Make your own path

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Welcome to the Clinician Researcher podcast, where academic clinicians learn the skills

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to build their own research program, whether or not they have a mentor.

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As clinicians, we spend a decade or more as trainees learning to take care of patients.

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When we finally start our careers, we want to build research programs, but then we find

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that our years of clinical training did not adequately prepare us to lead our research

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program.

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Through no fault of our own, we struggle to find mentors, and when we can't, we quit.

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However, clinicians hold the keys to the greatest research breakthroughs.

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For this reason, the Clinician Researcher podcast exists to give academic clinicians

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the tools to build their own research program, whether or not they have a mentor.

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Now introducing your host, Toyosi Onwuemene.

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Welcome to the Clinician Researcher podcast.

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I'm your host, Toyosi Onwuemene, and it is a pleasure to be speaking with you today.

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Thank you for taking the time to tune in and listen as I talk today about creating what

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you wish to see.

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Creating what you wish to see.

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And part of the story or the reason behind this particular episode is my experience growing

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up as somebody in the academy wanted to lead research, but didn't necessarily have all

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the currency necessary to receive the right support to do that.

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And when you find yourself in a situation where you want to really lead research, but

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you're not really supported to do it for whatever reason, whether that you're not seen to be

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qualified or you're not seen to be qualified enough, whatever the reason, it is an interesting

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place to be because you still have all these needs, but now nobody feels like they can

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make a case for these needs.

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And so in a sense, you're on your own.

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And I used to think it was a unique experience and it was just me, but in reality, there's

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so many faculty who start their careers in this way where they really want to lead a

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research program, but they don't have access to resources.

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And for that reason, they're not resourced to succeed.

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And so they really are figuring out how to make things work on their own.

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And so I think where this episode becomes important is to just make it easy in a sense

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to normalize the fact that there are many people who don't start out resourced to succeed

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as scientists, many, many people, and it's not the way it should be.

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And I don't necessarily recommend it, and I definitely am an advocate for institutions

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supporting faculty who want to lead research programs so much more.

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And it's the reason why I'm a coach for faculty members who really want to lead research programs,

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even though they may not even have the time or the space to do that.

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But ultimately, what happens is you're building for yourself what you wish to see because

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you do not have access to it.

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And interestingly, many people who are underrepresented in the academy find themselves in these places,

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and many times women as well.

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And the reason I add women to that is that there are certain jobs in the academy that

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people don't necessarily question whether women should contribute to or participate

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in, for example, kind of things that are along the lines of leading the residency program

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or being part of like the welcome committee or the welfare committee, those kinds of things.

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But the kinds of things that actually really advance careers in terms of publication and

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manuscripts and things like that that are actually the currency of academic medicine,

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you tend not to find people who are underrepresented in the academy represented in that as well.

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So a lot of the things you're building, you're building what you don't have.

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You're building the mentorship you may not have access to.

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You're creating opportunities for your writing like you may not have been able to before.

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And I just want to encourage you, and that's what this podcast episode is really about,

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is you're about encouraging you that, you know what, if you don't see it, you can create

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it.

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And yes, it will take time.

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Yes, it will be challenging.

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Oh, it would be so much easier if you didn't have to do that.

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And wow, you're surrounded by so many people who don't have to do that.

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It is all true.

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But it's also true that what you want is worth the wait.

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It's worth the investment.

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It's worth everything you bring to it.

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And the reward is so amazing.

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And so yes, if anyone's going to create what's needed for what you want to come to life,

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then who better to do it than you?

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Who better to create exactly what is needed than the person who has dreams about it, who

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wakes up from sleep thinking about it?

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And those are things that are super important as well.

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So I would say that the unofficial title of this particular podcast episode is how to

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become a magnet, because the things that you are creating are very difficult to create

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just by yourself.

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And you really do still need a team, even if you don't have the finances to resource

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a team.

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And so what you're going to do is you're going to become the kind of person who attracts

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people who are able to help you fulfill the goals that you have come to fulfill.

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And that sounds harder than it should, because in reality, we already are doing these things.

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But what we're not doing is doing them with intention and specificity.

