Part-Time with Cobin Soelberg

In this episode, Dawn Baker talks with Cobin Soelberg. Cobin is an M.D., J.D. who practices anesthesiology part-time in Bend, Oregon. He also serves as an expert witness in medical malpractice cases. Since 2020, he has also run Greeley Wealth Management, a financial planning firm built on a simple premise of a physician working for physicians. 

Outside of work, Cobin spends as much time as he can in the Cascade Mountains with his wife, Julie, and son, Wes, skiing, mountain biking, and exploring the backroads in their truck. Over the past eighteen months, his part-time clinical schedule has given him more room for reading, writing, and epic Lego sessions with Wes. 

Cobin is a longtime friend and medical school classmate who I’ve watched buck the traditions of medical training and practice for more than 20 years. We discuss the joys of part-time medicine, Cobin’s roundabout way of getting to his current dream schedule, how to get your organization to allow for alternative schedules, and some great talk about personal finance. 

Relevant/mentioned links:

** Subscribe to the Practice Balance newsletter and get a fun, educational training video about the one thing that's likely holding you back from better work-life balance! **

• Books - The Power of Regret by Daniel Pink, The Pathless Path by Paul Millard
• The Pathless Path Podcast - Why Sheryl Sandberg is Wrong - Dawn Baker on the Art of Leaning Out
• Lean Out Podcast - Joy with Cory Fawcett

Get in touch with Cobin:

• Substack - Medicine, Money and Meaning
• Website - Greeley Wealth Management

Get in touch with Dawn:

• Website - practicebalance.com
• Instagram - @practicebalance
• Facebook - Dawn Baker
• LinkedIn - Dawn L Baker, MD
• Buy the Lean Out Book
• Buy the Lean Out Confidence Course (code POD gives you $50 off!)

Transcript

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SPEAKER_01 0:01

Welcome to the Lean Out Podcast. I'm your host, Dr. Dawn Baker. Are you looking for a new approach to finding authentic and sustainable work-life balance? You've come to the right place for inspiration, information, and a community of like-minded professionals. Let's get to the show. Hello, hello. Thanks for being here. As you know, if you've been listening to this podcast for a while, I live on a high elevation off-grid homestead in the mountains of Utah. We've lived here for five years now, off and on a little bit in the beginning, and really extending to a full-time living situation over the last year or two. And it felt like when we really started being homesteaders was three springs ago when we started getting chickens. So now each spring, since then, we've added a handful of chickens to our flock. And this year in April, we got six. My favorite chicken by far is Buffy. She was so friendly. She's a beautiful light reddish brown hen. Um, she's called a Buff Orpington, if anyone knows the different chicken breeds. She's so soft. She lets you hold her without squirming and just super nice. So recently we noticed some unusual behavior with Buffy. She started mounting some of the other chickens. She didn't look like she really knew what she was doing. She was kind of jumping on them and jumping back off. And so we figured maybe she's just trying to be dominant. And it was only the chickens that are in her little group, so her age group. At the same time, we noticed that she is quite literally three times the size of all the other chickens, including the older chickens. We were suspicious that either she's a rooster or she's a hen with some sort of psychological issues. Then the other day, Buffy finally crowed. And it was not a little tiny crow. It was a big, deep crow, kind of like what sounds like a vintage hornhunk. And that settled it. Buffy is indeed a rooster. So now we're trying to get used to calling him Buck. When you buy chickens at a farm store, there's always a chance they say that one in ten or something like that will be a rooster because they don't sex test them. And it's sad because the people who live in the city and get chickens that end up being roosters, they end up having to get rid of them. And we adopted one of our roosters through a friend that way. So now we have four roosters and something like 26 or 27 hens, which is obviously more roosters than anyone needs, but they're just gonna live out their best lives on our homestead because we'll allow them to, and they can. I share this in other homestead stories along with the latest blog posts and podcast episodes, often in my Practice Balance newsletter. I usually send one to two a month. I also share other people's work that is inspiring me and sometimes products that I'm really loving and stuff like that. So if you're not subscribed, let's change that today. I have a new landing page with a new gift offer. When you go to practicebalance.com slash connect, you will get access to a 20-ish minute training video that is all about the one thing likely holding you back from having better work-life balance. This is a short but entertaining and educational webinar that I recorded about a year, year and a half ago when I created my confidence course. So I know you're going to enjoy it. I'm excited to share my conversation with you today. My guest is Coban Solberg. Coban is an MD JD who practices anesthesiology part-time in Bend, Oregon. He also serves as an expert witness in medical malpractice cases. Since 2020, he has also run Greeley Wealth Management, a financial planning firm built on the simple premise of a physician working for physicians. Outside of work, Coben spends as much time as he can in the Cascade Mountains with his wife, Julie, and his son Wes. He does a lot of skiing, mountain biking, and exploring the back roads in a truck. Not only is Coben a highly accomplished physician with a JD and someone who does the important work of financial planning and coaching for physicians, but more than that, Coben is a longtime friend and medical school classmate who I've watched buck the traditions of medical training and practice for more than 20 years. In this episode, we talk about the joys of part-time medicine, Coben's roundabout way of getting to his current part-time dream schedule, how to get your organization to allow for alternative schedules for different employees, and also some great talk about personal finance. I know you're going to love this conversation. So here we go with Coben Solberg. Coban Solberg, welcome to the Lean Up Podcast. How are you doing?

