Ever find yourself torn between excelling in your career and being a fantastic mother, only to feel drained and questioning your abilities?

For high-achieving professional women, the struggle to meet expectations in both career and motherhood can lead to burnout, self-doubt, and a sense of depletion.

Neglecting self-care and lacking the confidence to set boundaries can result in constant exhaustion. The solution? Tune in to the Living True by Design Podcast for practical strategies to communicate effectively, say “no” confidently, and find balance.

🌟 BY THE TIME YOU FINISH LISTENING, YOU’LL LEARN:

• The crucial role confidence plays in achieving balance.
• Practical strategies for effective communication and setting boundaries.
• The power of saying “no” to prevent burnout and reclaim control.

Dr. Sharon McLaughlin, MD, FACS, is a board-certified surgeon who, having personally experienced burnout, has dedicated herself to assisting others. Through her compelling speaking engagements, she delves into a range of personal development topics, such as confidence, effective communication, and building meaningful connections.
 

As the visionary founder of the Female Physician Entrepreneurs networking group, which boasts a thriving community of over 10,000 members, Dr. McLaughlin is at the helm of groundbreaking initiatives. She is also the creative force behind the Female Physicians Entrepreneurs Business program and a highly regarded motivational professional speaker.

The Sharon McLaughlin Show fpestrong.com/podcast
Website https://www.sharonmclaughlinmd.com/

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Professional Bio

Are you a high-achieving, ambitious professional working mother, feeling trapped in the whirlwind of your demanding career and family responsibilities? Overwhelmed by stress, busyness, and societal expectations? Drained of energy and struggling to find balance while silently battling guilt and unfulfillment?

Welcome to a transformative journey a certified lifestyle medicine physician, experienced yoga and meditation teacher, and a mother of three. In this immersive podcast, she provides a path to authenticity, purpose, and vitality. Through tailored coaching programs, Dr. Libby Schanzmeyer equips you with the tools and strategies to regain balance and create a life aligned with your true self.

Our listeners, our clients, are high-achieving professional working mothers who have successfully transformed their lives with life design. They’ve overcome stress, found peace within their careers and personal lives, and are thriving.

Discover how to harmoniously balance your professional and personal life, relieve stress, and find your true purpose. Learn time management techniques, prioritize self-care, and regain meaning in life. Join Dr. Libby Schanzmeyer and begin your journey towards a life of ease, vitality, and impact, where authenticity leads the way.

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Podcast Episode Transcript

Welcome to Living True by Design. And I’m so happy to have Dr. Sharon McLaughlin with us today. Yay, thank you for being here.

That’s a Libby. Thank you for having me and congratulations on your podcast. I’ve listened to some episodes. It’s excellent. So glad that you’re doing this.

Thank you. I appreciate that. I’m so thrilled. You know, you’re the first guest I’ve had on my podcast and it makes my heart happy because you have been, you might not know this, you’ve been a mentor to me over the past couple years because of your Facebook group, Female Physician Entrepreneurs, and your podcast and all the work that you’re putting out into the world. I appreciate it so much. So I’m thrilled to have you here today. I really am. It’s so fun.

And when I was, Dr. Sharon McLaughlin is a plastic surgeon and she is, I’ll let you tell more about yourself, but there was one thing I saw on your website and I love it so much. I’m gonna read it if that’s okay. It’s just one sentence. And you have on there written, all too often we take what we are given, but we are not business savvy enough to know any better. My goal is to change this and equal out the playing field.

And like when I read this on your website, it gave me chills because it’s like you live this and you contribute so much to other people. And it’s like, this is you and I love it. And I have so much appreciation for you. And I just wanted to tell you that. And if you haven’t checked out Dr. Sharon McLaughlin’s website and podcast, please check it out because she’s amazing. And Facebook Group too if you’re a female physician. And I’m looking over to the side because that’s where I can see you on there. So I’m, anyway, so she is here today. I’ll let you speak a little bit about yourself and we’ll be talking about confidence on living true by design and what got you into that.

