Follow the show:
Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Google Podcasts | Everywhere else
Sara is following her dream! After being out of veterinarian school for just one year, she will be opening her own clinic. But this dream may never have happened, had it not been for coaching. Over the course of 6 months Sara learned to trust herself and end the constant internal questioning. She stopped thinking she needed the perfect plan to execute her dreams and instead learned to lean on her own knowledge, instincts and confidence. Today, Sara prioritizes time to herself, workouts and time with her family, despite all the busyness of starting up a clinic. In this interview, Sara shares some the mindsets and tools she learned, and still uses, since coaching that helped her overcome the fear of going out on her own while still maintaining work-life balance.
Topics in this episode:
Self-reliance gets in the way of achieving your goals
How coaching sped up Sara’s dream by 4 years
How to make success inevitable when following your dream
The #1 skill learned in coaching: self validation
What is the cost of NOT following your dream?
The mindset to overcome the fear of failing at your dream
Show Notes & References:
Overcome the fear that is holding you back from pursuing your dream job. Just like Sara, it starts with scheduling your free breakthrough call and deciding that you and your happiness are worth it. Click here to schedule your call: www.rebeccaolsoncoaching.com/book
Don’t forget to leave a rating and review to help spread this resource to other working moms!
Enjoying the podcast?
Make sure you don’t miss a single episode! Subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, or where ever you listen to podcasts.
Leave a rating and review in Apple Podcasts or Podchaser.
Transcript
Intro
Rebecca: Oh, my goodness. Working Moms, I have a special treat for you today on the podcast. I am interviewing a past client of mine. Her name is Sara. In just a couple of months, she will be opening up her very own veterinarian clinic. Now, this was a dream that she had named in coaching that just a year and a half later is actually coming to fruition. And I invited her on this podcast because I wanted to hear all of her juicy secrets on how she's able to do it. How she was able to go from being overwhelmed and busy and needing to get everything done and perfect and her house clean and feeling like she wasn't showing up as the best mom and she wasn't showing up as the best doctor - to this moment now where she is prioritizing herself and her workouts and her family and pursuing a very ambitious dream that she's going to share with us today.
Working Moms. If you have felt stuck, if you have wanted to pursue something that feels big and hard, this is the podcast for you. This is where you are going to learn exactly the kind of mindset you need to have in order to follow your dreams and have the working mom life that you absolutely dream of. Can't wait for you to hear all of the things that Sara has to say, her experiences, and what she learned in coaching and how it propelled her into the life that she has today. This is just so good. Get ready working moms, because here we go.
Welcome to the ambitious and balanced Working Mom podcast, the place for women who want to balance their ambitious career goals with their life as a mom. If you're looking to feel more confident, decisive, and productive at both work and home, then this is the place for you. I'm your host, Rebecca Olsen. Let's get to it.
Rebecca: Hello, Sarah. I am so glad you are on this podcast with me today. Thank you. Welcome to the podcast.
Sara: Thanks for having me.
Rebecca: You're very welcome. I have such a treat for you working moms out there. I am interviewing Sara Federschmidt, and she was a working mum that came to me in March of 2021. We're recording this at the end of October 2022. So a year and a half ago, essentially, is when we first met and we engaged in coaching together. She came to me just as she was finishing up veterinarian school. Then she was going to head into… is it called residency? I know that's what it is. When you're a normal doctor. Is it a residency? Is that what you go into after that? Or what do you call it?
Sara: It's not a formal program. It's just kind of your first year of practice.
Rebecca: Oh, really? Okay. There's not that formal section after school. So you basically were coming to me after school, at the very tail end of school and transitioning into that first job as a veterinarian. And it was this moment I remember what really struck me about this call that we had right at the very beginning. And everybody that works with me, they hop on a breakthrough call, and we coach a little bit on that call. We talk about coaching together, and we kind of make a decision on whether we want to move forward together. And one of the things that you said was how important thresholds are in life. And that word threshold really stood out to me, like transitions, these moments where you're going from one place where you're at today, and you're going into another one. You were in a big one.
You were transitioning out of school, which was like, four years. Is that how long you were transitioning out of, like, fulltime, very intense school of four years? You had a family. We're going to hear all about that in a second. And you knew that you needed help transitioning into life, into your new normal, whatever that new normal was going to be. Tell us, Sarah, I want to hear it in your own words. Tell us a little bit about you, how many kids you have in your family, kind of where you live, a little bit of where you're at right now, but then tell me where you are at in that moment when you were thinking about engaging in coaching and hiring a coach at that time, I wanna hear all about it.
About Sara.
Sara: So I am a veterinarian, like she said, and I work in Kailua, Hawaii. I've got two little girls, a four year old now and a two year old, and my husband and I are actually expecting our third in March.
Rebecca: Omg I didn’t know that? Congratulations. That's amazing. So good.
Sara: Yeah, we're really excited
Rebecca: …you have young kids. So even a year and a half ago, they were little, little.
Sara: Yeah, Dixie was three, and I think that he was, like, nine months or something when I started working with you.
Rebecca: So good. Okay, so talk, to me a bit about what was going on in life at that time. Like, we knew it was this threshold moment in life, but what was going on in life where you really just said, I'm going to need help getting from where I'm at today into a better spot.
Sara: That started probably months before we first spoke, so I have to give all the credit on this one to my husband, who was a small business owner at the time and had worked with some coaches and things like that for him professionally. I remember very clearly, there was a dinner where we sat down and he first proposed this idea of coaching to me. He knew he needed to be kind of gentle and subtle about the topic, because my people like where I come from, like, we don't need help from anybody, and we can do it ourselves, you know, so he kind of knew that that probably wasn't going to be something I was going to accept super quickly. But one thing he did, and this is what I suggested, anybody that I talk to about you and wants to work with you is he put my email on your mailing list.