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For example, if you have a sense that you don't belong in the academy, your work is

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not worth anything, and that there's no point being here, you begin to project that to the

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environment surrounding you.

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And so even when you go to a new collaborator and you say, hey, come work with me, even

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though your words are like, come work with me, I really am excited about this project,

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what they're reading from your body language is, no, don't come work with me.

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I don't believe in myself.

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I'm not even sure this is going to work.

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I don't even know why I want to be here.

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And these are the subtle things that we communicate that are not always so obvious, but are so

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important that we start to think about them more clearly.

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So we start to think about them intentionally.

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That we're not chasing people away by our core values and beliefs, but we're actually

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attracting them to us.

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And part of attracting them to us is really about becoming a magnet, becoming a magnet.

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Okay, so what are five key points?

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The first point is to be clear about who you are.

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And this may be the hardest thing to do, because for so long in our training, we're pretending

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to be somebody else, and to get the kind of resources we need from senior faculty, we

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pretend to be someone else.

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To get what is needed from our mentors, we pretend to be someone that we're not.

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And so one of the things that's important is to come back home, come back to center,

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come back to zero gravity, come back to the starting point.

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Is that what I meant?

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Ground zero, not zero gravity, but ground zero, come back to where it all began.

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And to really define who you are, defining your personal values, defining your professional

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values, and how you want to come to your academic career with those values.

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And it's important because if you are not clear on who you are or what you stand for,

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then other people are confused as well.

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If you are not sure, other people tend to not be sure as well.

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And so when you think you're kind of like creating a, you know, like you're sharing

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or exuding a persona of confidence, well, people can tell, people can tell that within

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the, behind the confidence is insecurity and concerns and worry and anxiety and fear.

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And so it's really important that you are clear on who you are, what are your core values

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and beliefs.

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And I would say that you have them, you do.

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And if you've never done the work of unearthing what those things are, I invite you to sit

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with a coach to do that.

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And granted, I'm the coach I want you to sit down with, but it doesn't have to be me in

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the sense that it is such a gift to be able to have that kind of space where you can really

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think deeply about who you are and how you want to move forward in the profession.

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And if you are able to do that, you will be ahead of so many people who literally just

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kind of live on autopilot, going from clinic to clinic to note to note to project to project

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to submission after submission without really understanding what makes what drives them

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so that it makes it difficult to look at what are the components of this career that I enjoy

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if you're so busy kind of working out of obligation.

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And so it's important to define your personal professional values because when they become

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clear to you, only after they become clear to you, can you make them visible to other

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people as well.

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The second thing you want to do is make sure that you are authentic.

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So again, we have this training history of becoming anything that we are asked to become,

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right?

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So if you're okay, today we need you to be a neurologist and you show up as a neurologist

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and we need you to show up as the person who takes care of these events and you show up

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as that person.

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You've gotten really good at pretending to be somebody else or someone that you're not,

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that you can kind of miss opportunities to just be you.

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You can kind of miss opportunities to let yourself shine, especially if for whatever

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reason you've been put down or someone said something that's really upset you, perhaps

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you don't feel like you can really show up authentically because maybe you did that once

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and backlash came out of it.

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But if you're going to really, really succeed in creating something that you have not seen

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before, you're going to want to do it from a place of authenticity.

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You're going to want to do it from a place of belief.

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You don't want to do it from a place of faith because it allows you to build where other

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people have life challenges that keep them from helping with you and they keep keep them

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from helping you.

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It allows you to keep moving forward even when you can't find the right collaborators.

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Having an authentic personal brand gives you in a sense a compass by which to move things

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forward.

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Now, I know that feels like defining a personal and professional values and clearly they are

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related, but being authentic for people to be able to say, well, this is what we expect

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when it comes to this person.

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It allows you to attract people who appreciate who you are authentically.

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And if you're pretending, you might attract people who are driven to your pretend self,

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but ultimately your authentic self is so important and it absolutely is worth valuing at every

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point in time.

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You want to make sure that you are authentically, authentically personal or authentically engaged.

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You want to be authentic in everything you do.

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The third thing I want to share is the importance of intentionality in all that you do.

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You want to be intentional in your networks.

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You want to be intentional in the faculty you're engaged with.