SPEAKER_00 5:10

I'm doing great, Don. It's so great to be here. And it's wonderful to see you again.

SPEAKER_01 5:15

Likewise. So we have known each other for a really long time. We went to medical school together. We weren't in the same class. I think we were in back-to-back classes, but we volunteered together for a service project. And um, you know, we go way back. But for those of the people who are listening that don't know you, can you introduce yourself and tell us a little bit about your work-life balance and how it's different from other people in your profession?

SPEAKER_00 5:43

Sure. Um, I'm Coben Solberg. Gosh, it's been almost 20 years since I graduated medical school. Um, and I, you know, even thinking back, like as we've been catching up, always took a little bit of a different path. So I think back to medical school, I mean it was like amazing, but mostly because I skied all the time with my close friends who were all doing anesthesia. And um, and then I took a three-year leave of absence to get a law degree and a bioethics degree, and then came back to medical school. And, you know, it just seems like it's gone from there where I I always have the like interests that I'll pursue that sort of take me off that standard medicine path. Now that I'm 50, I think I've finally come to terms with that. Um, so I do part-time clinical anesthesia. I live in Central Oregon, just a gorgeous place where I get to mountain bike and ski and fly fish. And I've been doing part-time work for a little bit over a year now, given a law degree. I do a lot of expert witness consulting, which I really enjoy doing. I find it fascinating, terrifying, but really educational. And, you know, it's a great way for me to bring that information back to my colleagues and teach them what's going on in the legal space. And then for the last five or six years, I've been doing financial advising, primarily aimed at traditions with really wealth. And that business I'll be wrapping up probably by the end of this year. Um, so a lot of different interests, a lot of different fun things.

SPEAKER_01 7:19

And tell me a little bit about your family life and who lives with you in your place in Bend.

SPEAKER_00 7:26

Okay. So I've been married now. We just celebrated 13 years this year, and we have a very curious, very precocious four-year-old son. He just got back from golf practice, which is super fun. I don't golf, neither of us golf for that matter, but he's he seems to be enjoying it. And we also have a seven-year-old Rodija Ridge back. Um, that was our first daughter. Over the last couple of years, we were my wife and I were married for almost 10 years before we decided to have kids. And I had no idea what I was missing, and I had no idea how much I would love being a dad. It's like the greatest gift, and he brings so much joy and lightness into our lives, and which we'll talk about a little bit later, but it's you know, it's reshaped how I thought about work, especially as an old as an older parent.

SPEAKER_01 8:19

100%. I resonate with that so much. My husband and I were married for let me see, how many years before we had our daughter? Uh oh my gosh. At least 15. I think like 15. We didn't think that we were gonna have kids. And um, you probably, you know, you know my backstory of having a health issue related to even trying to have a baby, and then becoming a parent later, I just had no idea. I had no idea what I was missing. Yeah, and it's so much fun.

