The Catalyst Way™: Creative Strategies for Women in Medicine to Flourish

Building Your Own Catalyst Culture

“The key to avoiding burnout is finding things that you can control,” explains host Dr. Lara Salyer. When you create a catalyst culture in your workplace, everyone benefits. When your culture is aligned with your core values, it will be easier to defend yourself against burnout. In order to build your own catalyst culture, it is crucial that you understand the 12 principles involved. 
 
Dr. Salyer shares that in order to embrace the catalyst lifestyle, you must consider the 12 principles of a catalyst culture. Burnout typically comes when people feel out of control in at least one area of their lives. The key to avoiding burnout is to figure out which areas you can control and make any necessary adjustments to your lifestyle to accommodate your needs in those areas. It is important to allow yourself time for recovery so that you can utilize your time more effectively. 
 
Tune into this week’s episode of The Catalyst to learn each of the 12 principles of a catalyst culture. Discover how embracing a catalyst culture can help you to avoid burnout. 
 
Quotes
• “Culture is important. It is how we do what we do, and why we do what we do. And it can be a great vaccination against burnout.” (1:00-1:10)
• “The reason people burn out is they forget about that fourth crucial stage of flow cycle, which is recovery.” (7:46-7:54)
• “When you feel out of control in one area, it affects all areas. When you regain control in one area, you feel more in control in other areas.” (11:03-11:16)
• “The key to avoiding burnout is finding things that you can control.” (13:05-13:09) 
• “Pleasure feels good, but it's also temporary. Pain is also temporary. And the mark of a mature self-actualized person is realizing that everything is temporary, and when they can sit in that discomfort, that's where the power lies. That's the emotional autonomy. And when you invite this uncomfortableness in, and you realize that's just part of normal life, then you become the extreme catalyst.” (19:49-20:18)
• “I think a catalyst culture helps everybody see that we're all in this together. There is not one ego that is more important than the other.” (39:16-39:25)
 
Links
Connect with Lara: 
Website: https://drlarasalyer.com
Instagram: @drlarasalyer
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/drlarasalyer
Linked-In: https://www.linkedin.com/in/drlarasalyer/
YouTube:  https://www.youtube.com/c/DrLaraSalyer
TikTok: @Creativity.Doctor
 
Podcast production and show notes provided by HiveCast.fm

Health Coaches Are Like Duct Tape: They Can Fix Everything!

“We’re really working on health by using coaching as a means of helping people move forward and improving their health and wellbeing,” explains Catherine Willows, healthcare practitioner turned health coach. When COVID-19 hit, Catherine decided to start her own business and created Willows Coaching and Consulting where she works with both individual clients and practitioners to revolutionize healthcare. 
 
According to Catherine, patients tend to only see the doctor when they are sick and the visits are usually very short. Rather than waiting until an issue arises, the goal of a healthcare coach is to apply aspects of preventative medicine to their coaching and help patients before they ever get sick. Additionally, patients are normally too busy in their daily lives to incorporate their physician’s advice into their routines. They need more support on a day-to-day basis outside of the doctor’s office. Catherine explains that a healthcare coach can help people achieve their goals by giving them that continual support. 
 
Tune into this week’s episode of The Catalyst to learn more about the role of a health coach, how health coaches can work in conjunction with practitioners, and how working with a health coach could improve the outcome of your health. 
 
Quotes
• “Currently we're working on health by using coaching as a means of helping people move forward, get to their goals, and improve their health and well-being.” (4:48-5:04)
• “Patients have this very short period of time with their practitioners. And then they're on their own at home even though their lives are much bigger than that.” (6:45-6:54)
• “The beauty of coaching in conjunction with working with a provider is that if you know what direction the provider is taking, it's really easy to hone in and communicate back and forth.” (18:50-19:06)
• “My catalyst moment was when COVID really hit. Things were shifting at the UltraWellness Center, and I just decided people need this work. It's time. I've wanted to have my own business probably my entire life, and I decided it's time.” (36:36-37:09) 
 
Links
 
Connect with Catherine Willows: 
Website: https://www.willowscc.com
 
 
Connect with Lara: 
Website: https://drlarasalyer.com
Instagram: @drlarasalyer
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/drlarasalyer
Linked-In: https://www.linkedin.com/in/drlarasalyer/
YouTube:  https://www.youtube.com/c/DrLaraSalyer
TikTok: @Creativity.Doctor
 
Podcast production and show notes provided by HiveCast.fm

We Don’t Need to Die Together: A Surprising Path for More Harmony in Healthcare

“Our mission has always been to add just 1% improvement to healthcare and make life better for clinicians,” shares Professor Shahram Yousefi, PhD. As an experienced professor and healthcare entrepreneur, Professor Yousefi designed a program called Mesh AI to improve the healthcare field by automating scheduling. 
 