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You want to be intentional in the mentors that you engage with because the people who

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surround you are the people who define who you are.

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And the more you're around them, the more you become like them.

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And so you want to be intentional about the time you spend with people so you ask yourself,

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well, is this who I wish to become?

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What aspects of this thing that I'm getting from this person can come from somewhere else?

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But you want to make sure that you have intentionality in your interactions with other people.

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Not because you're looking at them as like a source of something good.

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Actually, I mean, to some extent, yes, you want everything to be a source of good to

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you.

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But it's really about making sure that what you need is available around you.

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And if you can't find it, where can you go to get it?

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So you want to make sure that you're intentional about the things that you do so that people

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can be drawn to that authenticity that is you.

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Okay, the other component of this becoming a magnet is about you creating the kind of

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mentoring relationship that you never had.

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So I'm not assuming that everybody on here had negative mentoring relationship, but a

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lot of you perhaps did.

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And it's important to be able to acknowledge that and to be able to move on from it.

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So you want to acknowledge it.

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You want to move on from a situation that didn't work well for you, but then you want

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to create opportunities for other people as well.

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So if you didn't get it, create it for somebody else.

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And in creating it for someone else, you actually are creating it for yourself as well.

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The second piece of that is collaborations.

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Hey, you know, nobody can go anywhere doing work by themselves.

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And so how can you really supercharge your collaborations so that you're moving an extremely

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wonderful amount of work going forward that you and your partners are proud of as well?

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And so having mentoring opportunities allow you to be the mentor you never could be.

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And hopefully you've done the work of healing that allows you to be a healthy mentor.

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And if you haven't, we should definitely talk, send me a DM so that we can schedule a time

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to meet.

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But it is important that we become the mentors that we have wanted to have all along because

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that's a gift that we are able to bring to them that they don't otherwise have.

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And so I'm recommending that.

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I think the fifth piece of this is just engaging with community.

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You know, at the end of the day, creating what didn't exist before is really about relationships.

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It will always be about relationships.

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It will always be about relationships.

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And so it's important to nurture those relationships, to give back to the community, and to just

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in general be a blessing to as many people as possible.

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And really, the more you do that, the more you engage people who are like-minded, people

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who are interested in helping, people who are interested in giving.

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And it becomes really, really deeply satisfying and special as well.

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Okay.

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So I talked today about what is important as far as becoming a magnet to attract like-minded

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individuals.

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And I would like to recap those points.

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Number one is really thinking about, well, what is a thing that is a core of personal

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professional value?

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You want to make sure that you understand that so that that's part of it's woven into

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your identity as a clinician scientist or a clinician researcher.

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The next thing we talked about is building an authentic personal brand.

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There's so much out there, but authenticity is lacking.

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And your authenticity makes a world of difference.

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And the other thing I talked about was being intentional, intentional about next steps,

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intentional about what I'm working on right now.

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Is being intentional, be intentional so that you are able to really take advantage of opportunities

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when they come.

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Okay.

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And then we talked about mentorship and collaboration.

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Although you look around and you're like, I still want to be mentored.

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It's important for you to start the process of mentoring others so that you have a larger

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than life network as needed, as opportunities come up as well.

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Okay.

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And the last thing I would share is really giving back to an engaging with the community.

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And sometimes part of that is really caring personally for the community members or part

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of your program.

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And I would say that it's a really, really, really important skill to be able to have.

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It's a really important thing is just how do you engage with the community in which

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you are in so that you can have maximum impact.

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So those are the five things that I wanted to share today.

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And I want to make sure that you have a way of really resting and taking care of yourself

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as needed.

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All right.

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It was a pleasure talking with you today.

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I look forward to talking with you again the next time.

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Thanks for listening to this episode of the Clinician Researcher podcast, where academic

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clinicians learn the skills to build their own research program, whether or not they

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have a mentor.

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If you found the information in this episode to be helpful, don't keep it all to yourself.

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Someone else needs to hear it.

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So take a minute right now and share it.

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As you share this episode, you become part of our mission to help launch a new generation

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of clinician researchers who make transformative discoveries that change the way we do health

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care.

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In other words, we are a place where people are provided the care they need.