craft and to learn from someone who knew what they were doing. So we started writing together these articles that were not for medical audiences. We were writing for Harvard Business Review, CNBC, Fast Company, just sort of showcasing that the experiences we have in medicine are approachable and relatable to people outside of medicine, like conflict, communication, work-life balance. No matter what field you're in, you're interested in this topic. And so that was a great proof of concept for us.
43:49 And I think I've always toyed with the idea of it would be amazing to write a book, but again, I didn't really see myself as a writer. But I think as the articles were coming out more and more, and I definitely have the thought process of like, what's the next big step always? I'm always thinking that. The book felt like the next natural progression. And so it was an obvious choice to ask Risa to join with me because we had done so much of this writing together already. You're both tremendously busy, and yet you also both host your own podcast, hopefully not from 1 to 2 p.m. Eastern time on Tuesdays. How did you each fall into that role, and what should we know about your podcasts, and how can we follow them to tune in?
44:32 I'll start. I love podcasting, and it's been such a joy to join you on your podcast today. So before the pandemic, I had been a guest host on another person's podcast, really enjoyed it, enjoyed the conversation, and enjoyed doing, I guess, one of the micro skills we talked about, growing my network. Especially I tend to be very curious about many topics, love reading, love learning. And it was an opportunity to have a conversation with someone about their subject matter expertise. When COVID happened, not only did Adair and I start writing mainstream outlet articles, I also decided to start a podcast, and that podcast is called The Visible Voices.
45:17 And on it, I feature people who are subject matter experts or just doing interesting things, and in the categories, on the topics, in the spaces of healthcare, equity, and current trends. And I recently started hosting a second podcast, which is essentially bimonthly. It's an academic emergency medicine podcast for medical educators, and it's based on a journal called Academic Emergency Medicine Education and Training. And we highlight an article in each episode. So those are my two, and it just allows conversations, and it's a way of actually, I think the thread I use to pull it all together is storytelling, both amplifying the stories of other people, and I think in doing so, telling a bit of my own story.
46:05 And to clarify, I do not have a podcast. I have tried podcasting and creating one. I failed miserably, and that was a great lesson for me about just understanding my own skill set. I have a nonprofit that is focused on writing, teaching people of color how to write. And that's largely inspired by my journey learning how to write, as well as my co-founder, Dr. Flora Dattaboy. We both are women of color who have taken various writing courses and felt a bit isolated as far as just the demographics of the class, who's teaching the class, what authors are being highlighted as far as the readings, and so we wanted to create a place that felt like it was a little bit more inclusive, actually a lot more inclusive, deliberately inclusive, and also free so that it's accessible to all, similar to this idea of learning is limitless.
47:00 We also add to that line, if it is accessible. So our nonprofit is focused on teaching people of color how to write for free. Yeah, Dara, where can people learn more about your nonprofit? We have a website, writingincolor.org, and we just actually finished partnering with Boston Public Schools for the summer teaching students there. So we're gearing up for the next upcoming summer, and we'll be taking donations very soon. All right. For the shameless solicitation plug, what's the website again? Writingincolor.org. Thank you. And, Risa, your podcast, where can they find it, both of them? Yeah. So we both have professional websites, which is our name plus MD. So a Dara Landry MD, Risa E. Lewis, or Risa Lewis MD.
47:42 And in addition, I do have a podcast website, thevisiblevoicespodcast.com. One of the benefits of being on satellite is we can just talk about whatever we want and plug away. Sounds great. So, and for another maybe plug, Voice of America is always looking for more hosts. So I'm happy to connect you if you want to talk to somebody here. Cool. Thank you so much. What key factors should be considered and what micro skills should we hone when it comes to setting realistic timelines in the workplace? That's a great question. And I think probably something we are always going to be, I'm always going to be learning how to better refine my timelines.
48:22 I think in the beginning, I would just say yes to something because it sounded interesting, not because I actually had time on my schedule to do it. And so I found the idea of if you want to do it, you'll make time, not necessarily true for me. I feel like I need to keep my boundaries applicable. I need to make sure that I'm still resting and I have time for my family in order for me to be happy doing the work I have said yes to. And so now I spend a lot more time upfront asking what it is about the opportunity that seems like it might align with me or maybe be better for someone else.
49:09 I just was asked to speak at a conference on Monday, someone emailed me yesterday. And I was like, this conference isn't perfectly aligned with me or even closely aligned with me. And so I sent them three or four other names of someone who would just be better in that space. And so learning how to turn things down, that upfront work I think is really so poorly taught that we end up focusing so much more on how do we clean up this mess in front of us. And if you spend a lot more time thinking about what you say yes to, you don't have to worry about all these Pomodoro methods or the Eisenhower chart where you're like the two by two quadrants of yes now, no urgent.
49:54 That's all downstream effect because you haven't really been strategic about what you have said yes to. And so I think there's this emphasis of just, for me, screening, screening, screening, screening, so that I don't have to worry as much. And I think I'm in this transition point where I have stuff from two years ago that I said yes to then that I want to clean up. But now, like I said, the threshold is so much higher for me to say yes because I want the stuff that I do agree to do to finish, to go to completion, to have measurable impact, to feel like it's helped someone and it's helping others. And so that just requires a little bit more upfront digging.
50:35 I'll share, Seth Godin wrote a book called The Dip and in The Dip he talks about quitting things regularly, specifically the things that aren't bringing joy or that are basically in a cul-de-sac going around, around and not coming back up again from the dip in the road. And I actually am a fan of the Pomodoro. When I have an unstructured day, sitting for 25 minutes and focusing on one task, taking a break, task switching to another task, 25 minutes, and then if I do nine Pomodoros, I've gotten amazing progress on nine different things and move them all forward. Time is something that we think that we just have to adopt the culture of our workplace. And in certain ways we do, like we know when we start, we know when we end, but the concept of meetings and time, I think has so much more flexibility and negotiability than we think.
51:24 Every single Zoom meeting need not be one hour. One hour meetings can often be 30 minutes, 30 minute meetings can often be 15 minutes, 15 or 20 minute meetings might be able to be a text, an email or a quick phone call. So I think people realizing the health of taking control of their time and their calendars is something that benefits everybody, not just the person who's setting boundaries on their calendar, but also on the recipient end, you've just given back time to someone else in their day. So it's win-win. Dr. Darrell Andry And time is something we're out of. Dr. Darrell Andry and Dr. Risa Lewis, I really appreciate you being here today. I know how busy you are.
52:06 And as always, my producer, Eric, wrote way too much content for me, so I'd love to have you both back on so we can talk more about micro skills and have a 2.0 version of the conversation. Dr. Risa Lewis That would be wonderful. Dr. Darrell Andry Yes. Dr. Chris Meek And thank you for being with us to our audience, which now includes people in over 50 countries, for joining us for another episode of Next Steps Forward. I'm Chris Meek. For more details and upcoming shows and guests, please follow me on Facebook at facebook.com forward slash ChrisMeekPublicFigure and Annex at ChrisMeek underscore USA. We'll be back next Tuesday, same time, same place, with another leader from the world of business, politics, public policy, sports or entertainment. Until then, stay safe and keep taking your next steps forward.
52:49 Thanks for tuning in to Next Steps Forward. Be sure to join Chris Meek for another great show next Tuesday at 10 a.m. Pacific Time and 1 p.m. Eastern Time on the Voice America Empowerment Channel. This week, make things happen in your life.