Thank you for all your warm words. Yes, for the women listening out there, all the listeners. Confidence is really where it all starts to having a better life in my opinion. By training a plastic surgeon somewhere along the line, I wish I could tell you exactly where it happened. I don’t know, it didn’t happen overnight. I started losing my confidence. Married, didn’t think it was a great marriage. You know, I couldn’t be the best wife. Was a mother, wasn’t the best mother, was a surgeon. I felt like…

It didn’t happen overnight, like I mentioned, wasn’t the best surgeon. And all of this together was just beating me down. Even my friendships, everything was a strain. And looking back, I was going through burnout. I didn’t recognize it at the time. Everything seemed to be a mountain, you know, and nothing in life was easy. It was my choice. It was my perception, how I looked at this. But somewhere along the line, I lost my identity and I lost my confidence.

Mm-hmm.

So if there’s one thing that you ladies can walk away with today is, you know, work on yourself and work on confidence. I believe it starts just with self care. When we don’t get that basic self care, which we know we’re supposed to get, right? Like eat nutritious, make sure that you’re getting eight hours of sleep. It is amazing how that just really wears and tears on our body, wears and tears on our physical health and mental health.

We don’t realize it because we think, okay, six hours, this is what I normally get and this is what my body needs. And I don’t think that most of us are aware that that’s not the case, that there’s little things that come up in day-to-day life because you’ve got that six hours of sleep, it wasn’t eight hours and it just becomes the norm to you. So my number one advice when it comes to confidence is make sure that you’re taking care of yourself first. I know it’s cliche. But I always think of that coffee cup, like I love coffee in the morning. And if you’re not filling your cup with your own personal needs and wants, then how could you possibly give to other people? Like for the longest time, like as women nurturers, we give and we give, but if we’re not giving to ourselves or allowing ourselves to have pleasure, joy, things that make us grow, things that make us smile, if we’re constantly giving to others, we end up depleted.

Mm.

Mm-hmm.

And then I hope that for you listening out there, I would have to say, do you feel depleted? And if so, the number one thing is awareness, to be aware of what’s going on.

Yeah, thank you so much. You know, you said about giving ourselves joy or play or, you know, this lightness and it’s almost in our culture. I don’t know if it’s specific to medicine or not, but where it’s like that’s a huge indulgence, you know?

It’s so sad that it is, isn’t it?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And so I’m wondering, was there like a specific moment where you were like, this is all about my confidence or was it just kind of an accumulation of small things along the way?

Definitely accumulation. I noticed it in the operating room. I was questioning myself more and more and that wasn’t the case earlier on. So where this happened, I don’t know. It probably, when I was single, it was easy to be a surgeon, working all hours, pushing myself, having a great career, you know, making a lot of money. When I was married, then I had somebody else in my life and definitely when my child came along, a little bit more of me had to go. And so if I…

Mm.

Would have to, not that I blame them at all. I don’t, I’m so happy that I’m, you know, my husband and I have stayed together. I’m so happy that I have my daughter. Right, she’s my best creation. But that played into my life. And I would say control too. Like we talked about having a living nanny. It’s not something I ever wanted to do. I felt like, well, if I were to have that, how could I be a good mom? And I would be sharing my love with this nanny and I didn’t want that. So then I took it all on myself, right? And I didn’t actually know how to let people in to help.

And when I had my practice, I had staff and the same thing. Like I didn’t know how to give control to them. I wouldn’t even know how to ask them to help me. Like I knew things had to be done and I thought I had trained them, but things weren’t getting done. And when I look back, that really wasn’t a great onboarding process. So that would be another thing. Like how are you communicating your needs and wants to somebody else?

For instance, the staff, I just expected them to know. I’m like, we do this a lot of times, what is going on here? But I never really onboarded them. I didn’t have PDFs, I didn’t have videos that sometimes people are uncomfortable asking, but if they had a video to go back on and look at the training that I would have provided in short clips, like five minutes, they would have understood. I expect, like to this day, I still expect my husband just to know and he has gotten better, but…

You can’t expect people just to know what you want or what you’re feeling. You have to communicate with them.

Well, and that’s a part of the confidence too, right? Like, because I think as women too, it’s, do you have advice about, because it’s something I’ve struggled with, with balancing, communicating what you want and need and still, you know, not being perceived as this demand. You know, and it’s, we’re talking about other people’s perceptions, so there’s a point you can’t, you know. But how do you balance that of like,

I agree.

And maybe it’s just confidence to know it’s there. I don’t know. What do you say about that?

