Episode 23: Strategies for Optimal Family Life and Getting out Your Own Way Dr. Caitlin Faas Ph.D.

jiuzhaigou autumn leaves xishuan china a doctors perspective dr caitlin faas psychologist phd 2

Caitlin Faas, Ph.D. talks to Dr Trosclair on A Doctors Perspective Podcast

Dr Caitlin Faas brings us a ton of resources to read up on, so if you like books please clink any of these affiliate links and help improve yourself with Doctor approved self help resources. We have a civil conversation about the Bernie Sanders Free College for Everyone as well as the controversial Gender Pay Gap. We discuss getting the confidence and details so they can take the next step.  What habits are working or not?  Big emphasis on clearing out faulty mindsets and Getting unstuck.

Education: Kent State in Ohio followed by  Virginia Tech  Master to PHD program in 5 years.  Now she is on tenure track at Mount St Mary’s University in Maryland

Only 50% of the dual program students are generally completed.

Her emphasis is on developmental psychology and her dissertation is on the completion rate of students who start college and what happens with life satisfaction and work after dropping out.  We go into the details of what she found, it’s pretty interesting…  Spoiler if you think it’s not high, you live in an insulated bubble. Why do only 30% graduate? And Why do women finish more than men?.

She teaches as well as coaches professionals on lots of topics but specifically, time management, getting out of your own way, confidence, maximizing family time by being present. What’s your purpose, what are you passionate about? Coaching on specific goals in mind. Fear of not feeling good enough: smart enough, wealthy enough, or Feel like an imposter. Getting the confidence and details so they can take the next step.  What habits are working and which or not?  Big emphasis on clearing out faulty mindsets and getting unstuck.

Tips on time management strategies.  How do you set boundaries with your family so you can pursue the side hustle. Where to get extra time to do the side hustle along with having a family and kids without burning the candle on both ends.  When should you outsource side projects?.

When with your kids, how can you be present with them so family time is optimized?  How can we ask our kids the right questions so they want to share their lives with us.  Read the book How to listen so Kids will Talk.  She mentions modern family dinner etiquette.  Create space that fosters moments so your kids can share about what’s going on, think outside the box.. she explains this in more detail.

Have you heard of Shared Reading? (helps creativity and having conversations with kids)  Are fathers important in a kids life? Do you need a nuclear family or is community involvement a beneficial alternative.  How important are family or marriage meetings to staying mentally healthy.  Asking questions with your spouse about goals, happiness etc and keeping those conversations separate from did you take the trash out type.

Everybody needs a ME TOO mindset.  Regardless of your circumstance, there are people meeting together with similar issues and someone else is going through what you are going through to.

Tips and ideas of how to rejuvenate during vacation so you aren’t worried about your clinic the whole time. Tricks to unplug ahead of time so half your vacation is spent decompressing.

She mentions a great question to ask people older than you are, especially a grandparent age “What do you wish you knew when you were 30, 40?

Show notes can be found at www.adoctorsperspective.net/23 here you can also find links to things mentioned, the Travel Tip and the interview transcription.

Keep track of what your doing so you can compare it later.

Do people who start college really finish and are they better off?

Create space  that fosters moments so your kids can share about what’s going on, think outside the box.

Confidence to do what you want, seek a mentor, read a book, get a counselor if necessary.

Plan your day, before checking email that way other people don’t dictate your day.

Plan your souvenirs based on if you carry on or not

DrCaitlinFaas.com I help busy professionals and graduate students navigate work-life balance with career steps and productivity hacks. How can I help you today?

Plan your day, before checking email that way other people don\’t dictate your day.

BOOK

Adele Faber How to Talk So Kids Will Listen and Listen So Kids Will Talk

Susan David Emotional Agility

Sheryl Sandberg Lean In Women Work and the Will to Lead

Tiffany Dufu  Drop the Ball

Vicente Blasco Ibáñez TheFour Horsemen of the Apocalypse

John Gottman Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work

Confidence to do what you want, seek a mentor, read a book, get a counselor if necessary

Goodreads: keeps track of books that you read and reading

Keep track of what your doing so you can compare it later.

Podcast :  Courage and Clarity: women entrepreneurs

Create space that fosters moments so your kids can share about what\’s going on, think outside the box

Full Transcript of the Interview (probably has some grammatical errors). Just Click to expand

Unknown 0:01
Episode 23

Justin Trosclair 0:02
strategies for optimal family life and getting out of your own way. I’m your host, Dr. Justin Foursquare. And today, we’re here Dr. Caitlin FOSS PhD perspective.

For doctors who want a thriving practice and abundant home life. Listen as your host, Dr. Justin shows Claire goes behind the curtain. Can you use doctors and guess about real world?

practical tips and entertainment on this episode of a doctor’s perspective? I’ve got something special for everybody. Well, the first on the episode 25 Episode 25 will be a solo episode, my first one kind of talking about why I’m into chiropractic, China, answering questions that other people have had. So if you still have any questions, just let me know. Just another doctor’s perspective. net is the email we’re also going to have new artwork starting Episode 25. But what’s exciting is from Episode 22 through 26, it’s a month worth of spotlight on women. We’re gonna have to psychologists, PhDs, we have a Doctor of Chiropractic working in one of the most expensive cities in the world, the most expensive actually, and also a wonderful multiple multi author and social media expert coach from Australia. So stay tuned. Episode 22 through 26 gonna be fun Mormons month. Let’s go.

What’s up everybody. Today we have PhD professor. She is in her tenure track week talk about how to get out of your own way how to do it, seeing have a side hustle outside of your job balancing family life. With that, we’re going to talk about some controversial stuff like women’s pay gap, the Bernie Sanders free college time management strategies and tons of books no need to worry. It doesn’t get too hot and heavy and heated or anything like that. But she is just a great person. She has a lot to offer. So she specializes in helping busy professionals find those balances. So let’s see what we can learn from her today. Let’s go hashtag behind the curtain.

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for the show today. We have a psychology professor and coats specialize in helping busy professionals and graduate students find work life balance with productivity and career tips. Her name is Dr. Caitlin FOSS.

Unknown 2:18
Welcome to the show. Thanks so much, Justin.

Justin Trosclair 2:21
Well, I’m curious, what is sort of your background? Where’d you go to school? Because you are a doctor and you’re a psychologist. So give us the lowdown on you.

Unknown 2:31
Yeah, absolutely. Um, so I for the longest time since coming home day one and kindergarten, I told my parents I want to be a teacher. And so I pursued that, you know, teachers made the biggest difference in my life. And I always wanted to be a teacher. So I went to college undergraduate at Kent State University in Ohio. And I was going to be a teacher. But then I discovered psychology, I didn’t know psychology existed until my freshman year of college. So then I learned about research and that people could do research about families and studying the mind. I don’t know so excited about that. So as I learned more about it, I realized I also wanted to do research. And so that put me on the path to pursue my PhD. And so straight out of my undergraduate degree, I went to a masters or PhD program at Virginia Tech in Blacksburg, Virginia. So I spent five years there and completed my degree, both Masters and PhD in human development. And that I went on to the job market my last year as I was finishing my dissertation, and I ended up landing a tenure track position at a small university in Maryland. And it’s Mount St. Mary’s University, we just have 1500 students, mostly undergraduates. And so I just finished my fourth year, I’m finishing my fourth year there.