SPEAKER_00 8:51

It is, and it's we we were the same way. We didn't, you know, we tried to do all the head stuff, right? Like, shouldn't we, shouldn't we? When it's totally an issue of the heart. And this was during COVID, and we finally, this is what I tell anyone who's thinking of it. We asked the question, we reframed it and said, Would we regret not trying to get pregnant? Um, and it was like a bolt of light. It was immediate. Like you can't, and it's so I use that reframe for like all my big decisions now. Like, would I regret not doing this? Because I live in my head and it's the way to get around the BS really quickly.

SPEAKER_01 9:30

I'll have to find the source of this, but there is some, I think it's a book called Regret, and I want to say it's Daniel Pink. And he talks about the regrets of inaction are the most uh powerful regrets. They're the most common and the ones that really stick with people. And so I totally get that. And, you know, becoming a parent really helped me to both look at my finances, get on a path to financial freedom, and also getting to the financial freedom, want to go part-time. And I know you recently went part-time as well. So can you talk a little bit about why you decided to do that and what that journey looked like for you?

SPEAKER_00 10:12

Sure. So there's been a couple steps to that. And, you know, we moved to Bend in 2019, so right before COVID hit. Um, and then COVID hit and things got super crazy for a while, and then we got pregnant. I think I probably the first time I was burnt out was during residency, and I felt it again in academics. And I started to see those same things happening again during COVID, like any of us working with patient-facing jobs, like it was kind of a nightmare. People were getting sick, people were dying, we were working too much, we didn't have resources, hospital leadership had no idea what they were doing to support us. And so, probably four or five years ago, I started looking at different paths. And I remember working with the physician coach, Dina George, who was awesome. Um coming across resources like The Pathless Path by Paul Millard. I remember reaching out to you. Like I always saw what you were doing with coaching and the podcasting and other things you were doing. And we reached, I just reached out and we had a chat about what was going on and how you found your way. Um, and it was at that point that I started my financial advising business, which was a, you know, I I loved doing it. I loved helping other physicians get on that path towards financial independence. Uh, and at that point, the goal was like what I thought I would be doing is I'd build that business and then get out of medicine. I thought I was so sure at the time the problem was medicine, not the way that I thought about my job. And I work in private practice now, and our group has made a big shift from like grind it out, grind it out to realize that people want other things in their lives. They want to take care of their families. Like we live in a gorgeous place, and people weren't able to get out and bike and ski. And so they realized when we had one or two years where we really struggled with recruiting, that people wanted a different life. And so we made the commitment as a group to hire up to essentially what people wanted to work, right? And so people wanted to work 80%, you'd hire more people. We like I worked 50% now, and we just made sure we hired enough people so that everyone got the schedule that they wanted. Um, what really led to it, like what finally did it for me last March, we were traveling, we were visiting um a mutual friend from medical school who lived in Panama at the time. When our son started having these little episodes that we weren't sure what's going on, but they started happening like 15 or 20 times a day. Um, and one time the first time that happened, he was in my arms as we got off the plane. His I saw his eyes roll in the back of his head and was like, huh, something wrong. Uh like you just had that intrinsic sense as a parent, but also as a physician, like something going on, but you know, I wanted to tell myself it wasn't a big deal, but they started happening 10 or 15 times a day while we were in Panama, and we quickly turned back around, went to a children's hospital, called in the cavalry, and had a wonderful pediatric neurologist up there who eventually diagnosed him with epilepsy. And Wes is doing fantastic now. He's responding to his medication, he hasn't had seizures in over a year. Like every day I'm unbelievably grateful. Uh, but there's a period for you know, at least the first month or two where he was still having a lot of seizures. And so I was working one or two days a week and just home with Wes because if you know, if he's these seizures were so quick, it's he had he has a very rare form called VMAX, and they're so instantaneous. And part of his seizure is that he goes atonic, so he would just fall. So if he was riding his bike, he would fall, or if he was in the bathtub, it was awful. Um and then a few months later, I was biking with Wes, and I was the one who fell, and I knocked myself unconscious and got a subarachnoid hemorrhage, and you know, had all those post-concussive symptoms for about a month, so I wasn't working. And so at that point, it had been about six months where I was working part-time. And for those of you who've worked part-time, you know that once you do it, there's no going back. Once you see how much better your life is when work is a smaller part of it, it's you can't unsee it.