I would say when it comes to communicating, we need to say, I need, right? It’s very hard when you do decide to communicate, and it may be hard for you to speak up for yourself, but it has to start somewhere. So maybe you wanna take a list, like what is it that most bothers you on a day-to-day basis, and who are the people that are responsible for you being unhappy? And you can’t blame, I’m just saying, I put this in a list and have an idea, like to kind of take that bird’s view of what’s going on. So then…

Right?

When you do communicate with them, it may be words such as, I feel this and that rather than you do this, you do that. Because when you approach it like that, you already put somebody on the defense. I remember years ago, I worked in a plastic surgery office with my associate and his sister said to me, I was newly married and I was just like, I just don’t get it, blah, blah. And she said, you know something, he comes in from work and you’re telling me that you’re asking him this and that.

This is not the time when he’s in the door from work. I’m like, why not? And she’s like, my husband, I give him a glass of wine. We make sure we have a nice dinner. We have the candle light going. And she says, then I do the ask. It’s like, it’s not what you’re asking. What you’re asking is very reasonable. It’s when you’re asking it. And I bring this up because I had this conversation with my daughter the other day. She wanted something from her father. I’m like, don’t do it when he’s walking in the door. And I told her about that story. It resonated with me.

Yeah.

So a lot of this is what we’re surrounded with, like what we think is the norm or, and I think again, as women physicians, unfortunately we’re always like, go, it’s hype, it’s gotta be done. But I do encourage everyone listening out there to really step back and say, I wanna communicate, but is this the best time to communicate? And then how am I communicating my needs and wants? Because a lot of it is that you, and that doesn’t get us anywhere.

Yeah, so your language and the kind of time environment too. And a second ago you were saying there was something about feeling like between being a wife and a physician and a mom and all the things, there was something about not feeling like you’re doing a great job at those.

And I can so relate to that. And I remember having a conversation with my friend of like, I wanna do 100% in all these areas and I’m doing 60 and it’s like hurts, physically. So how do we have our confidence when we feel like we’re not putting our best into every single area of life, right?

Off the top of my head, right, very simply, we can say, okay, it’s balanced. Like some parts of your life are gonna be where you need to spend your time and others not so much, but you can communicate to those others you’re not gonna spend as much time with them. Like if you’re going for a job promotion, listen, the next few weeks, I’m really gonna have to put on a lot of hours in, but I promise you it will get better. We hope that it gets better and we hope that we don’t get that promotion and then we’re taking even more time. But really like communicating that this may not be the best time in my life to be able to contribute so much. You may be asked to do projects. You may be asked to participate with things outside of work or in its ability to say no. There’s another thing that we bring up a lot with confidence because we’re people pleasers and we hate saying no. But when we do that, it doesn’t allow us again to have the time. We’re not going to be that great at doing things because if we’re saying yes, then again, we talk about that self-care and how depleted we are, even if we’re getting sick.

Eight hours of sleep, if our days are filled with go, that’s not sustainable. We can’t sustain that. And yet I encourage anyone listening to say, well, why is my life go, go? Probably because we haven’t spoken up to say, I don’t want to do this or I can’t do this or maybe next time, but for this time, no. We always talk about that no being a full sentence.

You don’t really have to give an explanation at all. You just have to be able to say no. And these are just little changes that, and again, another list, like what are you saying yes to that you really don’t wanna do? And start saying no, it’s a muscle. Once we start saying it, it gets so much easier. I know myself as a people pleaser, it’s very hard because when you say yes a lot, when people are, it’s like you said, a precedent, people expect you to say yes. And when you start saying no, they may get mad at you, but what are they getting mad at you for, right? And because you’re saying, I feel, I need some more time for myself, I feel this, I feel that. They can get mad at you, but here’s the thing, is it worth it then? Like how important is your life in their life? I’d have to say that it’s not very, because take a step back, like what would you tell a friend?

You know, if you were listening to this, right? Like, they’re getting mad at you because you’re saying no, but why are you saying no? You’re doing this for the best interest. It goes back to that cup again. Like, what is it gonna take to fill that cup?

Right.