Justin Trosclair 3:58
Wow, congratulations. Well, I got a couple of comments then because five years masters PhD, I thought they’re supposed to be shorter, or is that actually a short amount of time for for your field? shorter or longer? Why don’t you got a Masters PhD? combo? I thought that should be a little bit short

Unknown 4:14
on time. Oh, no. Okay. So usually, not all programs are set up to do both along the way. So my program was, and it usually takes seven years to complete both. So the average time for a PhD is seven years. And that’s if you finish of course, right. So about 50% of people are finishing a PhD on average. So yeah, yeah. It was a it was a fast track.

Justin Trosclair 4:42
Yeah, I had a friend that started and then was debating about like, the debt to income ratio in the surplus. And she’s like, I think I think I’m done. Masters. But yes. And so you have on a 10 year job right off the jump, I gotta say congratulations, apparently, that is very get to do.

Unknown 5:01
Thanks. Some things fell into place. And it worked out. I don’t think I’ve met any. Well, I definitely have met other people who have landed tenure track jobs right out of right out of their PhD. But and there’s kind of a trend they’re saying right now that actually it’s easier to get the position, right at SRI out of when you’re a baby or all but dissertation. But details, they A lot of people have to go to postdocs. So we’re hiring even us being so tiny. We’re hiring somebody for she’s starting in the fall. And she has spent two years at a postdoc program post graduation. So it was kind of sometimes some days I feel like I snuck in.

Justin Trosclair 5:42
What’s your old your dissertation on?

Unknown 5:45
Yeah, I wrote about college students and their educational completion, and specifically college students who drop out. And so what happens to young adults when they drop out of college? Because it’s actually the majority people end up not finishing their bachelor’s degree. And so what is their life satisfaction look like? What does their daily life look like? All that was part of my dissertation. So it’s, it’s the group that’s near and dear to my heart?

Justin Trosclair 6:13
Would you? I mean, are you allowed to talk about that? Like, what? What did you find like they were okay.

Unknown 6:18
Yeah, yeah.

Unknown 6:21
Secondary, so I use national secondary data that was actually representative of the United States. So my another passion of mine are statistics and methodology. So that’s a different conversation. But so I got to do a lot of fancy modeling with this group, thousands and thousands of participants, which is unusual for most people’s dissertation. But in that, yes, I found that there was a lot of hidden heterogeneity for college students who are dropping out. So the stereotype is Bill Gates, Steve Jobs. And that was only 5% of the group overall group that had dropped out college, right. And then next, right, and that’s the dream, right of like, I can drop out of college, Steve Jobs dropped out of college. So but there was this group in the middle of three distinct groups that were interesting, and had a lot of great things going for them. And actually, I mean, obviously, some of them are making more income than their bachelor’s degree peers. And so examining those differences too, especially as higher education prices climb in the United States. What are we doing with that? debt to student ratio? What does that look like for long term goals? So all that’s very exciting to me.

Justin Trosclair 7:37
Oh, man, that’s pretty well, statistically speaking, you’re not going to be the next bill gates. So maybe finish college? That’s what I’ve heard.

Unknown 7:45
Yes, I mean, people and I teach college students every day, right. So I, sometimes they asked me what my dissertation is about. And I’m like, it was about students dropping out, but you need to stay in school. So people who are in school stay, there is usually the best way to go to finish a degree they’ve already started. But it’s the group that drops out and maybe doesn’t know the consequences. And I feel it’s really important that we help people know what they’re getting into before they get into it. Because studying the one of the worst situations that are so to speak, one of the worst things that can happen is walking away from a degree that you invested $50,000 in, and now you don’t even have that degree. And it was more a lot of these young people are saying, I wish somebody had told me right that that wasn’t going to do this. But in the United States, we live in such a college for all just go to college, and you’ll figure it out. And that mentality is hurting a lot of our young people who might have pursued other paths if they had known they were possible. I would think that

Justin Trosclair 8:50
a bachelor’s degrees almost like a high school diploma, it’s it seems like it’s becoming so easy to not easy to get because you thought the complete, but there’s so many of them. It kind of does the market now in my opinion. But yeah,

Unknown 9:01
well, and that’s so part of it is that I’m sorry, between 25 and 35 year olds, only 30% of them have a bachelor’s degree in the us right now. So it seems like it to people like you and me and other busy professionals. But actually, it’s only because we’re hanging out with other people who are in their bachelor’s degree. So there’s definitely a divide their of we think everybody has it. Oh, this isn’t a big deal anymore. But majority of young people actually still don’t.

Justin Trosclair 9:33
So we’re an insulated bubble. And we didn’t even I didn’t even realize it.

Unknown 9:36
Yeah, yeah, that’s what I thought. I get to take that around my imaginary cocktail parties.

Justin Trosclair 9:44
You made a comment. I’ve said the same thing. And a buddy of mine said the same thing. We didn’t even know that there were certain professions until you got into school. Like, what’s a doctor of osteopathy? psychology, my buddies, like there’s other doctors. I thought every doctor was the same. You’re like, oh, there’s way more confusion there. So that’s interesting that where was that guidance counselor’s? I wonder?

Unknown 10:05
Yeah, well, and so they were there. And guidance counselors are so passionate about what they do just so many of them are overburdened with, you know, they there’s one for 500 students, and how could they possibly give you one on one attention that you might need. So that’s where career coaching and a lot of people have come along to help with that I work with, I have a junior class right now their junior undergraduate students, 32 of them, and they’re all psychology majors, and we spend, I have the chance to spend time with them on working on their career goals. And we work through a workbook and we’re talking about it, you know, what’s your purpose? What are you passionate about? And for a lot of them, it’s the first time that anybody’s taken the time to really ask them those questions beyond the usual, like, what job do you want? You better pick one, because that’s the path you’re going to be on. So we take the time to explore which I really enjoy.

Justin Trosclair 11:02
What do you find that I mean, the common path or passion that people have? Or just does it does vary so much?

Unknown 11:09
Yeah, well, what psychology majors, their goal a lot of times is that comes down to they really want to help people. And so I do too, right? I was a psychology major as well. And this is true of a lot of our health sciences. And these domains where we’re wanting, we want to be connected to people, and to make a meaningful difference in their lives. And so for my students, a lot of them see that as a counseling path or a clinical path.

Unknown 11:37
And we kind of help them get there. And then for a lot of them, it’s helping them know that they don’t have to get their PhD to be able to make that happen. Because there’s that Miss, there’s also that misconception, like I have to go to school for as long as possible to be able to do what I want to do. And so I find that it’s really exciting to tell them like, Hey, did you know that you could actually be done after your best degree and still be able to help people in a meaningful way that you want to? And so sometimes, that’s really exciting.

Justin Trosclair 12:07
Yeah, no kidding. You mentioned that you do like business coaching, in a way as well. So let’s transition into some of that, like, what kind of clients do you find? What are some of the questions that they have? For that for a little bit? And we’ll just zone in and a little bit.

Unknown 12:23
Yeah, okay. So in the past year, I realized that I wanted to help people beyond my students that I see every day and kind of get those one on one connections. So by their coaching, I can work with clients of all different ages and backgrounds. So clients, right now I have 23 year old to 60 year old, and they’re working on a variety of different goals.

Unknown 12:48
And in general, I’m been helping busy professionals, and specifically graduate students, so graduate students who are feeling overwhelmed, because of course, I’ve been there, and then they have a lot of things common, feeling overwhelmed. But what’s really cool is that, from my 23 year old to the six year old, they have this very similar issues, right? There’s so many so much overlap, that at first, on the surface, it might seem like, Oh, this is going to be a completely different experience. But I find myself asking them the same questions, and they have a lot of the same fears. So feeling that you’re not good enough, is true for everybody at most stages.