SPEAKER_01 14:51

I totally agree with this. And I have not only experienced it myself, but also have seen it so many times in coaching clients that come to me and want to make a change and uh sometimes are on the verge of burnout or saying that they want to quit altogether. Like you said, they want to figure out what their side project is gonna be so that they can get out of medicine or right, you know, and then when they end up going par-time or per DM or something like that, they just they're all of a sudden like, oh, I like this again. This is okay.

SPEAKER_00 15:27

Yeah, that's what I tell everyone, Don. I say, I love being a physician again, which I can't tell you how shocking that is being on the other side of it because I was I was convinced, I was a hundred percent convinced that medicine was the problem. And now that you know, like the volumes turn down to a two or three instead of eight or nine, it's so much fun. Like I have a great time at work. We are so fortunate to be able to take care of people, it's such a meaningful, purposeful career, and it can be a smaller part of your life. Like both of those things can be true.

SPEAKER_01 16:03

Yes, absolutely. And you also are still a professional with integrity, even if you're not working at the same degree or to the same volume that that somebody else is doing. And I think people forget that there's a lot of all or nothing thinking in medicine, as you know. It's like, well, if I'm not doing this exactly perfect as the pinnacle of what this group is expecting, then I have to stop. Right. And all the way to the point where people think like, I've got to go work at Starbucks or something, you know, can't even have like anything in between. So I really have to hand it to your group. It sounds like that you were being proactive. You saw something happening, you saw a trend. There's also the big shortage of anesthesiologists, and so trying to anticipate the needs and the wants of people that are coming in, and then also the present people, because the people that are coming in don't necessarily want the same thing as the people that are aging in the practice. And so being able to accommodate everybody. Did you have any sort of issues with going down to your point five? Um, any sort of pushback at all, or was it really just well received?

SPEAKER_00 17:23

No, it's not, I, you know, I would say by this point, no, not at all. Like getting to that point, you know, there I think there was a bit of mashing of teeth, especially amongst some of the um original people within the group, just because that had always been the mindset. But the turning point was once they saw that A, we were losing some great people who were going to other places for either better pay or better hours, and then struggling to recruit, they couldn't deny what was happening and why. Um, and again, like the the way we tried to frame it is if you still want to work 120%, knock yourself out. But lots of other people do not want that life. And we need to be like, if we're going to continue to be successful, and if we're gonna continue to be a business, we need to move into the future and allow people to do that. And people came around, and it's like that's what's nice is like everyone's supportive of that because everyone's sort of working the thing that they want to work as much as whether those they want to work.

SPEAKER_01 18:28

I think this is a really good model, and it reminds me that I was I just had a coaching client recently who was trying to navigate some changes, and this person is a high-up partner in a like long-standing group, uh a specialist, private practice, and they have different people wanting different things. They still have the they have the new partners who really need to amp up their practice, and they have the middle of the road partners who really are like at the height of their uh productivity and they like it that way and they want to work more. And then there's the people like this client who actually want to be a little more intentional about their time at this point and want to have a sustainable glide path to retirement. Yes. And so, how do you accommodate all of those things? Is there any kind of learning points, other learning points that you can share with listeners?