Rebecca: Oh my gosh, that's so great.
Sara: Yeah, he did that. And so I just started randomly getting these emails from you and over time I read them and I would really connect with some of your messages in there. I'd be in the middle of class or something, almost brought to tears by some of the content that you put out there because it just rang so true to me. So that went on for a few months and then I was like, okay, I think this coaching thing you mentioned like months ago, I think I might be interested in that. He's like, finally, this is going to be so good for you. It's going to be great.
Rebecca: I want to stop here for a second because now that we're having this conversation, I remember that he emailed me and he said, I'm emailing you on behalf of my wife who would be a little skeptical about hiring a coach. And so I'm vetting for her some coaches on her behalf. And she doesn't really know about it, but tell me more about what you do and like, the cost and all of these things. And so I remember your husband is remarkable.
That has never happened. And I don't think ever since I've had a husband that has reached out to me in that way. And I remember I wrote back and I'm like, let's also be clear that I would have to eventually talk to her. Like, she's the one that has to buy into this coaching relationship and the desired results that we're going to get at coaching and so forth. And it's like, that's totally, I get it. And then many months went by. Many months went by until you finally reached out and booked a call with me.
‘Booking a call felt scary’
Sara: Yeah, he knows you pretty well. But yeah. So that connection that I was making through kind of your emails and your message and when I would think about, like, scheduling a call with you, like, it made me nervous and it made me scared. Right? And then eventually I'm like, because it makes you nervous and scared is probably something you should do. So that's when I decided to make the call.
Rebecca: I love that idea because I have that same bit of intuition in me. Like, when I want to run away from something and I realize I want to run away from something, I usually take it as a sign that I'm supposed to walk towards it because I'm not, I don't want to run away. Right. Like, I'm not somebody that does run away. It's not in my DNA. And so I love that you have that same intuition.
I'm curious about because I know a lot of people have this thought, like, I shouldn't ask for help. Asking for help means I did something wrong or I'm doing it wrong or something's bad, or I shouldn't be where I'm at. So much so that now I can't help myself and I need to ask for help. Where does that come from, do you think? Inside of you, at least?
It was really hard for me to ask for help.
Sara: Yes, I think for me, I was raised as a very self-reliant, independent person. And that was just one of the qualities that, through my upbringing, my family had really instilled in me that we don't need help, we can do this on our own. And like, you can find a solution yourself, you know? That was before working with you, and it was probably pretty core to my identity. And so by giving up and saying that someone else can have something to show you or do something differently, that's kind of like admitting fault a little bit. And that was really hard for me.
Rebecca: What's your perspective of it now?
Sara: Uh, much different. Like, when we went through the process of identifying my core values of what actually important to me, and not necessarily just because that was what I was taught growing up, but like, what really matters to me, you know, that wasn't in there. Like me being a super self reliant person, you know, that didn't come through like some other things, like being an achiever and having high standards, those things for sure. But I came to realize I'm not too good to get some help and find some other ways and solutions to do things.
Exploring your inner values in coaching.
Rebecca: I love that. I love that you bring it back to values because it is the first thing that I do with all of my clients is we identify those core values at the very first session. Right? It's like right out of the gate. That's what we do because they are a guide through so much of what we talk about from there on out.
I'm curious because now it's been a year and a half since we did that. Even that exercise of your values, does that come up for you? Do you think about those words that we came up with and how they guide you or what's important about them or what's on the list or not on the list of your values?
Sara: Yeah, for sure. I think it came into like, even when you're deciding to have another kid, like, okay, is that in line with my values and what we really want? And, you know, those types of things, like, I definitely play a role, we definitely talk about it, and then we probably get to it. But your purpose as well, and like, what you're on this planet to do, like, is this in alignment with my purpose and things like that, I come back to that all the time.
Living into my purpose and my values.
And one of the things we worked on after I had gotten started in the job early on, was, what does it mean to be a good doctor, and what does it mean to be a good whatever? And so, you know, when we're kind of setting those, like, this is the five things that I think it means to be a good doctor, or these are the five things it means if I'm being a good mom. When you're kind of setting those boundaries and those expectations for yourself, coming back to those core values and your purpose and things like that help you kind of understand.
So I might be the doctor that's a little bit behind in appointments, but I took extra time to teach this nurse how to do this thing, and that's really important. That's living into my purpose and my values, and that's what I want to do. So I'm going to accept them a few minutes behind and take the time to do that.
Rebecca: I love that there's so much we could talk about that particular session. I remember a lot because it was so palpable like that the reality of being a doctor that you want to give quality care is obviously super important to you, otherwise, you probably want to be a doctor in the first place. You really want to help people.
You have a schedule of people that you need to see, and you only have a very short period of time with every single one of them, and how do you navigate somebody coming in with their pet that needs a little extra attention? But you know that that means six other people are going to be waiting for you down the line, because there's going to be a trickle down effect, and then that last person is going to be super mad at you and they're going to come in all upset because they just waited 30 minutes for you, and they didn't want to wait 30 minutes.
I remember it so much. We really did talk about adapting. Where did your values point in this kind of scenario? Because it was such a reality for you that these were the kinds of things happening daily that you went home and you felt terrible about and you didn't want to feel terrible about it anymore. And so we pointed back to those values and said, well, what's really most important in this situation? And what are your options? What could you do? And I remember we talked about you could, like, cut the person off and say, look, I got to go. I'm sorry. Your pets fine. Let's move on. And you were like, I can't do that.
Sara: Yeah. I think when I came to you, I would have bad mornings with my daughters because kids are slow and they're little, and it's sometimes hard to get them dressed and out the door on time. And it was so important to me at that time in my life to be on time for whatever reason, to maintain the standard of ‘I show up on time’, which in general, I think is a good principle. But when you have kids, showing up on time is at the deficit of what relationship and what kind of morning I'm going to have with my daughters.