Unknown 13:30
That and just enough, right, like enough of something smart enough, good enough, wealthy enough to do this or to do that. So that’s a common struggle. I’d say also, I’m related to that would be feeling like an imposter, right there feeling like a fake or fraud. And so letting them know, kind of working through that have, you’re not the only one who feels that way. Some days, I feel fake. And like, I don’t know what I’m doing. But you have this degree, and you do this, the all these, you know, blah, blah, blah. And I say, Yeah, but then we all go through these moments. And there’s similar ways to work through it. And what else, and really the mindset to be able to change next steps of can’t let feeling confident enough to do the next thing that they want to do, whether that’s work on a budget, or it’s to get ready to go back to school, or it’s working on their sleep habits, all beds, like, do you feel confident that you can do that next step?

Justin Trosclair 14:37
So the mindset like a mindset coach versus here’s how you get two commas or $7 million in five years. It’s kind of like what’s between your ears?

Unknown 14:45
No, yeah, yeah.

Unknown 14:48
My psychology background, right? So all kinds of different mindsets. And then career is usually where people start, because they’re thinking of like, if I change my career, I can change everything. And that’s the one place to start. But usually, we find we need to adjust other things along the way. And so it varies for everybody. But yeah,

Justin Trosclair 15:08
you find any big man, I guess you kind of answered this, but any big mindset flaws that they have, I mean, not feeling good enough, imposters and frauds are nice people, like they have a nine to five, potentially, and they’re looking to maybe go out on their own and be maybe a consultant, but they’re like, I don’t have a lot of experience consulting, but I have a lot of experience in what the other person was doing. And then live in the transition into that.

Unknown 15:32
Yeah, so I’d say it varies. Sometimes it’s more about I know, I want to be this kind of person, rather than nine to five. And I need to turn this into a different type of job. It’s more like, I want to be this kind of person that feels organized at work, or feels like I could pursue something in my free time. Or I could make room for creativity in my life and pick up those hobbies. I’ve always meant to pick up his phone line, I can manage my time better, like if only these things. And so we kind of work on tackling those and breaking down habits a lot is another piece of that of like, what habits are working for you and what habits aren’t working and giving this space to ask people the questions like How much time do we usually ask ourselves? Where do I want to be in five years? Where do I want to be in 10 years? as coaches we’re giving them this space to to be able to answer those questions outside of a journal. And obviously, like what the feedback, Craig, not just in your journal to yourself, it’s kind of like somebody asking you directly, what do you want to do? And how are you going to get there? And how can we bridge the foundation to get you from A to B, whether that’s money or not still the same process?

Justin Trosclair 16:48
So I’m curious for an example of someone who’s not very time management focused, they’re scattered all over place, what’s maybe a tip that they can do to stay focused, so they accomplish great habit, perhaps or accomplish a goal?

Unknown 17:02
Yeah, usually, the first step is tracking what you’re already doing. So people feel overwhelmed by like, I, I know I can’t, that I’m not making the best use of my time from after dinner for like, 7pm to what I go to sleep. And so I say, Okay, well, what are you doing during that time? Usually the first place to start I was like, Oh, I mean, I don’t miss how people respond to I don’t know. I mean, sometimes I do this, sometimes I do that. And so I say okay, and the next week, truly track what’s happening between seven to nine. And so then patterns start to emerge as they do that with time. And we can pinpoint, okay, something triggered the activity of sitting on the couch and watching Netflix, right? Like, can we shift that? And also to help people see that it doesn’t have to go from a no, I’m 100% effective all the time between seven to nine, but that there’s little, there’s days, and there’s moments and ways to shift it gradually.

Justin Trosclair 18:04
I noticed for myself, I’m trying to have a lot of fires in the pot and always wonder like, man, how do people do this? They have their home job, they got a wife to get a kid, they got all these other things. Lot of times you hear somebody on this podcast, you’re like, Oh, my gosh, they’re making it wrong, then you’re like, oh, and then there was a struggle? Well, I was going through a divorce last year, and I never seen my kid you like, Well, that sounds like a horrible situation. And yeah, so what like I will spend, I can have a couple books three in a couple things to do, like block out 20 minutes for this and switch it and switch it so that I’m always working a little bit on there. But because I mentioned the divorce thing, so are there ways of people can maximize their time with their family, if they are trying to they want to start doing something else after hours, but they have a family and kids. How can somebody go about exploring that?

Unknown 18:53
Yeah, so it’s setting boundaries, clear boundaries, about the time that you will spend on whatever that is business venture, my be or your side hustle. So knowing that if you do want to lock yourself in your room with your laptop, so that you have an hour to be able to think about it after work, that you don’t just do it, but you’re communicating with your family members about like, hey, I need this space to be able to spend an hour or whatever it might be for a lot of families and busy professionals, it’s 15 minutes at a time, right? It’s not like, can I have 15 minutes to myself to like, take some notes or think about this. Perhaps it’s on the way the drive home, right, I’m sure that’s what a lot of people are listening to this podcast and other podcasts are trying to better ourselves. So it’s those little moments add up to and sometimes we underestimate them of how they’re getting us ready for our side hustle venture. So boundaries for family members and knowing what you can set. And then also on a lot of people are using those morning hours before the family wakes up with her for the kids wake up, and then setting a routine that can get you there. Because if you’re actually burning the candle at both ends, so to speak, of going to bed at midnight, and you want to get up at 5am that’s not enough sleep for most of us. So can you build your sleep routine around, actually having energy in the morning to get up and not hit the snooze snooze button on your alarm. And then some people are utilizing their lunch hours, right? like can I know I need to eat during this time. But I also want to spend 15 minutes right now my thoughts about this venture, or working out the goals for that next step for figuring out my business. So and then I think eventually, like as you start to grow, and especially even if you have some side money, being able to outsource quickly, to kind of the thing here the things that I know I don’t want to do and I don’t have time for so for a lot of people that’s website management or just putting out there first website, they don’t have either the well the skills or they know that that’s not what they want to do between seven and 8pm. Like I could play with the kids or I can learn this whole new thing about what’s you know, a domain that I don’t even know about. Or I could pay somebody, right, and I could pay somebody to fix this and get it going for me quickly. And then I’ll feel like the momentum, the ball is rolling. So I think those are definitely strategies. But you mentioned those life crises like these are the moments when we start to realize like, Oh, I do you want to do something different. So taking advantage of those can also be important.

Justin Trosclair 21:44
Okay. Would you say that? It depends maybe on the age of your kids on a give your kids are young, you might be able to put them bed by eight o’clock. Teenagers Good luck, they’re probably be up later than you are. So you just have to make the choice that I go to bed, nine o’clock or in the clock or whatever it is to get your seven hours of sleep, I guess. Does that make sense?

Unknown 22:04
Yes, definitely. And okay, right. You wouldn’t want to keep your teenager schedule, but at the same time you have the advantage the that they want to, they probably don’t want to spend as much time with you in the evenings anyways. Right? And they definitely don’t need you as much so that you can go back and forth with the advantages of lifespan. So that’s one of them. My main classes that I teach and having a PhD in human development is thinking about things across the lifespan. So that’s one of that’s one of my favorite topics. But yeah, well as we change through the seasons of our lives, how can we build in our goals and think about what we’re passionate about, as we have the toddler as we have the middle schooler as we have the teenager? So

Justin Trosclair 22:49
the question on that a follow up then, when you’re trying to have you be a good dad, you’re trying to be a good mom, but you also have the side hustle. Is there a time I’m thinking dinner table, but way to kind of maximize the time that you do have with your family like your daddy today? But I mean, is there a way to kind of do that to where you’re very intentional? Maybe a dinner? What is your opinion on that?