SPEAKER_00 19:23

So I think the most important thing is understanding it's messy, and it's messy because everyone needs to get heard. Our group is a medium-sized anesthesia practice. We have geez, 50 or 60 people now. So depending on the size of your group or your department, like people need to be heard, and that's part of the process. Um, and that takes time. The other thing I'd say is having people within leadership who understand the importance of moving forward in this direction um and continuing to promote it. Because there's there were plenty of times where I was sure it was gonna die and it wasn't gonna happen. And people kept carrying that torch um until we got over the finish line. And you know, going back to what you said a few minutes ago, I think in medicine generally we have this, it's very binary thinking, right? Like it's either perfect or it's not. And with the process like this, just iterate. Like I think more than anything, get something moving. Some of it's gonna work, some of it's not gonna work, and then you keep improving it or making it better for your own circumstance and like how your practice worked. Um, that I think is one of the biggest sticking points with Doc because they're like first attempt has to be perk, which is that like we all know that's never gonna be the case, especially when you're running a business. And so just get something going and then start figuring it out from there.

SPEAKER_01 20:59

That's really those are really great points. It seems like um something that a lot of people can resonate with because there are a lot of people that have stakeholding positions in their practice if they're in a practice like that. So yeah. So as far as going part-time for you, 50% is a lot different than 100% financially.

SPEAKER_00 21:23

Yep.

SPEAKER_01 21:23

And I know that you are you know very versed on finances. Talk about how you dealt with that change in your family's finances.

SPEAKER_00 21:34

Sure. And that's I think that's an important point because uh I'm sure you probably see this in your coaching clients. The number one thing every single doctor always says to me when I talk about going part time is I wish I could, but I can't financially. Every single one of them. I'll give a few caveats. Um, you know, again, my wife and I didn't have kids for about 10 years. We'd paid off all of our debt except for our mortgage. Mortgage. My wife's a CRA, so she makes a great income as well. That certainly helped. And we'd been maxing out our savings for, you know, over a decade. So, like we had a big runway where we were saving a ton of money and didn't have a lot of outgoing expenses. And we have two high income earners. So, like, I want to be very crystal clear about that. I had to learn to be very intentional with how we were spending money from like day one. Like, I came in with a ton of debt from law school and med school. My wife had some, but like 20% of what I had. Um, and I had never been accountable to anyone for money before until we got married. So I wanted that us to come on the same page. So, you know, for a decade, we'd been intentional with what was important to us. And the nice thing about saving and being intentional is it gives your future self better choices, which I'm now reef reaping the rewards of. So the way our practice works is really interesting in that my like monthly pay is the average of like the previous six months. And so, like, whether I was gone for a month on vacation or whether I was just not working for a month, that sort of has the same impact. Um, but what it also does is even that out so you don't have a super big month and then like no income the next month. Um, that I love. Because I went like six or eight months where I was working very, very little, like even less than part-time with all that medical stuff going on last year. We had already stress tested it. So I knew what our monthly income and spending would be. And I was like, oh, we can totally do this. Um, because most of our spending is discretionary. And like, yes, of course, like with the kid, and especially a kid in band who like bikes and steel and build all of it. Like, but most of that is discretionary. We had to cut back, we can, but we'd stress tested it, which is great. And that's that's you know, one of the recommendations I would make is I think everyone can get a sense of what their income might look like. So practice spending that for a couple months, like your income will stay the same, right? But just what I mean is like practice spending less and see what that feels like. Does that feel like incredibly painful? Does that feel totally doable? The other piece of it, and this is like my financial advisor hat on. So because we've been saving so much for the last decade and a half, this is the first year that I'm not maxing out my retirement savings, which feels really uncomfortable for me. But I'm saving probably $50,000 or $60,000 less than I did last year, which means I have to earn less money, which is great. And remember, those dollars are our highest tax dollars, right? And so what I will tell you, Don, is you know, because of all those things, and those are a lot of moving parts for sure, our monthly income and spending has been almost imperceptible in terms of changing. Like I just don't notice a difference um in terms of what we spend or like feeling like our accounts are going getting lower and lower. And I've tracked our income and spending since we got married, and it's more or less the same. But all of those things were things that I had started planning a couple of years ago, knowing this is what I was aiming for, was working part-time.

SPEAKER_01 25:46

I love that you said that the intentional spending and basically all this front loading, it was something that gave your future self more choices.