When healthcare workers are burnt out, mistakes get made that impact health outcomes for patients. After experiencing this first hand, Dr. Yousefi decided to put his years of academic research into finding a solution to help reduce burnout in the healthcare field. And this is how Mesh AI was created. This system is designed to determine the most equitable schedule for each healthcare worker while cutting down the amount of time it takes to create the schedule. In fact, Mesh AI reduces the time it takes to make the schedule from 10 hours down to just 2 minutes. While it is largely automation, Mesh AI ultimately requires a clinician to run the program, allowing healthcare workers to stay in control of the process.  
 
Tune into this week’s episode of The Catalyst for a conversation with host Dr. Lara Salyer and special guest Professor Shahram Yousefi to learn more about the importance of scheduling, preventing burnout, and how Mesh AI is designed to make life easier for healthcare professionals across the country. 
 
Quotes
• “The way the system is designed is to understand that in order to come up with a good call schedule or shift scheduling structure, you need to ask questions. If you don't ask the right questions, you're not going to get the answer.” (16:51-17:03)
• “Life does not happen on schedule. Things change. You deal with this thing called the global pandemic, and that completely throws a wrench into your system. So we need to have a system that is adaptive and responsive.” (20:58-21:11)
• “Our mission has always been to add 1% improvement to healthcare while also make life better for clinicians.” (23:40-23:47)
 
Links
https://welcome.meshai.io/
 
Connect with Lara: 
Website: https://drlarasalyer.com
Instagram: @drlarasalyer
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/drlarasalyer
Linked-In: https://www.linkedin.com/in/drlarasalyer/
YouTube:  https://www.youtube.com/c/DrLaraSalyer
TikTok: @Creativity.Doctor
 
Podcast production and show notes provided by HiveCast.fm

How to Play Nicely With Your Dark Side of Sabotage

“We can't have the light without the dark. And the sooner you can recognize and learn to play with your self sabotages, the better you will be not only as a clinician, but as a friend, as a family member and a citizen of this world,” shares host, Dr. Lara Salyer. In this week’s episode of The Catalyst, Dr. Salyer talks about how to make self-sabotaging behaviors work for you instead of against you.
 
Whether or not we want to admit it, we all engage in self-sabotaging behaviors, even if we don’t realize it. Some of the many ways we get in the way of our own success are emotional dysregulation, internalizing, lack of direction, externalizing, perfectionism, fantasy proneness, and apathy. To better prevent self-destruction, it is important that we learn how to recognize cognitive distortions so that we don’t get hindered by things like imposter syndrome. 
 
Tune into this week’s episode of The Catalyst for a conversation with host Dr. Lara Salyer to learn more about the seven methods of self-sabotage, how to recognize it, and ways to counteract cognitive distortions so you can lead a better and more fulfilling life. 
 
Quotes
• “It's those unsightly quirks in our personality that we all have, we can't have the light without the dark. And the sooner you can recognize and learn to play with your self sabotages, the better you will be not only as a clinician, but as a friend, as a family member and a citizen of this world.” (00:51-1:09)
• “You have to learn to love what you hate. And sometimes doing the dirty work of understanding your dark shadows and your self-sabotages turns out to benefit you.” (3:13-3:24)
• “When you're strong in what you offer, your services, your mission, and purpose, you can handle anything that comes your way.” (6:46-6:56)
• “Burnout doesn't start with us, it doesn't start with them. It starts with everything. It's a whole system's failure.” (16:22-16:29)
 
Links
 
Take the Self-Sabotage test here: https://positiveintelligence.com/assessments/
 
Connect with Lara: 
Website: https://drlarasalyer.com
Instagram: @drlarasalyer
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/drlarasalyer
Linked-In: https://www.linkedin.com/in/drlarasalyer/
YouTube:  https://www.youtube.com/c/DrLaraSalyer
TikTok: @Creativity.Doctor
 