Unknown 23:11
Yes, yes. So that’s

Unknown 23:16
a funny way to phrase it, right? maximizing your family time. But I think absolutely a lot of families struggle with it. And being able to be present is the most important thing of that you’re not distracted by you’re not actually looking at your cell phone during dinnertime, when you’re supposed to be talking to your kids are supposed to be isn’t here in quotes here. But yeah, if that’s the time you reserve to be able to talk to your kid about how their day went at the dinner table. But you’re looking at your cell phone, you’re completely distracted, right? And so that’s not maximizing your time, even though you think you are because you’re waiting for that email from a client or whatever it might be. It’s,

Justin Trosclair 23:56
anybody see that? Oh, this is more important. Obviously, whatever’s on the phone is more important. And that’s how they’re going to pick up.

Unknown 24:02
Absolutely. And as, as many of us we listened to podcasts and read about businesses, and being an entrepreneur, and all those things, there’s actually a whole discipline of people who are writing about how to be a good parent to write. They’re all these books and podcasts and resources for this is what we find. These are the ways you can ask kids questions to get real responses.

Justin Trosclair 24:28
What can you get drop one of those honest, that sounds like a really interesting book right there.

Unknown 24:32
Yeah. Let’s see how to listen. So kids will talk and listens. How to listen. So kids will talk and talk so kids will listen. And then might be a little Amazon. Yes, please Amazon forest and added to your show notes. I that is it really like classic at this point, then they’ve revised it and updated it. But it’s amazing. You know, so many parents revert to the way we parent is how we were parented and a lot of ways and we don’t actively try to change it. But when we take the time to read something like that, and or go to a parenting workshop, or implement little steps like this, we want to like, oh, okay, this can be different. I don’t have to have a blog, I’ll fight with my teenager, just because every TV show and society says that that’s what you’re supposed to do with your teenager, or that’s what I did with my parents, right? Like, it can be different, but it does take work. And it just like every domain of our life, it takes work to veal and discipline to make it better, so to speak, you know? Yeah, whatever that looks like for you.

Justin Trosclair 25:37
What’s I mean, I’m curious to your kid comes home from school and on my mom would always say, how was your day? Did you learn something new? And you’re like, yeah, mom learn something new. check you later. there a better way to ask that question.

Unknown 25:50
Yeah. And a lot of the strategies are in that book.

Unknown 25:54
Yeah, it’s a it’s kind of like the, that’s too broad of a question. And in the book, they break down for you age, like some older kids can answer that question if they want to a little more easily. But for younger children, like might be too broad. And so a lot of what they recommend is also creating the space for your kids to talk to you during moments that aren’t the typical, like, walk in the door. And now I’m going to talk to you it’s more like, Okay, let’s do this activity together that we both enjoy. And then what you find is that your child opens up to you, and we’ll just start to say stuff. Or maybe you’re driving in the car, and you know, your vocal singing the song, listen to the radio, whatever it might be. And they share something with you. And you didn’t even have to ask it. So it’s providing those kinds of opportunities to rather than Okay, I’m going to try to ask you five questions right now about how your school day went, so I can make sure I hit those bullet points. That doesn’t usually work with kids.

Justin Trosclair 26:52
I like said earlier being present with the kid if they’re talking like listening to me, even if you’re driving.

Unknown 26:57
Wait, what did you just say? You know, yeah,

Justin Trosclair 27:01
I’ve heard of something called play therapy, where Justin’s viewpoint was, at a certain age, I don’t know what that is, maybe before like, seven, maybe their kids going through a divorce, they’re acting out, blah, blah, blah. And you play tea with them, or you play with dolls. And you just pretend I guess that the dolls are the dolls are asking the questions that you’re actually trying to find out and the actual be like, oh, answer to the doll, but I’m not gonna answer to you, Mom, is that play therapy is or what?

Unknown 27:30
Ah, so I’d say that’s kind of like the typical view play Derby. And it can be one piece of it. Let me clarify, I’m not a clinician. So I’m not a clinical psychologist, I’m developmental. And so its sub domains within psychology, clinical psychologists are trained and they went to school specifically to be able to work one on one with kids in those situations, just some of my best friends, of course, our clinicians, is that the one approach that they take every time when they’re working with kids? Usually not. And if you were I work with kids, you specialize one in working with kids. And then if traumatic events happen to them, you specialize then and how do we help kids through traumatic events. And so it can look very different. Wow. And it’s tailored to the kid. And they have, you know, I don’t even know all the training that they get for that. But it’s very specific. But if you’re trying to be a parent who’s like sitting and playing with your kid, I mean, a lot of parents in general don’t know how to play with kids. It’s actually it can be hard, right? You’re like,

Unknown 28:33
yeah, it’s boring, right? I’m actually really bad at this. It’s funny. With PhD in human development, I’ve learned about it and like reading books to kids, I got that their shared reading and how you can effectively read books that could be playing dolls. I’m like, Oh, this is this can be painful. But again, people write about it and give there’s

Justin Trosclair 28:53
a way to lead the kids.

Unknown 28:56
Way to play with them effectively. There’s a way to read the kids are right, that was effective ways to read the kids. Yeah, no. Yes. Good. So it’s a whole field called shared reading, have friends who were added to his entire dissertation about it. But you can, you know, there’s like strategies that instead of shared reading, reading, instead of sitting next to the kid, and you’re just like reading along, and then you’re flipping the pages, there’s ways to make it more engaging. And so it’s asking a lot of open ended questions while you’re reading a book instead of a closed ended question. So close ended with the you know, like, do you see the dog on this page? And the kid can say yes or no to that. But right, open ended is like, what else do you see on this page? And what do you think about that? And When’s the last time you saw a palm tree? And

Unknown 29:46
we know any dogs, you know, and then they’re like, yeah, and like, who can you think of it as a dog and that evoke these conversations rather than strictly? I’m trying to read this book to you. And we’re trying to get to the end of the book, maybe you don’t don’t even get to the end of the book that and that blows people’s minds right there. Like, look what I have to read these three books, and then we’re done for the time, right? So it’s, it’s definitely a balance, but it helps with creativity and helps the conversations get started with kids that might go in a different direction.

Justin Trosclair 30:19
I read one time, they said, I don’t know with what I was reading. It’s been a long time, but I just liked it, because it it validated. My bias of fathers are important in a kid’s life. So I’m aware of it. But it was hit with dads read their books that are kids, they always Not always, but they tend to be more creative. Like the prince didn’t kiss the bride. What? He didn’t do it, I did something, just make things up. And the kids like, Whoa, that’s not how the story goes. I don’t know if that’s true or not.