SPEAKER_00 25:56

I don't know. I'm so grateful. Like, I'm so grateful because you know, so I think back when Wes, like when we were in the hospital, and you know, I wasn't sure if my group was going to be able to pick up my shift. I like, if I had to quit, I have to quit. Like Wes needs me. And there was just this profound sense of deep, deep gratitude that the only thing I had to worry about was making sure that he was okay. Like I wasn't worried about paying our mortgage, I wasn't worried about money at all. Like the only thing I had to be concerned about was my son's health. There's no amount of money in the world that can take away that feeling. Like, I was so grateful that we had saved for a rainy day. Like, you never know how life's gonna kick you around, but we know it's coming for all of us in some way, shape, or form. And with my financial planning clients, I use that story all the time because I'm like, this is why we're doing it. You have no idea when you're gonna need that. It could be a parent, it could be a kid, it could be your spouse, could be you. I at some point, you're gonna need that cushion and you're gonna be so grateful for it. So yeah, it was years of just like small choices that compounded into something huge.

SPEAKER_01 27:23

Your situation sounds very similar to my situation in that we have the double income earners and we front loaded a lot of savings and we had the child later, and as opposed to having the huge expenses early on.

SPEAKER_00 27:36

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 27:36

But let's say someone does not have that. Let's say that either, you know, the person has a high debt burden, like you know, all of us do, but then maybe there's there's uh a disproportionate um earnings in the family, or maybe the person that you're advising is the breadwinner and they're the physician or the lawyer or the the professional, um, and they have more, you know, some more immediate expenses. What kind of things do you tell them in order to protect their future selves? What would be their steps?

SPEAKER_00 28:08

It's a great question. And you know, again, part of the reason I wanted to lay out our specifics, and I it definitely matters. Most of my clients are earlier in their careers, right? So they have a ton of debt and they haven't started building their savings yet. And I think the the most important point to make is we are definitely dealing with like the privilege of having high income, right? Whether that's in law or medicine or engineering or any of these things. Um but that also comes with consequences for spending and usually some debt. And so part of this, like instead of thinking of what the final state has to look like, it's what's the feeling that I'm trying to accomplish by working part-time and like how can I start working towards that today? And so, you know, some of that may be working hard right now to pay down that debt burden. Some of that may be, you know, I definitely had some of my clients who like I don't recommend everyone goes from like 100% to like 50%. And I in fact did not do that. Like, I the first thing I did was start giving away some of my call, which was very impactful to my well-being. That was huge. And I was like, huh, I don't miss this money very much. So, you know, like there were a lot of steps in that process. It's not just like I showed up fully formed and was like, this is sweet. I'm working part-time and everything's great. Like, it definitely is a ton of steps in the process, right? So, what would one day off a week look like, or one day off a month, or giving away one night call a month? Like, just practice those small things. Um, debt is a huge one. The more you can minimize your outflows, your mandatory outflows every month, the easier it is to manage your cash flow, right? Like, if if all you're really managing is like a mortgage, that's much easier than like a mortgage, two big student loan payments, maybe two car payments, right? Private school for the kids. Um the next step is to get is to start becoming more aware and then intentional with your spending. And one of the things I love doing with my clients is just we don't do this all the time, but we'll go over spending and you know, it's sort of like the Marie Kondo thing. Like, are these things that bring joy in our lives and are aligned with what we as a family value? Right. And what I love about that is it's going to be different for all of us. Like my wife and I love travel. We've, you know, we went to Paris this year, we're going out to Zion in a couple months to see family. We probably our biggest line item by far is travel. But I know that's not true for everyone. Like one of my partners loves to be on the boat all summer with his family, and that's really important to him. But the point is, you can have anything you want, you just don't get everything that you want. And at some point, you have to make choices, right? Like, and especially if you're gonna make a proactive choice to decrease your income by working less. Um, it becomes even more critical that you start looking at those things. And then the final thing I would tell people it, you know, like it is again, it's a process. And so you don't have to have it all figured out, just take the first step and see how that feels, sit with that for a little bit, and then figure out what the next step needs to be. Like I could have never dreamt of ending up in this place all at once. Um, it was just compounding effort over a couple of years and making sure that that's what worked for our family.