Podcast production and show notes provided by HiveCast.fm

Why We Need To Be Anti-Burnout

“A lot of these junior physicians, nurses, and healthcare leaders come in bright-eyed and bushy-tailed and a couple years later you see a change in their demeanor.  Something isn’t wrong with them. It’s not a character flaw. This is burnout,” shares Laura Bennett, certified anti burnout coach.  In this week’s episode of The Catalyst, Laura discusses ways to recognize and prevent the feeling of burnout.
 
Laura first experienced burnout while working in the US Navy after realizing she was unable to relax on days off. Knowing that something wasn’t right, Lara began to research burnout and quickly realized that it was a recurring issue in the healthcare field. According to Laura, burnout is a problem caused by institutional deficiencies, not by the individual, and the best way to prevent it is to be careful about how we handle our personal emotions and relationships with others. 
 
Tune into this week’s episode of The Catalyst for a conversation with host Dr. Lara Salyer and special guest Laura Bennett to learn the importance of being compassionate with yourself, separating your personal and work life, and how to recognize and prevent burnout so you can keep doing what you love. 
 
Quotes
• “A lot of these junior physicians, nurses, and healthcare leaders -people who I really respect and admire- come in bright-eyed and bushy-tailed and a couple years later you see a change in their demeanor. There’s nothing wrong with them. It’s not a character flaw. This is burnout.” (11:20-11:39) 
• “If you meet yours or anyone else’s emotion with anger, self pity, or blame, it really takes away your power to move through it. I think we have to do a good self examination whenever we are holding onto emotions for extended periods of time and ask ourselves what is really happening? Am I meeting this with compassion or am I in a place where I feel victimized by what’s going on and holding onto  for some other reason?” (18:46-19:31)
• “I think we need to be intentional about our interactions with each other.” (29:00-29:10)
• “We have to be careful to not let our profession become our identity.” (32:52-32:56) 
 
Links
 
Website: laurabennettassociates.com
Antiburnout Website: antiburnout.org
Connect with Lara: 
Website: https://drlarasalyer.com
Instagram: @drlarasalyer
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/drlarasalyer
Linked-In: https://www.linkedin.com/in/drlarasalyer/
YouTube:  https://www.youtube.com/c/DrLaraSalyer
TikTok: @Creativity.Doctor
 
Podcast production and show notes provided by HiveCast.fm

Lean Into Your Weird with Dr. Errin Weisman, DO

“What I tell students and residents that I work with is you need to lean into your weird,” shares Dr. Errin Weisman, self-proclaimed queen of sass and burnout. In this week’s episode of The Catalyst, Dr. Weisman talks about how to lean into your weird in order to avoid burnout. 
 
Dr. Weisman experienced burnout while working in family medicine when she realized that her job no longer aligned with her values. The job she’d chosen for herself as an 18 year old med school student no longer matched with who she was as a 35 year old woman. She changed her career by leaning into her weird and now focuses on helping patients with substance abuse disorders, something that interested her from a young age. Dr. Weisman went from burnt out to thriving because she gave herself permission to try something new.
 
Tune into this week’s episode of The Catalyst for a conversation with host Dr. Lara Salyer and special guest Dr. Errin Weisman about the importance of leaning into your weird. Learn tips for how to realign your work life with your current core values. 
 
Quotes
• “Even though on the podcast it might seem like I have my shit all together, it’s just in this moment, because there’s probably a dumpster fire outside right now that I need to put out.” (1:56-2:03)
• “When you’re go-go-go, and you’re everybody’s wonder woman, and you pick up the slack, and work is your drug, you can’t stop. You’re praying for things to stop you subconsciously.” (3:45-4:00)
• “That lifestyle, how I had been working for nearly a decade and a half, it didn’t align with who I was. And I hadn’t stopped taking the time to be like, ‘Okay, the girl at 18 who decided to sign up for med school is not the woman at 35 and 40.’” (7:02-7:21) 
• “What I tell students and residents that I work with is you need to lean into your weird.” (9:00-9:05)
• “It is possible. It really is. You have to pick your hard. You can either stay in the hard of the suck right now or you can step out into uncertainty and say, ‘I don’t know what this is gonna look like. I don’t even know how I’m gonna do it, but I know that I’ve done hard things. I know that I’ve persevered before. I know that I’m not gonna let my kids eat cat food. I’m gonna do it differently.’” (14:42-15:10)
• “Part of it is giving yourself the permission to try and to fail.” (17:19-17:26)
• “When you are drowning in the swimming pool is not the time to learn swim lessons.” (2011-20:16)
 