Unknown 30:48
Right? So there’s definitely like, it’s more complicated than that. Right? What would be the easy answer that Yeah, but there are definitely gender stereotypes and like patterns that we fall into, because society and how we were raised and the roles that we play. So it’s also you can also spend days and apparently years researching the idea that, like, these are the patterns that men fall into, and that they tend to, they’ll physically play more with their children compared to women, compared to moms overall, right. So there’s all kinds of charts about the percentages and how that breaks down. So definitely the importance of fathers, both mothers and fathers and children’s lives. And not that you always have to have both, but it’s that you have adult role models in your life that kids can turn to, is something we really emphasize and in the field over on human development. So

Justin Trosclair 31:47
I’ve heard as key though, even if you don’t have a dad, for whatever reason, having a male figure, I mean, I just assume there’s always a mom and play. It just kind of it’s not always but you know, things happen. But generally speaking, in my viewpoint, there’s always like a mom involved. And then the dad may be absent or whatever. But then you can still have father figures through boys club or a church or Sure, however you find those male role models and Uncle, I don’t know,

Unknown 32:12
absolutely, and and whoever it might be, it’s also having the community of support to right outside of the traditional nuclear family idea that you have aunts that help you as well. And maybe grandma’s involved. And so we get these intergenerational bridges created, rather than just like, here’s the mom. And here’s the dad. So yes, statistically, there are more moms, single bombs, and there are single fathers, but again, because I like to think about the groups that are usually not thought about very often, for a couple of my research papers or interest over the years, a part of that was single dads, right of kind of like, here’s this group that exists and feels so marginalized, because they barely seem to exist, but there’s their sound, something running around.

Justin Trosclair 33:01
Wow, is there any tips for single fathers that you can think of?

Unknown 33:05
Oh, not, not off the top of my head, I’d say it’s been a while since I’ve done that research, it’s definitely been able to find this is true for most groups, if you can find other people who are in your group, especially when it feels like TV. And general society isn’t talking about you, knowing that there are other examples of you out there help so many people. And it’s that feeling of me too, we all need the need to feeling I saw him speak last week. And she talks about this a lot. Like everybody needs to feel that somebody else is out there for them or like knows what they’re going through. So me to means a lot No matter if you’re a single dad or single mom or in a traditional nuclear family, like all of these people, we need to connect with each other.

Justin Trosclair 33:56
That’s interesting. I am went to church with them in a Colorado is a huge church like moving the third biggest churches in America. And one of their slogan is like me to.

They’re like, we’re a bunch of hypocrites. Yep, me too.

Unknown 34:14
We all

Justin Trosclair 34:15
mess up. Yeah, me too. So anyway, that’s interesting. I don’t grab that from someone like that are interesting to see that it crosses over into secular religion, religion is religion.

Unknown 34:30
So many places, I bet your listeners

Unknown 34:36
mentality. So I’d love to hear them. My love of learning is one of my strong suits. I always love to learn new things.

Justin Trosclair 34:43
You heard it here, first people.

We want comments. We need feedback. We want to make this amazing. By golly, all right. Let’s go back a little bit to more clients and you if you could give, I don’t know, two pieces of advice, and they would just magically happen. What would it be? And that’s very broad, but

Unknown 35:03
to clients? Oh, they’re pieces of advice. Are you saying it’s something that then they would magically absorb and then be able to run with it? Something like that?

Justin Trosclair 35:12
Yes, time management or goal setting or getting out of their own way? Yes, things like that.

Unknown 35:19
It’s usually the getting out of your own way. So one would be the confidence to do whatever it is you want to do. So many people get caught up. And I can’t do this. And here are all the reasons why I can’t do this. And can’t get past that. And for a lot of people, it’s sometimes it’s decades of the voice in their head and the training that they have. So if if something could magically happen if people had confidence, like what could we accomplish? If we all had the confidence to do that? Next thing? Absolutely. And then question. Yeah, go ahead.

Justin Trosclair 35:59
How do you gain the car is get a coach read a book? I mean, go to a counselor like what do you what do you think?

Unknown 36:04
Yeah, I think all those are good options. And and using multiple strategies, rather than just one, right? So I’ll do all those things, especially if you have time for them. But so part of it would come back to that new to conversation. So if you know that other people are struggling with what you’re struggling with, and seeing how they’ve learned from it, and what can you do to either replicate or use those strategies in your own life? So part of this background and Human Development is knowing that there’s basically no one who who are, there’s always someone when you rephrase that there’s always someone who’s gone through what you’re going through, and the feelings that you feel so can you find them and learn from them. And for a lot of people, they need that one on one scaffolding at the right of somebody to help bridge you up to the next step, side by side and can give you directed by. But for a lot of us, we use books or we listen to podcasts, and we say okay, here’s how I’m going to implement that in my life. And, and she usually read books can take longer, especially because you don’t you’re not getting feedback from the book, so to speak, there’s a cheaper, then there are a lot cheaper. That’s right, there’s a lot of good workbooks, too. Um, but yeah, if you can put the time and money into coaching, one on one coaching is ideal, because that person’s able to talk to give you feedback directly about your situation and to help scaffold you in that next way. And, of course, finding that person that you feel comfortable with. For some people, it’s they’re dealing with past so many past issues that they need to see a therapist or a counselor first, or at the same time, I have several clients who are also seeing seeing a therapist, and they’re working on you know, past issues and other things. And we’re working on the future and goal setting or time management, kind of a subset of them describe it as Okay, you really helped me with the nitty gritty and that can be like a they can say what am I going to do with the next hour of my day? And therapies that really takes a broader approach to that. So that’s pretty cool to to see when people are working on it from different angles.

Justin Trosclair 38:15
What they got a negative soundtrack in their head somehow.

Unknown 38:17
Mm hmm.

Justin Trosclair 38:18
Well, loving life. Put it there.

Unknown 38:20
Yes. And how can we break that down? I’m actually reading a book right now. Emotional agility by Susan David. Yes, Susan, David, she and she has a PhD

Unknown 38:31
in psychology, but she talks about it’s called, or the subtitle is get unstuck and embrace change and thrive and work in life. And so this get unstuck piece, I’m really excited to see how she tackles that to be able to help people, you know, she’s got in this book, any of your listeners could pick up this book and try to work on implementing getting unstuck in their own lives right now.

Justin Trosclair 38:56
I like it. get unstuck. Write that down? Oh, I’m sorry. I cut you off. So the second piece of advice is confidence. And I remember

Unknown 39:04
now for client if they if something can magically happen. Confidence. Now I don’t remember that was going but

Justin Trosclair 39:13
when you go justice

Unknown 39:15
guys should have written it down. Yeah,

Justin Trosclair 39:17
that’s okay. All right. I am curious. Where do you see the health care for your health care profession? The Psychology, the human development? Where’s that going in the next five years?