What’s really important to me?
And so, yeah, when we sit down and think about, okay, what's really important to me, is being on time really important to me? Or is having, like, a good morning and being able to wait and watch my three year old put on her shoes by herself, like, is that, you know, what's more important? And, like, literally, those two things sometimes get pitted against each other. And when I decided for myself that, nope, I'm going to be the person that waits the two minutes and watches their daughter put on their shoes by themselves, and we're going to have a great time, and I'm not going to speed her through that process, and I'm okay with that. And accepting that and really, like, wrapping your brain around that and being okay with it on a consistent basis has made all the difference. Just little things like that.
Rebecca: Yes, because punctuality wasn't on your values list.
Sara: Right.
Rebecca: A connection or something related was. And, like, these were connecting moments that you had with your daughters - and at that point, they were few and far between. You did not have a ton of time with your kids because of your schedule and because of being in school and all that stuff. These moments really, really mattered to you, and you needed to make them the best they could possibly be. This was the way to honor your values in that moment, knowing truly, at the core, what's most important to you is a game changer in all of the little moments and then in the big moments in life, too.
And I want to shift to talking about the big moments because the real reason I wanted you to be on this podcast so I could talk about this stuff all of the time. Something really big has happened for you recently, and it was something that we talked about in coaching. And I got this message from you a couple of weeks ago. I think you voxed me - because with all of my clients, I do this one-on-one Voxer, which is like a messaging app that allows me and my clients to leave voice messages to each other, it’s so fun, I get messages from clients all of the time that I've worked with in the past.
And so you messaged me and you're like, I did it. I quit. I'm starting my own business, it's happening. And I was like, what? You have to come on the podcast to talk about this. And then here, just in these brief couple of minutes before we started recording this you were telling me a little bit about this. Give us a brief, what’s happening, what's in the works right now? What are you building? And then we're going to come back to how you got here.
Quitting my job and starting my own business.
Sara: Yeah. So I recently resigned from my first job as a veterinarian, and I'm going to start my own practice. And we're really kind of rethinking veterinary medicine and the veterinary experience in the paradigm and kind of wanting to start something that's totally fresh and new and do things really, really differently. So my husband's my business partner, but yeah, we're starting our own space at our own clinics from scratch.
Rebecca: Oh, my gosh. I just think this is the best story. Tell us about how you found the place.
Sara: Our ideal place that we've actually found, like, this huge 2,400 square foot is going to be a beautiful hospital one of these days in the Enchanted Lake. So just the neighborhood we live in, and it's going to be awesome. And so we're kind of working through the builder and contracting process and all these things. And then we found out it's going to be over a year until we can get a building permit to even get started on the project. And so my husband and I had all this momentum where we were really working with everything to get it all set up. And we're just like, devastated. So we had a pow-wow and took a lunch, and we're sitting there eating lunch, both of us are bummed, and we kind of look over and see land spots for rent. Let's go check it out. So after lunch, we walk over…
Rebecca: So you are having a pow-wow lunch to discuss the fact that the most perfect building you would not be able to renovate for another year. You were bummed about that. And so you were going away to lunch in order to talk about what are the options. And then you look out the window at lunch across the street and there's a place to rent. And so you go over there to check it out.
Finding the perfect property to open my business.
Sara: Yeah, that's what happened. We wander across the street and we start peeping in the windows. It's kind of small, but I think it might work. Oh, it's got a bathroom. And, you know, there's just this handwritten sign with the phone number on it and for rent, so yeah we literally called it and spoke with the owner. I told him kind of what our business was going to be. He's like, yeah, that'd be great. Go ahead. We signed the lease that week.
Rebecca: Oh, my gosh.
Sara: Yes. It became really evident that there's a lot of work to do. And so I need to kind of, like, transition from my current place where I was working and kind of shift my efforts into kind of getting this thing started up because it all started happening a lot faster than I had initially anticipated. So, yeah, I put in my resignation, which was scary and awful.
Rebecca: Crazy. When do you hope it's open?
Sara: We're hoping to start team training in December and do kind of a soft opening for friends and family end of December and then be open, like, ready for the public in January.
How has coaching helped Sara’s dreams come true?
Rebecca: Oh my gosh, so good. So tell me, how did coaching that we did a year to a year and a half ago, how has that played a role in this dream of opening your own clinic? How did it play a role in that happening for you and this dream coming true?
Sara: Gosh, we were reflecting on my breakthrough call and the voice note that I had sent you there and you asked me how I felt when I read through that. And I was just like, man, I was worried about the dishes, the laundry - and at that point in time, those were things that really caused me a lot of stress and anxiety and were like, kind of really holding me back from feeling happy about my life, you know? And now looking back on it, it seems like pama is pretty trivial. Now I have stress and anxiety but about much bigger and much different topics. But it's really like going back to those little things and then the mindset that you're in and those little things build to big things like I shared with you early on.
Identifying what's a helpful thought and what's not a helpful thought.
So I think the biggest thing in coaching that I gain is identifying your thought patterns and what's a helpful thought and what's not a helpful thought, and then what to do about those unhelpful thoughts. And I think when I came to you, I used the word should a lot and you helped me kind of identify that. Whenever I'm saying that word should, that's self judgment. And I am judging myself and really holding myself back.
And so through our work together, I was able to one identify what was going on and then two, change my mindset around some of the words and the thought patterns that I was using to describe myself. And from changing that and going through our purpose and values, you're able to make better decisions for yourself and make better thought patterns. And then from the little things, like not worrying about the dishes, now you can do all these other amazing things and you have more time and more aperture and you can just expand that.