SPEAKER_01 31:53

I think so much of uh what you said applies to it, it applies to all different kinds of specialties too. Like um the idea that you can make one tiny change and it doesn't have to be, you know, if you're not in a kind of environment where you're working in a shift, maybe it's just that, and I was dealing with this with with the coaching clients recently. Maybe it's just that you see less patients per day. Like maybe the volume of patients is what's so draining. And so can you cap your number of patients and then enforce that cap? You know, there's so many different things that can be done. And just like you said, like giving away shifts or trying to trade vacations or or whatever it is, but it's those are things that are worth the money. There's recently been this thing going around on Instagram that's like five things that are worth the money. And my number one thing was working part-time. I'm not spending, it's just that money I'm not making. And yes, it is expensive, right? But that doesn't mean it's not worth it, it's way, way worth it.

SPEAKER_00 32:56

Way, way worth it. And again, because we do anesthesia, we work with surgeons all the time. And they're always like, I can't work part-time as a surgeon. And yet, I'm sure you know, and I know plenty of surgeons who, in fact, work part-time. One of the groups in town recently was acquired by the hospital, and now like because they work for the hospital, they're all working one day a week less, and they're like shocked at how amazing it is, right?

SPEAKER_01 33:22

I was gonna say, are they nicer?

SPEAKER_00 33:24

They're all happier, that's for sure. And it's you know, again, like it was sort of forced on them from the outside. One of the insidious things, especially if you sort of reach that point of burnout, is you unless something is right in front of your face, you think it's not possible, right? So if someone says, Well, what if you saw five fewer patients a day? Or what if you only operated for half a day instead of a full day one day a week? Um, like, well, that's not possible. That's not possible, right? And one that I think what's so powerful is once you start taking these little micro actions, is you start regaining control and autonomy and agency over your life, which really like ultimately that's what all this is about. Like the whole thing I love about working part-time is I have way more agency over my time. And it's the best, it's literally the best thing in the whole universe.

SPEAKER_01 34:24

Well, it's been so fun to see this transformation where uh you have this side business that you love. You love helping people in this other way, but you look at it as a uh, this is what I'm going to move to, and I'm gonna get out of medicine. And now you're back to the, well, you know, my side project, I'm just gonna kind of like, you know, let it be. And I'm just gonna enjoy my medicine on my own timetable in the amount of time that I want to do it. It's fun to to see that change in you. And I'm always for people finding a sustainable way to practice their profession that may not look like what everybody else is doing. Who cares?

SPEAKER_00 35:05

Right. Well, and it have you have you read Pastless, The Pathless Path by Paul Millow?

SPEAKER_01 35:12

Not only have I read it, I've been on his podcast.

SPEAKER_00 35:14

I thought so. Okay, I thought, yeah, yeah. Have you um so he just re-released the book in this like stunning hardcover? It's worth getting if you haven't got it. It's beautiful, um, it's absolutely beautiful. But in the introduction, it's written by um a Cambridge physician. And I remember reading this a couple of years ago, right? And he's like, I've made it, I'm a duh, and yet something doesn't feel right. And he's so he talks to other doctors, like, well, yeah, I would, you know, if I could, I'd quit, or I'd love to work two days a week, but that just seems impossible. And I just started reading again, and I just had to laugh because I remember reading that a couple years ago thinking that is impossible. You might as well just be speaking a foreign language because that feels impossible. And I'll tell you, it's it really is just small steps compounded over time that sort of led to where I am now. And it, you know, again, it's not that I have not I have challenges just like anyone else does. It's just that I feel like I'm embodying and like inhabiting my life in a way that I certainly didn't feel for the last 10 years. Like there's color in my days, my Mondays, my weeks. Like I love all of it. It's not like we're like on a boat all the time. It's not that at all. Like today I went and got coffee and took my son to like golf camp, and then I get to do this with you, and then I'll do some writing after this, and then tomorrow I'll be in the OR for like 12 hours. And I love all of those days. It's just like it's hard to describe, and it's not one big thing, it's just a lot of things compounded over time.