Unknown 39:28
Yes. So psychology and healthcare, this idea that mental health professionals are helping people, I think we’re going to see even more coaching, right, and

Unknown 39:41
personalized therapy, and even being able to find a therapist online, we can start to see that trend. But it’ll be interesting to see how it evolves. Actually, the Atlantic just ran a really interesting article about using data to help therapists know if they’re effective or not. If all these other companies are collecting data on us and our learning more about us, and we’re willing to fill out information and type it into our phone quickly. Can we also do that with with therapy? And what could we do with coaching anyways, but the that that will be very interesting in the next five years? And when thinking about this question, because I’m in higher education also, thinking about most importantly to me is where Kyra education is going and what are we doing with online training? So how are people getting their training? And will the four year bachelor’s degree evolve into more of a competency based models? Like if you can demonstrate these competencies, then that’s what your employer wants? I find that really fascinating. So

Unknown 40:53
there’s the question of, like, people looking to go into higher education right now, somebody’s 20 years old, for example. And they’re like, Oh, I think I want to be a professor. And I’m like, Whoa, I don’t know. If you do actually, like, right now I’m in the mode of and I’m not like, yes, please embrace come into academia with me, I think for a lot of people are kind of advising them to have multiple options, because I could I could name is changing quickly. And it is so hard for people to get into right now. And even if you do get in, a lot of people are being underpaid and undervalued, we have a lot of adjunct professors, so you know, like, teach this one class and don’t get any health benefits and all that. So those issues are also on my mind, like, what how can I help with that, and the next five years, which is why I’m so excited to help graduate students in particular, as they’re navigating that and trying to get out of their programs quickly and, and take those next steps. So

Justin Trosclair 41:52
did you find that the Bernie Sanders view on college is a everybody can go to college type of like, for free? Is that a good thing, in your opinion, are

Unknown 42:01
the typical answer that it’s more complicated than that if we open, if everyone has free college, if you’re able to go for four years, it gets complicated quickly, because that turns into grades. But 13 through 16, that’s, that adds on after grade 12, that becomes part of our public education system. And while that could have a lot of benefits, it’s also important from cognitive psychology, we know a lot about having a stake in the game. And so feeling like okay, I’m doing this, and I’m putting money into it, not that you have to put $50,000 into it, but the like you have some kind of stake in it, and you’re paying for it and you have to make this happen really changes the nature of what colleges compared to what High School is. And so opening it up to like, I know, three cards really would be quite a shock to the system. So do I, the general values of like, more people need access? And they we want them to complete their degrees? Absolutely. Like, yes, we want people to finish their degrees and, and so I would say to Bernie Sanders kind of push back like, actually, we have a lot of people going to college, but they’re not staying. So how can we help with student retention would be is even more important to me right now? What’s your money and policies and finishing school? And I just started Yeah, yeah. Cuz a lot. So many are starting right now. And and don’t finish. So how can we help them as well? So yeah, it’s like it’s a more nuanced of making something free isn’t going to change everything for the positive like we think it would it would be it just a lot of other consequences might happen as well.

Justin Trosclair 43:48
I’ve heard more women are graduating than men.

Unknown 43:50
Yes, there is that trend. And so we can see that on Horizon. That already we have more women complaining bachelor’s degree than men. And it’s only going to increase. And so we’re starting to see in elementary schools and middle schools, we are leaving boys behind, so to speak. Yeah. And there’s pushback on both ends from that of kind of like, wait a minute, where you’re just we’re trying to figure out, we still have equality in paychecks for women, right? Like, what do you mean, leaving bullies behind? I don’t want to have that conversation yet. So I see. I see people having the conversation on both ends of that of like, what do we do about this? And how do we make it equal? for everybody? And what’s really fascinating from a human development perspective, what is the idea that a lot of these young women are growing up still believing in the script, that they will marry a man who will take care of them, or they’ll be able to take time off for maternity leave, or they’ll be able to stay home with their kids, those kinds of grips are still you know, very much part of our United States culture. And so if they’re the one that has bachelor’s degree, as they will be, and they’re the one that’s making the money, how is that? How are those two going out going to clash with each other over time? Because they will be the one that needs to go back to work six weeks after they have the baby? And what are we going to do about that? What kind of policies and education systems will be put in place to help families so it’s good stuff.

Justin Trosclair 45:23
I always said if I’m here to sugar, Mama.

Daddy, Daddy, Daddy at home, man, you make trouble. Okay, I’ll just raise the kids you go home, bring the bacon home. Cooked yesterday for you?

Unknown 45:36
Yes. Now finding the the class difference there. Somebody is making three times as much as you are, we don’t usually tend to fall in love with people who are so far outside our socio economic status, but I’ll catch

Justin Trosclair 45:51
a big fish and

Unknown 45:54
tell your wife.

Justin Trosclair 45:57
I think she knows she knows what she’s got. No, just kidding. She’s like, yeah, I gotta keep that ego down a bit.

I’m curious. I will. Since I mentioned something political, I’ll ask you this. It’s a big topic. But if you adjust for hours worked, I think that’s one of those those catches in the women’s pay gap. If you adjust for hours worked thin, it’s only like, three cents off to a man. Any opinion on that we can get we can completely skip this question. But I’m curious when you adjust for those type of things with the higher education says about that.

Unknown 46:30
Yeah. And there’s so many good charts about this. So Bureau of Labor Statistics, but shirts out. US Department of Ed, a pew pew research is a group that puts together a lot of statistics related to this. So those are the big yet right like that. That’s who we want to pay attention to who’s putting out the national reports rather than USA Today ran a poll. But yes, okay. So when we adjust when we make those adjustments, there can be a quality like, Okay, well, in these situations, men and women are making the same amount of money. Definitely. Well, we find an embarrassed but what we find that it depends also on the industry, like are women entering this industry? And are they staying in this industry? so on we find things like, Okay, well, maybe at the base entry level, and women and men are making the same thing. But at the CEO level, there’s no comparison. And actually, it’s really hard to run those numbers when only three, there’s only three women who are CEOs of this type of company, right? That that’s

Unknown 47:37
doesn’t have the gender equality. So what can we do to keep women in like in these positions, and why might they leave? So that’s where a lot of the conversations are right now. And what groups are still getting, have a pay disparity. Some of the groups I also think about right now, or groups that benefit from marriage. So like a child care provider, makes minimum wage usually. And as we’ve already talked about, that’s one of the hardest jobs in the world of female to spend time with kids. They’re making minimum wage, and yet that profession can get away with that a little bit, because a lot of that a lot of those people are women, and their women who will marry somebody who a man who will have a better paying job. And so it’s kind of okay that she makes minimum wage and their family. And it’ll be okay, if she takes off time because she can go back to that childcare job. hair stylists are another one to like, what are they making on tips and waitressing and these types of jobs, that can that are floating because of the other structures that are in place. Rather than can you actually support yourself as a childcare workers or as a hair stylist in this country completely on your own, probably not. So that’s also what I think about I’m not gonna I’d love to follow the work of Sheryl Sandberg lean in. And that’s been out for several years. But Tiffany do FA just wrote a new book about club drop the ball. And she is is I want to say CEO of some company or she is run a lot of companies and she’s worked her way up into corporate America as an African American woman, and who’s married and has two or three children. And so she’s also approaching it from that angle, like, Okay, why are we also trying to do everything. And there’s a lot of other books written about that, like the second shift. And as women have gone into the workplace, they are still doing as much at home if not more at home compared to their spouses and all those details. So yeah, Justin, you’re opening a can of worms here. Like there’s so many layers to it.

Justin Trosclair 49:54
Well, that and that’s that was kind of my point was they make it black and white. And really, it’s kind of any industry specific a little bit. You got to look at what you’re looking at. And, and I just wonder if they have if they need to have this conversation with their husband like, Hey, I had to go to work. You gotta do some more work at the house. You know, I don’t know how you don’t have that. How that conversation hasn’t really been flushed out enough to where they’re picking up the slack, so to speak of the woman used to do it, and she went back to work. And now she’s still expected to do all that works like okay, well, why didn’t where’s the conversation with the husband’s like, okay, I’ll do x y&z chores, you do these shores, and now it’s a little bit more even,

Unknown 50:31
yes. Which is why there’s been a big push in the past couple years for the emphasis on marriage meetings, and taking the time to have these conversations with your spouse, because too often we let them happen in other conversations, or we just let it fester, or we build resentment. And so the researchers that are really good at writing about how to talk to your spouse about this and other issues would be the government’s govt say the 5 billion. Yeah, yeah. Nice. Your Yeah, our horsemen, Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse and my favorite book to give at weddings. Of course, I get I get books, right. And other presidents, I mean, I buy things on their registry, but in what the card I like to tuck in the seven principles that make marriages work, because that’s a there’s that that’s in there, the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse and other ways to have these conversations with your spouse. And like our millennial generation right now is trying to pave the way on that of how do we navigate these conversations? What do they look like? And what can people do on both ends to help it make it more productive? Can we just Snapchat each other? Yeah, yeah. Got 10 seconds, go.