Rebecca: One of the things I do with all of my clients is you're talking to me about some of the things that you wrote in that prep form for the breakthrough call. And some of the things you identified that were bothering you were the dishes had to be done every single night before you went to bed and you had to have a clean house. And all of these things that you're kind of naming as trivial, that we kind of get into this pattern of, like, we need this to be a certain way. We need this to happen.
What if we let go of your circumstances needing to be a certain way?
And you get irritated at your husband when he does this every single time, and your kids need to respond in this way and life circumstances need to be better. You thought at the time that there was a way to make all of these things perfect on some level. And what I was pointing you towards was saying, what if we just let go of your circumstances needing to be a certain way? And then you just adjusted the way you felt about all of your circumstances, so then your circumstances could be great or they could be terrible, and it wouldn't really matter because you were in control of you always.
So whether the dishes were done or not, you could go to sleep with peace of mind and feeling very relaxed and rested and feeling good and adequate as a human being and as a mom and as a wife or whatever.
Patterns in our behaviours and beliefs.
And one of the things I do is, when we have things like this that irritate us all of the time or that are kind of getting in the way of us experiencing the life that we want to be experiencing, we identify them as patterns. You're calling them a thought pattern because that's ultimately where it stems from, is like, you can't leave the dishes undone before going to sleep, even if it's way too late, and you really need to get to bed, and that's the best thing for you. It's like you couldn't do anything but clean these dishes because you had to have it a certain way. And so we identified that as, like, a pattern. Like, this is always happening.
Where is this coming from? What's the feeling that's causing you to have to do the dishes before you go to sleep? And it was somewhere, some flavor of inadequacy, ultimately. Right? If the dishes are undone, you feel you, as a human being, inadequate, like they should be done. And if they're not done, then that means something terrible about me.
And so we knew you had these thoughts about yourself having dirty dishes that made you feel bad about you, which would then, of course, cause you to get up and do the dishes before you went to bed. There's a very clear pattern between your thoughts and your feelings and your actions, right?
And so with all my clients, I identify them. We all have them. All of us have these patterns of doing things and feeling things and thinking things that don't really serve us in the end, that don't allow us to live the happy, balanced, cheerful, rested, fun, exciting life that we want to have ultimately as working moms.
And when we identify the patterns that are kind of getting in our way, then we can do the work to actually start to shift them. We could do the work to actually notice the pattern in the moment and then make a different decision and say, fine, I can leave the dishes. And I know that doesn't mean that I'm a bad person and that I'm a terrible wife or a terrible mom or whatever it is and you can like, check that. And I love that you were just saying earlier you kind of laugh at that now. It's like you leave the dishes all of the time now, a year and a half later, of course the dishes are not the most important thing to get done, but then they were.
“The most powerful questions you asked me..”
Sara: Yes. One of the most powerful questions you asked me, and I think it might have been in the breakthrough call or one of our very early questions is I was describing the feelings that came up for me around not having the dishes done or the laundry done or something like that. And you asked me, what are you making that mean? What are you making that? And then I just started crying because obviously there's a lot more emotion and a lot more things behind there than just obviously the dish is not being done. And for me, I was making it out that if I had messy house and unclean dishes and the laundry wasn't done, that meant I was a bad mom and that meant I wasn't getting to enough things and that meant I couldn't relax. I mean, it just meant so much.
And so once we really unpacked that and was able to work through it yeah, I woke up this morning and had a huge mountain of dishes waiting for me. Didn't bother me at all. I went to bed last night feeling great.
Rebecca: Yeah. So good.
Sara: Yeah. So powerful. Once you're able to kind of move back past the things that seem important and you can really change your mind around how you feel about that and what do you make that mean to you? So powerful.
Rebecca: Yeah, because a lot of that was our earlier work that we did together. And then my hunch is that that had a freeing effect for you to start dreaming about what was next. And ultimately we know what this dream is - it’s coming to fruition now, opening this clinic that you've wanted to open.
What’s the connection between the ability to let go of those little things and shift your thoughts and being able to transfer that into going after what feels like such a big dream?
Getting comfortable, being uncomfortable.
Sara: Getting comfortable, being uncomfortable, I think is probably one of the more powerful things. So, you know, the first time you go to bed without doing the dishes, that makes you feel a little uncomfortable and you get OK with it and you decide that that wasn't so bad. And so in coming up to leaving my job and starting my own practice - that's a really uncomfortable feeling, right? All that safety and security and I'm the primary breadwinner for my family. This is huge.
And so getting to a place of, okay, I feel uncomfortable. That makes me nervous. Why does it make me nervous? These are all legitimate reasons to be nervous. Is that a good enough reason to not do it and kind of really having the ability to identify that feeling and then have an honest conversation with yourself about why you feel that way and then move past it? So good, so powerful.
Rebecca: Do I want to feel that way? It feels like it's in there. I feel it like safety and security. That makes sense. My brain is going into fight or flight. This is a big loan. There's a big risk. I'm leaving my paycheck, my full time paycheck. Like, all that totally makes sense. Got it. And is this the way I want to feel about this moving forward? Do I want to make decisions based on fear of safety and security? Is this really even unsafe? Is probably a question that's come up on some level, maybe consciously or subconsciously.
You get to decide how you feel about something.
Actually, I'm doing the best thing for my family by investing in the dream. There's an argument for that as well. And what you're building for your family, both in a financial sense, yes. But the kind of value that you're demonstrating to your kids and what it takes to go after a dream and go after something big like all of that has an immense amount of value that there's an argument for why that serves your family the best and is the best safety net for your family. There are so many ways that we can think about it. When you realize that these are just thoughts and feelings and that you get to ultimately decide however you want to think about something or however you want to feel about something. Like, you don't have to live in this default way all of the time.