Links
 
You can find out more about Dr. Weisman on her podcasts "Doctor Me First," and “Burntout to Badass” or hang out with her on Instagram - @burntout_to_badass 
 
Connect with Lara: 
Website: https://drlarasalyer.com
Instagram: @drlarasalyer
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/drlarasalyer
Linked-In: https://www.linkedin.com/in/drlarasalyer/
YouTube:  https://www.youtube.com/c/DrLaraSalyer
TikTok: @Creativity.Doctor
 
Podcast production and show notes provided by HiveCast.fm

Quick Interactive Core Value Exercise to Unlock Lightning Fast Decision Making

“It’s anticipated that your core values should change because you’re growing and your life is not stagnant,” explains host, Dr. Lara Salyer. In this week’s episode of The Catalyst, Dr. Salyer guides listeners through an interactive core value exercise. 
 
Burnout and core values are inextricably linked. When your core values are misaligned and you lose sight of your purpose, you risk burnout. It’s important to review your core values periodically because they will change over time. By doing the simple exercise laid out by Dr. Salyer, you can get a quick look at where you stand on ten domains of life including parenting, intimate relationships, and health. 
 
Tune into this week’s episode of The Catalyst for a conversation with host Dr. Lara Salyer about the link between core values and burnout. Follow along with an interactive exercise to quickly discover your core values.
 
Quotes
• “Burnout is that misalignment of our core values. When we lose our mission and our purpose, that is the driver of burnout.” (1:53-2:04)
• “It’s anticipated that your core values should change because you’re growing and your life is not stagnant. It’s part of the Catalyst Roadmap. As you imagine your core values, your ideal life, then you’ll find those tools to make things happen. You’ll streamline your day, your systems, and amplify your reach with the right communication tools, the right partners in your life. And then you’re able to parade proudly your mission and purpose.” (2:25-2:54)
• “Core values come in all shapes and sizes. They’re all just words that describe what lights your fire at that time.” (4:35-4:41)
 
Links
 
Connect with Lara: 
 
https://rightbrainrescue.com/p/catalyst_kit
 
Website: https://drlarasalyer.com
Instagram: @drlarasalyer
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/drlarasalyer
Linked-In: https://www.linkedin.com/in/drlarasalyer/
YouTube:  https://www.youtube.com/c/DrLaraSalyer
TikTok: @Creativity.Doctor
 
Podcast production and show notes provided by HiveCast.fm

Unlocking the Scientific Value of Your Disruptive Story

“Everybody has a story. I firmly believe that,” emphasizes Josh Gryniewicz, Chief Narrative Strategist for Odd Duck. In this week’s episode of The Catalyst, Josh shares how to plot and tell your own disruptive story.
 
Stories keep everything moving. With the right story, you can motivate and unify your team, influence the direction of your business, and reach your intended audience. Through story mapping, Josh helps clients to determine who their core audience is, what the building blocks of their story are, and how to share just the right pieces to achieve their desired result. That narrative can then serve as a script for your website, speaker presentations, and social media marketing campaigns. 
 
Tune into this week’s episode of The Catalyst for a conversation with host Dr. Lara Salyer and special guest Josh Gryniewicz about the importance of storytelling. Learn more about how to discover and share your story with your team and intended audience. 
 