Unknown 51:46
Say everything you need to say

Justin Trosclair 51:48
that, so you just have to send one. Just you know, you gotta thank you.

Unknown 51:52
Sure. Make it out of it. That’s a good point.

Justin Trosclair 51:56
I don’t know how that works. We have to talk to somebody else on the show about Snapchat, and I don’t know much about that one.

Unknown 52:01
Yeah, I just I just used it. But that’s a good point. Yes.

Justin Trosclair 52:05
Yeah. So let’s switch gears. I wanna, I want to respect your time here. There’s a lot of solo doctors, you know, this is a doctor podcast, we have our own clinics, pretty much vacation is a high commodity. For a lot of us. It’s Christmas week, and mandatory days, like Fourth of July, and Thanksgiving, for instance. So we don’t get a lot of time off. How can you do that? Do you have any any hints or tricks to where we can take more vacation? Or make the time off? More? relaxing and rejuvenated?

Unknown 52:34
Yes, it’s, it’s this constant battle of you know, you could be working like maybe you want to take that random week in June, but you’re losing clients, or the ability to see your clients during that time, right? You spend money twice? Yes. And so if you are going to take it, absolutely how to make it worth it. So I’m ways to make it you know, and it’s on the horizon. So you’re pulling, you built this in being able to warn clients, and then also warn and the get rid, get yourself in the mindset of kind of like, Okay, this is what’s going to happen, and be very clear about it. Like, I’m, I’m only going to use my phone during these hours, or I’m actually not going to check email the entire time I’m done, which would be quite the stretch for most practitioners, right? Like if you if you are on your phone, almost 24, seven, right in between clients and all this. And then you’re going to say on vacation, like I’m going to spend the whole day off, you actually might go through withdrawal. So built into more what I see a lot of strategies, we do this in academia to have like, we struggle, but I want to keep the momentum going. So can you say like from seven to 9am on this is one, I’ll think about work. But then when 9am hits, I’m done, and I’m ready for vacation. A lot of people don’t get ready for vacation, they’re trying to cram as much work as possible into right before vacation, but can’t do you also have the ability to give yourself a day ahead of time, the to, like lets you get ready for everything and blast, you know, the last minute packing and the things that need to be taken care of that you don’t spend the first two or three days of your week vacation, just trying to decompress from everything crammed in to the days leading up to it right. So if you’re like sitting on the beach, still completely stressed out about the days that you spent before. That’s, that’s not that’s also not helping you. And then it really can feel like a waste of time. And then on the other end, I also recommend having a day at home to recover from vacation before you jump back into your practice or working with your clients. To protect your airtime on both ends can make the actual vacation even more productive. So maybe that means one less day at the beach for you and your family or wherever you’re going. But it will actually make the time spent that you did spend feel better, which can be pretty powerful.

Justin Trosclair 55:02
I mean, I can attest to that I have to travel a lot with I just got back from Beijing and go to New Zealand next month. And it is usually go go go go go. And so when we come back, it’s a 12 hour day. I mean, I gotta get back to the airport and take a bus home forever. And it is it’s like then you start with the very next day. And I’m always just like, Oh, just a nice nap. I gotta maximize my three hour lunch today.

Unknown 55:28
Yeah,

Justin Trosclair 55:29
yeah. So when I get a chance to just go to the beach, and relax. It’s like, Oh, this is nice. I still want to go tour, but at least you can chill out and you don’t have to feel so pressured. Like, I’m wasting time or I’m losing money by being at this dumb beach.

Unknown 55:43
Right. And that goes back to tracking. Like if you know, like if you know that that’s what happened on your traveling trips, or vacations. Write that down for the next time because we have such long breaks between vacations that we forget, it’s like only when we’re doing it again, we’re like, I can’t believe I making this mistake again and scheduling a client the very next thing they that I get back. But if writing it down and then pulling back out those notes about Okay, here’s how I felt the last time on vacation. Oh, you know what, there’s this pattern that I think I’m going to read five books for fun while I’m on vacation. And that’s a little unrealistic. Maybe I need to at least scale. You know, if I just read two books, that might be great. But it would depend on your own patterns and what you’re up to that would be typing like

Justin Trosclair 56:27
stressing yourself out. Like I said, I would read two books, books. So that’s how we

Unknown 56:32
that’s how we get as practitioners right of like, I’m going to try to maximize all of my time while I’m on vacation. Make it the most fun as possible. And then we end up stressing ourselves out even more

Justin Trosclair 56:42
15 hour days are long vacation. Yeah. Alright, so we’re gonna go personal. Yeah, Caitlin. What preoccupies your mind besides work? You got any kids? hobbies? volunteers?

Unknown 56:52
Yeah, obviously, I don’t think you have a kid. But

Unknown 56:54
I didn’t

Unknown 56:56
take my students are always like us to do this. This is fascinating. We joke about sticky toddlers a lot. No, I’m in my free time. So I’m married. My husband and I have two dogs, and we spend time with them. I’ve also been learning how to play the guitar. That’s been fun. That love of learning doing something new, trying really hard for song. I can only play three songs right now. So, you know, a couple days a week by The Beatles is ingrained in my head right now. They don’t want something to talk. They but I’m really trying hard not to set goals around that. Because being this overachiever that I am, right? Have a lot of us are this way, like, Okay, what am I going to accomplish with this. And when I started running, I had the same thing like, Okay, I’m gonna kick to the next race. And it pretty much for me out. So I’m just let it like, I play guitar. But I’m not trying to set a goal about it. So I’ve been embracing that with my hobbies. And then locally, a volunteer for the library and for scholarship committees and at our local nursing home, which is part of how I make sure I connect to people. In other generations. I’m painting the nails of 80 year old women is so powerful, right? Because they have these life stories to tell you about things they you can easily you can ask anybody that’s at you know, what do you wish you had known? What do you wish you knew when you were 30? When you were 40? When you’re 50? And they will? They had those answer. They’re so happy to tell somebody that’s willing to listen. So yeah, those are my and I do a lot of crafts to knitting and crochet and fitting yarn and all kinds of fun things like that. Oh, what’s your favorite patterns? Like?

Justin Trosclair 58:39
My mom does that stuff? The shopping malls? Or the little?

Unknown 58:43
baby shoes, socks? Socks? A lot. Kind of downloads letters. But that was a long time. Yeah, it’s too much. I read your socks or soft scarf and gifts for people to do and make a lot of baby blankets obviously Faisal life I’m in. So that’s, that’s fun for people to

Justin Trosclair 59:00
you know, I found one when my grandma when she was alive. It was in the top of her closet. And I want to say she made two or three before she quit. Because some of our grandkids didn’t have kids yet. So I think I still have one. There’s one waiting on me. If that time happens, what a cool legacy.