Believing in yourself and inner confidence.
Sara: Right. And I think one of the things that has to be true to make the decision that you just talked about, to believe that this is actually the better thing to do, is confidence for sure. You have to be confident in yourself. And that's something that I know we worked on early on and so have probably a lot of your other ambitious moms.
And perfectionist tendencies and you want to get it right and has to be perfect. And we worked a lot around like, what's enough? As far as for me specifically doing charts, like, what does enough look like? I’m going to leave out something very specific, like, this is enough. Or as a new surgeon, when is setting a new procedure that you're going to do, when is that enough? When have you checked all the boxes that we can say that's enough.
“I used other external sources to feel confident”
And what I found in my first year of being a new doctor super scary - you have all this knowledge and things, but you don't have any experience. And so I would find myself knowing something. I know the answer to this problem, but I would check in with this person or that person or read this book or look up this article, but I know the answers to the problem. And I don't think me, prior to coaching, I wouldn't have been able to identify that, right? Like, I would have just kept doing the research or asking people. You know, I used other external sources to feel confident enough to move forward with the diagnosis or the treatment.
But after having gone through the coaching process, when I would feel myself to start to do that, I would be like, I don't need any more. I know the answer. I have the confidence within myself to know that. I don't need to keep asking these questions. I can move on.
Rebecca: Yes, that self validation is huge. What a skill to learn. I love that so much. Just that self trust. Like, I got it within me. I know it, right? You could research. It could be endless amounts of research. And I remember that's what we talked about, you could write endless amounts of notes about every patient, every pet that you see right there's not a stopping point, really.
You could just keep writing and writing and writing, but at what cost? And in this case, it was the cost of you getting home to be with your family, to have dinner ultimately. And that's why we ended up going through this.
Trusting I have the answer within.
Let's be really clear. When is it enough? Like, what do you really need? What's the real point of this? And we got down to the bottom of it so that when push came to shove and it was time to leave the office, you knew when you could really be done and what a good standard was for you. And learning to trust myself to know the rest because I know it's within me. It's so big. Tell me about how the confidence is playing itself out now as you go into this new venture of following this dream.
Sara: Most veterinarians wouldn't dream of trying to set out on their own before, like, five years of experience under their belt. And I came to the conclusion that was kind of my going on argument. I was planning on a waiting, like, three to five years before I started my practice, always knowing that I kind of wanted to do that, but I knew I need some experience.
I know I can do this.
And then, in just that first year of practice, I was like, I think I could do this. I know I can do this. - of course there's always going to be and I think this is one of the things that's been really helpful that you mentioned in your podcast and through our coaching is: normalizing that I'm an ambitious person, and my to-do list will always be long.
Even my last year of veterinary school, I had a gap between third year and fourth year and I had nothing to do. Most people do internships and research and all the stuff and I was like, no, I'm not doing any of that. I'm just going to stay home with my kids. And my to-do list got longer on my break because then I just came up with a bunch of house projects I wanted to work on, things I wanted to do with the girls, things I wanted to teach them. And so that's always going to be it. I'm always going to have a lot to do and I'm always going to feel really busy.
Because I am and that's okay. And that's good. That's actually a part of myself I really like is that I'm ambitious and I go after these things when we're talking about starting a new practice and I was thinking about what's holding me back from starting this today. And then when you really kind of start to think about it, well, I need to learn how to do this or I need to learn how to do that, I'm like, okay, I need to learn those things and I will for sure - And I'm going to hire team members, even colleagues that I can collaborate with and things like this, I'm not going to be missing out on that aspect of it. There's no reason I need to wait when it comes down to it, I have to what it takes.
What's holding you back from starting this today?
Rebecca: Now, this is such a great question so I want to make sure we're highlighting it. What's holding me back from starting this today? Or if you're a working mom that just has a dream of some kind, whether that's to quit your job, get promoted into a job, start a business, become a consultant, whatever it may be.
Just yesterday I was talking to a working mum who just wants to be able to be home when her kids get off the school bus every day. And she wants a job that allows her to be home, but she doesn't want to sacrifice pay. Basically, she wants work less hours, but she doesn't want to sacrifice pay. That's a part of her dream. And the question that you asked yourself is, what's holding me back from starting this today or doing this today? And it would be an interesting question for that working mom to consider, like, what's really holding you back from creating that? And doing everything that you came up with was ultimately just you feeling like you needed to be more prepared for it. It was like, I need to have this knowledge and I need to have these kinds of connections, and I need to have this.
What do you think your brain thought that you were going to get when you had all of those things, when you were actually, ‘100%’ prepared or more prepared than what?
Sara: Yes, I think free coaching. I would have just always wanted more to be more prepared and had this feeling like I really needed to have all my ducks in a row. I needed to have everything figured out. I need to have the financing all worked out. I need to have everything in a nice, pretty package to feel good about it. Because it has to be clean, and it has to be that kind of thing.
You don’t want to fail.
Rebecca: You don't want to fail because your brain thinks that if all of those things, all of your ducks are in a row and you're 100% prepared, you will mitigate any possibility of failure. You'll give yourself the best possible scenario for success. And ultimately you aren't doing that. You aren't putting all of your ducks in a row. I mean, you're getting lots of ducks in a row. Of course you are. But they're not all going to be there. There's no tiny bow happening in the next three months, I would imagine.
Sara: No.
Rebecca: So instead of believing that that is what's going to mitigate failure, what do you believe now?
This can't fail because I won't let it.
Sara: That I will. This can't fail because I won't let it.