Yeah, I love that perspective so much. It just like feels like relief to think like, well, what would my friend say? Somebody that really cares about me can hear my no and honor that. And just thinking of that as a perspective of a friend of like, if I say no and somebody gets mad at me, that’s not like the best friend. They’re not showing that they care about you, right? Like I love that perspective. And you also talked about

Flexing your no muscle. I love that. I this is so helpful, especially with the people pleaser, right? And so it ties back to that kind of inner confidence of who’s my friend and building up confidence. And I have to say, being in groups, like your group has helped me because there’s other women out there that can respect when you say no, and they do understand. You don’t feel, I think that aloneness sometimes, we feel alone.

It’s needed.

And it’s, I think, sometimes harder to say no. And it, to me, helps build my confidence just being in a group, like your group that you created, you know, of other women that are on the same page with these.

Libby, if we don’t do that, we’re just tearing ourselves down, really, like emotionally, because it’s not sustainable. It’s just not. And so I think the earlier we realize this, like, I’m sure there are women out there exhausted listening. And so it starts with you being able to speak up, you having confidence to speak up.

Right?

Wow, thank you so, so much, Sharon. This has been so helpful. Is there anything else that you’d like to share? Any words of wisdom or like what would you, do you have a daughter, is that right? Okay, so I’m curious what you would tell your daughter about confidence. I’m sure there’s a lot, but if there was just one thing off the top of your head, you know, what would you tell her? Because we have.

I do have a daughter.

I don’t know, I don’t feel like my mom taught me much about confidence, you know? She’s just kind of like, go on your way and do your thing. Have you spent a lot of time teaching her? How do you do that with your daughter?

To tell you the truth, I do wish that I could do things over again. I watch my nieces and they’re all into this neuroscience with how you raise a child now and there’s these great books out there and really building up confidence, different things that you can do, different stages of their lives. But I didn’t, and that part is gone. But starting today, or not that I started today, but you can always change things. So what I would tell my daughter is speak up.

Don’t be rude to people, but speak up your needs, because otherwise you just get bypassed. She’s applying for graduate school. She’s thinking about this, what she wants to do. And I’m like, you have to speak up. You have to go and meet people. This is the bottom line. The world works with connections. So you can have the best of grades, from a child’s point of view or a college point of view.

But if people don’t know you, if you haven’t made connections, you’re gonna get bypassed. And that applies to life as well. We can make connections with people. You can’t do this by yourself. Ask for help. So that would be my advice. Ask for help, but have the confidence to ask for help. And let people know, don’t be invisible. Because when you’re invisible, right, we stand back, you get bypassed. So when you do get bypassed, you have to say to yourself, did I possibly do everything I could have?

To make myself present there, to be noticed, to be acknowledged. And a lot of it is no, we just expect people to know, right? Like women in general, we do do. And then we expect bosses to know, they have a zillion things on their mind. Do they even know that you did this extra work? They know it got done, they don’t know who’s doing it, and they probably don’t even know that you’re doing it because you never brought it to their attention.

Thank you.

Yes.

And then we get frustrated because they’re not reciprocating, right? Yeah, but I want to like, what when you just said you would encourage your daughter to speak up, like that was like almost made me teary because I can’t imagine growing up with that encouragement. Like to me,

Yeah, a lot of resentment forms that way. So it’s important.

That would give so much confidence to know that somebody has your back like that. And I just, I really appreciate you pointing that out of just encouraging other women, you know, our kids, other women, our friends, to speak up and having space for them to speak up. Like, that’s so powerful. Just hit me when you said that. So I really, that’s very helpful. Thank you.

If they don’t do it for themselves, mom and dad aren’t always around, they have to do it for themselves.

Mm-hmm. Yeah, yeah, so powerful. Well, thank you so much for being here today. Where can people find you when they want to hear more about your female physician entrepreneur group and things that you’re up to?

My website is Sharon McLaughlin, that’s M-C-L-E-U-G-H-L-A-N-M-D.com, has the podcast on there. It has the physician group in there. We have a book called Thriving After Burnout, where a bunch of us got together and we talked about burnout and what helped us. Thank you, Dr. Libby, for having me.

Oh, I love it.

Nice. Thank you. And I’ll put some links in where my podcast is to get to your information. So thank you so much for being here. Really appreciate it.

Congratulations on your podcast again. Thank you.

Thank you.

Yay, thank you.