Quotes
• “Narrative influences big C culture, influences lower case c culture. A shared team with unified vision that’s narrativized, so that everyone is on the same page and everyone can tell the story, is going to move a lot farther, a lot faster, together rather than when you have everyone is sort of bought into what we’re kind of doing and all together.”  (9:38-10:05)
• “Everybody has a story. I firmly believe that.” (15:51-15:55)
• “Where I would start with helping someone to figure out what their disruptive story is and how to actually articulate that is to actually find out, ‘What is the change that you’re trying to facilitate?' The stories themselves, there are concrete building blocks to them. One of the concrete building blocks is a sense of movement. I’m not a traditionalist in the sense that a story has to have a beginning, middle, and end. What my takeaway is, we just need a sense of movement. By virtue of being living, breathing beings, we have a sense of movement.” (16:24-17:27) 
• “The end result should be that you have a script that you can apply to anything you want to articulate your story.” (37:57-38:06)
• “A lot of the mistakes that I see more often is people overwriting. So sharing everything. Narratively, that’s not gonna hold. It’s going through and finding the pruning. You tell more with less. It’s helping train people to be able to do that piece.” (43:33-44:27)
 
Links
 
Learn more by going to Odd Duck's website! https://oddduck.io/ 
 
Connect with Lara: 
Website: https://drlarasalyer.com
Instagram: @drlarasalyer
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/drlarasalyer
Linked-In: https://www.linkedin.com/in/drlarasalyer/
YouTube:  https://www.youtube.com/c/DrLaraSalyer
TikTok: @Creativity.Doctor
 
Podcast production and show notes provided by HiveCast.fm

Catalyze Your Next Signature Talk in the First 10 Seconds

“Just remember it’s not about you,” shares Jason Teteak, Founder of Rule The Room Public Speaking. In this week’s episode of The Catalyst, Jason Teteak and public speaking coach Paul Westfield discuss tips for physicians to improve their communication styles. 
 
Common mistakes made by physicians when public speaking are using filler words, struggling to translate technical knowledge in a way that the everyday person can understand, and focusing too much on their performance. Learning your preferred presentation style can help you to tailor a pre-speech ritual that will help shake the nerves. By focusing on engaging the audience instead of worrying about yourself, you can deliver a more impactful speech.
 
Tune into this week’s episode of The Catalyst for a conversation with host Dr. Lara Salyer and special guests Jason Teteak and Paul Westfield about how to improve your public speaking. Learn to overcome nervous behaviors and get through to your audience more effectively. 
 
Quotes
• “Health practitioners whether you’re a nurse, doctor, independent, or even employed, we can all benefit from learning simple tips to elevate our communication.” (00:57-1:08 | Host)
• “I am Jason Teteak. I am the author of Rule the Room and Founder of Rule the Room and Rule the Room Public Speaking dot com. I love helping others succeed. That’s what brought me into the field…I love to help people be great and succeed in whatever they’re doing.” (2:37-2:58 | Jason)
• “Paul Westfield is a member of the Rule the Room public speaking team. His focus is on physicians and on coaching physicians to help them be successful with their communication, with the public speaking, with getting their message across.” (3:05-3:17 | Jason)
• “Just remember it’s not about you. The reason I say this is imagine this is your opportunity to love these people, to show how much you care about these people, to meet their needs, to build rapport, to build credibility.” (7:00-7:14 | Jason)
• “I notice common mistakes that physicians make that are very similar to most executives…They’ll use a lot of filler words like so or um or uh or and or because or but. All of those words are helpful for the physicians. They’re helpful for the person speaking…but they end up causing the audience to stumble. That’s an example of focusing on themselves instead of on the audience.” (7:34-8:17 | Jason) 
• “The biggest thing is most physicians are very technically oriented in their persuasion…So communication is very much right-brain oriented. So if you take someone who is mostly left-brain functional and you put them in a right-brain environment, it doesn’t cross over always as well. There is a translation that has to occur. When they’re in a room one on one with a patient they can rely on that technical expertise, but when they’re in a room full of people that’s not available so it’s a little more challenging.” (9:34-10:20 | Paul)
• “The biggest mistake I see physicians making is the curse of knowledge. They have all this knowledge and this amazing experience and expertise and they have a hard time translating to somebody that doesn’t know what they know.” (11:14-11:25 | Jason)
• “The first things I’d say about nerves is when you make it about you and worry about how you’re going to look and you’re going to perform that ends up causing a lot of nerves. When you put the focus back on the audience and focus on them, that’s one of the ways to relieve some of those nerves. One of the best ways to do this is to actually talk to a couple of audience members before you go up on stage. Right before you go up.” (11:30-11:55 | Jason)
• “We cannot deny that our body is going to respond on its own. It’s going to do its own thing. We have to accept that That’s the part of mindfulness is acknowledging that yes I’m nervous but this is good…Take all of that nervousness and make it a positive force that gives you the confidence to use that to your advantage.” (14:44-15:15 | Paul)
• “There’s four kinds of presenters. There are performers like Lara. There’s inspirers like me…There’s energizers…And so fascinators are all about wisdom. Performers are about charisma. Energizers are about courage. Inspirers like me are about spirit, heart, caring kinds of things.” (18:23-19:12 | Jason)
• “The value in meeting some of the people ahead of time is so important because it gives you a sense of where the audience is…It allows you to tune yourself for that initial engagement. So you can match where they are and take them where you want to take them.” (22:12-22:38 | Paul)
 