Rebecca: That self trust. That confidence - that’s deep within you, you're going to figure it out. Of course there's going to be lots of things. The building permits going to take a year. Those things are going to happen, and you're going to have to pivot, and you're going to have to find another way around it. You're going to have to problem solve for it. Like, there's going to be lots of problems to solve, and you are going to solve them. Because that's where success lies, right? It's not going to lie in the perfect plan. It's going to lie in the executor of the plan, which is you. I love it.
So you come back to this thought a lot. Like, I have the answer. I know the answer. And what are some of your other thoughts you find yourself coming back to that tend to ground you in this place of confidence? What are some of the beliefs or mindsets that you have that keep you feeling really grounded and moving forward despite fear?
Sara: So there's this phrase, and I think someone way back in the day, like, maybe my 8th grade teacher would use the term like, trust your talent. And he was even trying to instill that in me, like, way back then. But it took coaching to really believe that phrase that I haven't gotten to where I'm at by accident and really knowing and believing that. You know. Just fall out of bed and get where I am and that sustained kind of superior performance and being an achiever and being where I am at ome point. It's okay to trust that. To trust your own history and to trust that. Like, you’ve done the work to get here and you'll continue to do the work to get where you want to go.
Rebecca: Trust your own history. I love that thought. It's such a good one. Did we talk about that in coaching specifically? Do you remember?
Working on inner beliefs in coaching.
Sara: Yeah, it was pretty good. A couple of months there it was my daily work. And you would have me get up every morning - mornings are easier for me. I would just sit down and go through, I think it's like a five question exercise. And the idea there was sometimes you'd have the same answer every day to kind of help reinstall this belief. It's like, I'm awesome, I'm amazing, I've done this. And I was, like, really working through how to quantify this to yourself. Like, I did the surgery, I saved that patient. I am a good doctor, I'm a good mom, because I do this, this and this, and like, really writing it out every day, every day for like, a really long time, I did that.
And I've kind of gone back to that sometimes when you need to, so we can tell our brains, we can identify the things. But really making yourself believe something like that takes that kind of practice and repetition and doing it all the time, to where now it kind of feels like second hand. And so now it feels like if I'm not doing that, that feels like a weird part. And I'm like, oh, yeah, I need to go back to that, just because I'm so used to doing it every day. And like, on the fly, in every moment, that kind of thing. So that when I'm not doing that, that sticks out, because I would always kind of have that really negative self talk.
Being conscious of our thoughts to navigate our mind back to a positive or neutral space.
Rebecca: As human beings, we have a negative bias, generally speaking. Like, it's a part of our survival instinct as human beings is to have a negative bias because we see the wrong, we see the bad, we see the risk, so that we stay safe. That's the safety mechanism within us. And so we have to be super intentional about redirecting our brain into a more positive space, at least into a more neutral space, if possible.
And so this practice that you're talking about, I call it the daily work, and I give it to most of my clients at some point in our time together when we're working on new beliefs in ourselves and wanting to in still a new thought about ourselves. And it could be something as simple as: I’m amazing, I'm a great doctor, right? And you say it, and you're like, that sounds really odd to say, we don't tend to think about ourselves in that way, let alone we don't tend to validate that thought, which is a big part of the daily work, is not just saying that to yourself. It's about finding evidence for how you know it to be true.
So if you're thinking I'm amazing, one of the five questions in that is like, well, give me some evidence and write down for the next five minutes, write as many things down as you can possibly think of that is evidence for what makes you amazing or what makes you a great doctor, whatever it was that particular day or week that you were working on so that your brain is forced to actually find reasoning behind some of these thoughts, because otherwise your brain is just going to call your bluff. It's like you're not amazing. Come on. I mean, let me just show you all of the ways that you're not, because that's ultimately how our brain is wired.
Your thoughts are just thoughts.
And I love more than anything in a part of this practice that we do in coaching together is just helping you to see that your thoughts are thoughts. Just because the words go through your head doesn't necessarily mean that they're true or right or wrong. Like, they're just words that go through your head, and they make you feel a certain way, and they may or may not be useful to you. And so a lot of times, we're just checking in on the usefulness of believing that.
Is it useful for you to think that you're a terrible doctor because people have to wait to see you and your patients have to wait? Is that useful to you to think that? Probably not. Is it useful for you to think that you're not a great mom because you're pushing your kids along out the door and you want to get them to wherever on time, that’s probably not useful to you, right? Like, what's useful to you?
And you're finding these thoughts now as you're going into this big dream. You're finding these thoughts that are really useful for you to believe. Believing that you are the key to the success, not the plan, and that you didn't get to where you are at by accident and that you are worthy of trust, believing that you have all of the answers, that the answers are there. They're not out there somewhere that you got to go find. They’re within you, right? If you check within you, these are, like, really grounding anchoring thoughts that are setting you up for success in this next venture of this business moving forward. It's so good.
Sara: I'll share with you one of the things I've done last month that I’m the most proud of. And it's not a big thing. It's a little thing. But my husband's gone right now. He's kept his job, thank goodness, and he's on travel, so he's been gone for the last two weeks. And I typically tend to work out in the mornings that I'm kind of like 5am, which I can't do right now because I have two small kids at home and no one else to watch them. So I haven't really been able to work out, or at least that's what I was telling myself.
And so the other day, I mean, I am a new business owner. I've got a list, so many lists of all the things I need to do and I need to get this place stocked and I need to get people hired and, you know, an overwhelming amount of stuff. And last week on Tuesday, where was I at 9am? I was at the gym. I went to the gym. And it felt so indulgent to be there for a second. And I was like, I can't believe I'm not at my desk right now and I'm not getting things done. And I felt all that anxiety coming up that I wasn't getting anything done.
I am worthy of taking the time for me.