SPEAKER_01 37:04

Yes, yes, very much. Do you have any last words of wisdom for the audience? Anything that we haven't talked about.

SPEAKER_00 37:14

You know, I've been thinking about this a lot. I think we all have a sense when we're out of alignment or we're not acting in integrity, or we're not listening to that voice inside of us. It's like, go this way or go this way. And I encourage you to pause when you hear that and when you know you're moving in a direction that's not you. Um, ask for help. I asked for tons of help on this process. My wife is an absolute angel because there's plenty of times where I was like a complete lunatic and really struggling. So ask for help. Um, find resources in whatever way works for you, whether that's you know, like one-on-one conversations, whether that's coaching, whether that's working with therapists, whether that's reading, um, and start taking like one small action each day to move closer to that person. It's a struggle and it's it's not an overnight process. Um, but you can find your you can find your way to the other side of that, and it's worth every ounce of that struggle, 100%.

SPEAKER_01 38:28

Yes, yes. Thank you so much for that. Coben, this has been a lovely conversation as usual.

SPEAKER_00 38:34

Thank you.

SPEAKER_01 38:35

Tell people where they can find you if they want to connect with you or learn more.

SPEAKER_00 38:40

Sure. As I mentioned earlier, I'm in the process of sort of pondering and winding down my my financial advising. But what I've loved through that process has been writing to my clients. And so I've been continuing that on Substack. Um, and it's money, medicine, and meaning. Just sort of starting and trying to be more consistent, but um would love to find you there and would love to connect to other people on Substack.

SPEAKER_01 39:05

Great. Thank you so much for being on the show.

SPEAKER_00 39:08

Thank you for having me. It's great to see ya.

SPEAKER_01 39:10

You too. It was so fun for me to be able to catch up with Coben today. He's always doing some inspiring things. Here are my takeaways from our conversation. Number one, when the volume gets turned down on your job, you're likely to enjoy it much more. I've seen this time and time again, and Coban is a great example. You think you need to leave medicine to be happy. You need to beef up that side gig so that you can leave clinical medicine and just move on to something better. But once you get into a more humane schedule for you, perhaps a reduced FTE, perhaps seeing less patients per day, perhaps more vacation, then it's all much more tolerable. I've experienced this myself as well. I actually enjoy doing anesthesiology. When weighing your options for improving your work-life balance, don't underestimate the option of just doing the same job but doing it less. Your profession does not have to be all or nothing. Number two, everyone views balance differently, and this needs to be reflected in practice groups and organizations. We should be working to accommodate different types of work-life balance to retain the best members of our workforce. If you want different accommodations, you're likely not alone. You could be the one to initiate this change at your workplace or in your group. So go start the process. I'd recommend asking around and maybe even creating an anonymous poll of the different members of your group as a first step to figure out what everyone is really wanting for their schedule. I'll bet you'll be surprised at the variety when people are presented with opportunity to be honest. Number three, taking small intentional actions now protects the future you. Coban talked about doing this with intentional spending, kind of like Marie condoing your expenses. We also discussed trying one little tweak to your work schedule, like doing one less clinic day, seeing a few less patients each week, something like that, taking one more week of vacation. These small steps can help you get on the path to whatever work-life balance future you is wanting. You don't have to go all in on day one. So, my parting question for you today is who is future you? How does Future You want to feel? Let me know what your thoughts are by sending me fan mail through your podcast listening platform, leaving a comment on the blog post associated with this episode at practicebalance.com, or sending me a DM on Instagram. I'm PracticeBalance. Thanks for listening to the Lean Out Podcast. If you find these conversations inspiring and useful, please forward them to a friend and also leave a review on iTunes or Spotify so that other people can find them and do. If you want to get in touch with me, you can find me at my website, practicebalance.com, where you can subscribe to my newsletter and get updates regularly about new podcast episodes, blog posts, indicators, and you can also support my work by buying my book, me out, a professional woman's guide to finding authentic work-life balance for yourself, a friend, family member, or coworker. Have a great day and we'll see you next time.