Links
 
For private coaching and Online classes and tutorials (PS Lab): https://ruletheroompublicspeaking.com/
 
Connect with Lara: 
Website: https://drlarasalyer.com
Instagram: @drlarasalyer
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/drlarasalyer
Linked-In: https://www.linkedin.com/in/drlarasalyer/
YouTube:  https://www.youtube.com/c/DrLaraSalyer
TikTok: @Creativity.Doctor
 
Podcast production and show notes provided by HiveCast.fm

Innovative Ways to Serve Low-Income Patients in a Heart-Centered Cash Practice

“I didn’t wanna be the person who only served rich people in my community. My heart was to serve those who need me,” shares Dr. Ellie Campbell, Founder of Campbell Integrated Family Medicine. In this week’s episode of The Catalyst, Dr. Ellie introduces the scholarship membership program that she created to meet the needs of indigent patients. 
 
Finances can be a large boundary to accessing functional medicine. To help those with great need in her community, Dr. Ellie designed a membership program based on Habitat for Humanity’s housing program. Through the membership program, qualifying patients can exchange 15 hours of approved community service for 3 months of functional medical care. This empowers patients to have a hand in improving their lives while benefiting the community at the same time. 
 
Tune into this week’s episode of The Catalyst for a conversation with host Dr. Lara Salyer and special guest Dr. Ellie Campbell about ways to serve low-income patients without handing out services for free. Learn more about the scholarship membership model and how it can benefit the patients, providers, and community. 
 
Quotes
• “I’ve learned a lot of lessons, one of which was that I believe free is valueless when it comes to healthcare. The more we gave the patients, the less they wanted to work for themselves.” (3:09-3:49)
• “I didn’t wanna be the person who only served rich people in my community.  My heart was to serve those who need me. Not just those with a big, deep pocketbook.” (10:09-10:20)
• “I have a concierge-style membership program, so people pay me a monthly membership fee to be my patient. It’s a retainer. They hold the spot. They pay me the same amount of money every month, whether they see me or whether they don’t. Instead of paying me in cash for my membership fee, I provide them with a scholarship membership log sheet. They go out in the community and they have to do 15 hours of community service. Once they’ve done 15 hours of community service, that earns them 1 quarter of membership.” (14:32-15:15) 
• “It’s a win, win, win. I win because I quantify the amount of charity work that I do. The patients get their care with dignity. They know how much it is, they have to work for it, they have to earn it. If they don’t do their hours, they don’t get care from me.” (17:33-18:15) 
• “That money when it goes into the tithing checking account, that’s charity money. That’s not taxed. The fun part is how do we distribute that money? You’ve got the money in the account and it’s ready and waiting for charity.” (26:57-27:46)
• “No matter how hard it feels, no matter where you are in your own financial journey, you just start someplace and give something. The rewards that you reap do truly exceed the commitment to the dollar.” (29:13-29:30) 
 
Links
 
To learn more from Dr. Ellie Campbell: https://www.campbellfamilymedicine.com/home
Watch on YouTube: Campbell Family Medicine Tithing Policy Video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MwWmyEw6D7o
Connect with Lara: 
Website: https://drlarasalyer.com
Instagram: @drlarasalyer
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/drlarasalyer
Linked-In: https://www.linkedin.com/in/drlarasalyer/
YouTube:  https://www.youtube.com/c/DrLaraSalyer
TikTok: @Creativity.Doctor
 
Podcast production and show notes provided by HiveCast.fm