But I knew from working together with you that like, all right, we know exercise is important. We know I'm going to feel great after this and that I'm probably going to have a more productive day and less time if I just do this for myself and that I'm worthy of going to the it's important that I go to the gym. And so I was able to kind of feel that anxiety and be like, no, I'm going to make a different decision. Like, this is important. And I did. So maybe I got 6 hours of work in that day, but it was way more productive because I felt good about myself and had all the positive benefits of exercise.
So, I mean, it seems like a small thing, like, okay, so you went to the gym. But like me two years ago, no way would I have the list of things to do that I have now and still choose to do something like that for myself.
Rebecca: Yes, so good. And I love the point that you make, which is basically like I pretty much know that I was more productive in those 6 hours than I would have been in the 8. I got actually more things done in the end or whatever I did was infinitely more effective than had I not taken that time for myself. Because you do something like that and it does feel indulgent. That happens to me as a business owner sometimes just because I work from home, I'm able to sit and read a book sometimes, right? And that can feel super indulgent. And I have to remember having that time and resting my brain and feeling like I'm doing something for me, nourishing myself reminds me of how important I am and how worthy I am as an individual. And then when I reengage back in work, I take that mindset with me. I'm such a worthy individual. Like, I'm so worthy to be invested in and my time is worthwhile spending on me.
Those are really useful thoughts to come back to work, to be way more productive than you are when you are feeling like you're not good enough and that you're behind and that you should be doing more. And you got to get one more thing done. Like, all those thoughts just make us feel bad and don't make us the most effective at what we do. I love it. I don't think it's a trivial thing at all. I think everybody can relate to those little moments that we have the opportunity to do something like that that most of us tend to not actually follow through and do, or maybe we do, but with a lot of guilt.
Sara: I didn't let the guilt monster on my back about that at all. I was like, no, this is what I'm going to do. Did it. And I showed up at 10:30 to my desk and I was it's great. We had a great day.
Rebecca: So good. I love that. What do you think got you over the fear hurdle in making this big leap to the dream?
Sara: Yes. I think realizing what's the cost if I don't do it. There's the fear of like, okay, what happens if I do this and it doesn't work out? Or how are we going to make it happen in the planning? And then when you start actually thinking about what is it going to cost me if I don't do this? And I don't kind of dedicate myself to this. Because if you look, if I let myself dream big, this is going to be huge. I'm going to have several revenue practices, like, all over the Hawaii mainland. This is going to be so big and it's going to be a game changer for my family. And what's the cost if I don't do that? And it's actually way more significant.
Rebecca: It anchors you in the impact that you're making. And we can lose sight of the impact a lot when we get stuck in our day to day grind. That's one of those questions that zooms us back out when we're really thinking about wanting something big in our life. If I come back to the mum that just wants to work part time and make the same amount of money and be home with their kids when they get off of the school bus, that dream, what's the impact of not doing that? What do you lose out on? What are the memories you lose out on specifically with your kids from that three to five that you wouldn't have had before? There's significance in that.
And you're thinking because yours is like, this way bigger, like, impact to the lives of pet owners and the way that veterinarian medicine is even executed. Like, you have so many ideas around all of that. There's ideas that need to be shared with the world that you just can't not share. It's just such a beautiful thing. And I ask you this as we were in our little pre interview before we started recording, and I want to capture this. I had asked you, was this dream of starting this clinic on your own, was that something that came out of coaching? Tell us about that.
“In coaching was the first time I wrote down my dream and said it out loud.”
Sara: I came to coaching with some semblances of like it had been a thought. My husband and I had looked around and had some things written down. But I think in coaching, I pulled up in preparation for the interview, kind of going through some of my stuff. And I was like one of the questions was, if you knew you could do something and there's no way you could feel fear, what would you do? And I think my answer was I would start my own veterinary practice that's going to shift the paradigm of veterinary medicine. And then I wrote, and I'm going to grow it so big, it's going to change everything. And it was like the first time that I had written that down or spoken that out loud. So I had been kind of swirling around in there for a while, but until through coaching, I was able to put it in writing in black and white and that I can reflect back on it now.
Rebecca: Oh, my gosh. So good. It is one of the exercises I have my clients go through is I call them their life dreams. Like to go big, right? Let's think big picture about what do you really want out of life, what you want to get to the end of your life and say that you did. And your impact was and kind of some of those zoom out types of questions because it's so important to think big picture and give our brain a bigger sense of direction. So many times I have clients that will say, I wrote answers to this that I've thought of before, but I've never put it down on paper. And it feels so scary to, like, write down what I actually want to do and the impact I actually want to make or the job I actually want to have. And it feels so scary. But when you put words to it, look what happened. Probably about a year ago is when you wrote that down, ish maybe a little bit more than that. And here we are a year later.
Because you went through a process that pushed you to get your dreams down on paper so that they come to fruition. If they stay in your head and you don't admit them to anyone, then there's no risk and they're not happening. Right? You put them out into the world, something magical starts to happen where that becomes that seed of an idea begins to grow into possibility. Our brain starts to see it, and you start to think about it. And for you, it was like, I remember at every little thing, you're like, oh, I would do that differently if I owned my own clinic. Oh, I would do that differently if I own my own clinic. You started to see it all over the place. It was little seeds that your brain was offering to you of the possibility and of the dream and what it would look like coming true. But none of that would have ever happened if you have allowed yourself to speak the truth of what you wanted, to allow yourself the space to just dream.
Putting dreams down in a calendar.
Sara: And one of the other exercises I forget the exact question in the little worksheet, but it's basically, like, something around, what do you want for yourself? A big picture, kind of adventure wise. And I wrote down a list of all the places I not only want to go, but I want to take my girls. You know, of course, that's still a dream come true, but my husband and I have taken it one step further. We have a shared Google Calendar, and we have a vacation planned for every year, like, the most remote, exotic, optimist places, like to go to Egypt and to go to Alaska and to do all these things. And we have a year associated with it. And we thought about it, like, what age everyone's going to be so that we can actually maximize that's, like, another step that we've taken to putting it down on paper and maybe saying it out loud, and then it's on the calendar, so of course it's going to happen, right?
Rebecca: Oh, my gosh, I love that so much. So much. You give yourself the greatest possibility of those things taking place, and who knows what? We don't know what's going to happen in the next in five years and ten years, right? Lots of things you could pivot, uh, and for lots of reasons, you might pivot. But you're giving yourself the greatest possibility of it happening because you have said it, you've declared it, you've put it on your calendar, and your brain is starting to think about it.
So now you're probably going to start thinking about how do we financially make that work, what's the savings have to look like, about how much do we need to put aside, and how do we work that out, and how do we handle all of those little details that we'd want to create a plan for in order to even put it on the calendar. You're doing the opposite, which is what a lot of what we teach in coaching is like first you got to start with the declaration that it's happening, and then let your brain do the work to problem solve for how you're going to make it happen. You never know the how until you actually decide. The decision has to come first.
Uh, so good. There's so many great things happening. In your life. Sara, this is just so exciting to talk to you about it and I just want to thank you for sharing.
Sara: I had one more thing I wanted to share. I think it was like our second official coaching call I described the scenario I didn't want to happen, right? So I come home from the clinic after a 12 hour day and the kids, it's like, they shouldn't be in bed already, but they're in the middle of eating dinner. They're covered in their dinner, the dishes aren't done, the laundry is not folded. It it's just awful, this terrible scenario, right? Every mom walks in the back and it's like, oh my gosh, what am I going to do? And of course, at that time, early in coaching, I wanted you to help me systematize my life so that we could just avoid that scenario and that scenario would never happen to me. Right? And what you told me is that's not our goal, Sarah. Our goal is to make it to where you walk into that scenario and you're okay. And I thought you were cuckoo for cocoa nuts. I was like, that's it, I'm done with this coaching thing. We already committed all this money, so I guess I'll keep showing up, but this isn't going to work for me.
Rebecca: Pie in the sky. She's crazy.
My spouse sees I’m happier since coaching.
Sara: And so, yeah, it's so funny to think that, like, that happens literally all the time now. And I am like I walk in with like a man, like, why he's so stoked about coaching and what I've got out of working with you. He's like, you come in the door, like the biggest smile on your face and you are just ready to be a mom and go into mom mode. And then after the kids go to bed, it's not like you're picking your book back up to study or, you know, we will kind of lament about the day and share stories and stuff like that, but there's just this energy that surrounds you where you're just happier.
I mean, he's the biggest fan and he thinks it's been worth every penny and like, you know, again, so when we talk about setting up this business, we just know how powerful coaching has been for me personally. And we talk about like, what are the costs of not doing something? We're like, yeah, we need to get everybody in our team into some sort of personal coaching because it's just so powerful, it can be so helpful. And your return on investment is just amazing. It just keeps getting better and really frees you up to do the things that you are put on this planet to do.
Rebecca: I love that you're bringing in this investment piece of it because I want to end on, um, this question to you because now, I love that a year and a half later, you look back and the investment feels like a no brainer based on what you got out of it. Right. And I would imagine you would have said the same thing a year ago when we finished, right. Just after our six months together, looking back and going, oh my gosh, this is totally worth it. The investment keeps compounding. Ultimately, what would you say to somebody that is at that point where they have to decide to make that investment? Like, they don't have the result yet. They don't have what you have. So they're not looking back at it. They're like in the decision, like, how do you even think about, is it worth it? How do you quantify the results in such a way that you feel like, for sure, you got to go for it?
Sara: Yeah, it's really hard standing on one side of it and kind of not knowing how it's going to turn out on the other side.
Rebecca: You were there at one point, and I remember the conversation where you were like, no, I'm in. There’s no question. You were like, yeah, I got this. We got to do it.
How Sara invested in coaching.
Sara: I was in a fortunate position where my husband, because he had to retest, he was already on board. So as far as the finance and he's going to run the finances for a family, so he already signed up, like, okay, yeah, we could afford this. We can make it work. So I came from a little bit of a different position. I go back to when you start thinking about these types of things, like what's the cost of not doing it? What's the cost of living your life the same way you've been living it for the next 30 years? What's the cost of being unhappy? What are the costs there? And then when you kind of think about it in those terms, like, it makes it such a no brainer. You've got to do something to kind of change where you're at.
Rebecca: Even now, though, you think about investing differently than you probably do before you started coaching. This business doesn't fit squarely into your financial life. I can't imagine that it does. Even if you guys figured out how to make it work before and it felt like it fit in, for some people, that isn't the case, or they take on debt to pay for coaching or whatever it is, and that's ultimately what you're doing to start this business. Right. I have a feeling like if you are looking at making an investment now in coaching and it didn't fit squarely into your budget, you would be thinking about it differently.
Coaching will change your life forever.
Sara: My message to everyone would just be like, this is the kind of thing that she teaches you to fish. Like, it's got to keep producing results and keep changing your life forever. We always get to come back to you, and it's really grounding. And so it's not one of those, like, I'm only getting six months out of, like, you're getting a lifetime out of it.
Rebecca: So good. I love it. Uh, Sarah, thank you again for sharing sharing about your dream. I'm so excited about it. I'm so excited to follow along as this clinic opens and to see how your ideas and your thoughts expand into greatness, into your field. It's going to be so good. And thanks for just sharing your wisdom with everyone. Just super brave of you.
Sara: Thanks for having me. It's been an honor of be here.
Rebecca: Yeah, of course.
Sara: All right.
Rebecca: Working moms. You have heard it from Sara. It's time to follow those dreams and let's get to it.