Unknown 59:19
productive? That is cool. I think very regularly. I think these are the things that will outlive me, right? We’re all working on our legacy of what will still be here. That’s going to be one of them. The quilts I’ve made or the blankets I’ve made definitely,

Justin Trosclair 59:33
you know, it’s random. share something else. I had all these shirts, you probably got a bunch of like running like clubs you were in and all kinds of crazy stuff. And you have your clauses one of these t shirts that either like memorabilia or you’ll never, ever would wear. Yeah. And they turn it into a

Unknown 59:48
baby. Yeah. Yeah, I’m in the middle. Yes. I’ve been trying to do it myself at this point. I’ve been working on it for so many years. I wish I’d shipped it out. But it is going to get down one of these days. So got like a special big machine for that thing. Yeah, you do. Put it on the machine. Definitely.

Justin Trosclair 1:00:10
There you go. That’s the name of it. long arm quilting machine.

Okay, so as far as far as for you and your spouse taking it from a macro learning level to actually how do you implement? What are some things that maybe you and your spouse do that keeps the love alive? And you feel connected on? Maybe weekly basis?

Unknown 1:00:27
Yeah, so I’ve been trying hard on the meetings and like the only if we have to talk about the day to day management stuff, in conversations that are separate from the conversations about Okay, so how are you feeling about your purpose in life? And what are you up to with what do you think you want to do in the next couple years? So keeping those conversations separate, so that we don’t transition from like, Hey, did you take out the trash? And you put the trash out? To? And what’s what do you want to do in the next five years? So like, keeping it separate? So because one can be it can be such a, like, I don’t want to talk about this, or that’s kind of a downer conversation to kind of like, Okay, now we’re, we’ll open it up. So we’ve been balancing that, and then spending that quality time with each other that doesn’t involve too easy to slip into. Let’s watch TV after dinner. And so no, that’s not truly quality time are truly getting to know each other. So avoiding that, and then actively planning things that we do enjoy, like, we like to camp. So do did we make the time to put that on the calendar? Because if we don’t it time, I will just slip by? And I’ll be like, yeah, that thing that we like to do campaign, we just don’t seem to do it anymore. No, we like put it on the calendar. And that makes a big difference for us. Yeah, we’ve been together, true 12 years or so now. So it’s also fun to see. We’ve been married for three this summer. And so it’s fun to see that evolution random like kind of where we are now compared to where we were in the beginning. And reflecting back on those times together. We’re actually thinking about planning a trip to back where we met in college to kind of like, go back and revisit the physical location to kind of be like, Oh, yeah, this feels so long ago now. And so taking the time to have moments like that have memories and nostalgia also helps us. That’d be fun, actually, I think

Unknown 1:02:26
Yeah, right. Good. Try it. I’ll keep you posted.

Justin Trosclair 1:02:28
Definitely. My wife has English as a second language. She, she had this because Justin, we need to talk. Like we need to talk. What’s going on? She’s like, how think Wait, no, we need to have this conversation. Now. I need to know what to prepare for. I’m freaking out. And then she’s like, Oh, wait, are you talking about is a good conversation? And I was like, Look, you can’t start a conversation with we’d have a talk later. I was like, that is universal. Yeah, you’re in trouble. We don’t have time to hash it out. She learned that when I was like, Whoa, man.

Unknown 1:02:57
Don’t say we need to talk. Absolutely. We’d have a conversation later, baby.

Justin Trosclair 1:03:03
All right. Do you have? Do you have a morning or lunch routine? That just ground you are excited you for the rest of the day?

Unknown 1:03:10
Mm hmm. Morning, I have become more of a morning person over the years and being able to spend time on morning pages, which is from The Artist’s Way, Julia Cameron. And being able to write those three pages and what whatever my come out comes out. So that grounds me gets me centered on

Unknown 1:03:32
like, What am I thinking about for the day helps clear a lot of the other things out. And even before that happens, actually, I find that most people are waking up and look turning off the alarm on their cell phone. And then they start to checking email, and they’re letting that dictate their day. And what I try to do is not look at my cell phone for as much time as possible. Like after my morning pages after my coffee. After I feel like okay, what is today going to look like, man I can get, I can start to go under the email or start to get sucked into other people’s priorities. Because I mean, if you wake up and the first thing you’re doing is responding or thinking about what somebody said, the whole day, like, what does your day look like? So that’s been really key for me. And I have that flexibility. I know not everybody that they have to get little kids up and those kinds of things. But being really purposeful and having that routine means a lot to me and making decisions the night before. So like what I’m going to eat for lunch the next day, laying out my clothes for the day and the next, you know, the day the night before and so that there’s none of us rushing around because I hate rushing around in the morning. So I’ve tried to actively make sure I’m calm and peaceful to start my day.

Justin Trosclair 1:04:46
I’ve actually heard us a little trick that nobody really talks about were like having this your clothes ready already ready to go iron. One less thing to do in the morning.

Unknown 1:04:53
It is and it’s decision fatigue. So that’s a cognitive psychology thing. So as you make decisions throughout the day, right, that’s part of why we get by the end of the day was like, I’m gonna eat whatever, because we made all these tiny little decision hundreds of decisions throughout the day. And if we can eliminate any of them, for ourselves, it makes we’re much more effective mentally. So

Justin Trosclair 1:05:14
very nice. You dropped a ton of books on a song with the show notes, all the all the other she’s mentioned, I will do my best to get them on on the show notes. Okay, but any other books, apps on your phone? It could be podcasts, anything that you like, you know, this book is for, you know, this type of live this part of stage, wherever you want to drop on the on the audience for future reading that you felt was just mandatory?

Unknown 1:05:39
Yeah. Besides all the ones I mentioned, like I should carry the whole list of books that have changed your life. So I guess I carry them on Goodreads. So I’ll use that if nobody’s on Goodreads, right? Yes, we can keep track of all the books you’re reading and books, you’ve read and get recommendations. From me, my latest podcasts I’ve really been enjoying is the courage and click clarity podcast by Stephanie Crowder. It’s for women entrepreneurs. And I. And I wouldn’t say that most of your audience is going to fit into this group. And whether or not you’re a woman, right? That’s the you’d like you could you may still enjoy listening to it. The because she’s always that kind of me to mentality. She always has people on their kind of talking about here was my journey. And you can hear the similar threads in the journey. And so she’s Yes, they’ll give tips about like, Hey, did you know this is what you should be doing on social media now? Right? They’ll be that part of the podcast. But it’s also like, here’s how I got to where I am now. And I and that’s what you’re doing on this podcast to right of we’re learning from each other. Yeah. And so like little more examples like that I’m on the hunt for so I’ll have to get your list to and keep spreading the word about the other what we’re listening to. So

Justin Trosclair 1:06:59
where can people get more information about you?

Unknown 1:07:01
Yeah, so on all the social media platforms, I’m at Dr. Caitlin FOSS. That’s Dr. Si ay ay te l i n. f. L. A. s. And then Dr. Caleb boss calm to. And so please reach out and send me an email. Let me know if you heard me on the podcast, right? We have Justin in common. So let’s keep building our networks and get to know each other.

Justin Trosclair 1:07:27
Absolutely. any final comments before we go?

Unknown 1:07:29
No, thanks so much again, Justin. And so grateful you’re doing this and helping spread the word so that everybody can get to know each other?

Justin Trosclair 1:07:37
Absolutely. Thank you so much for your time. It’s been a pleasure. And we’ll definitely talk again another day.

Dr. Caitlin, I love that me to mindset regardless of the circumstances, people are either struggling like you’re struggling, or they’re succeeding, like you’re succeeding, and we just got to find them. And it’s not that hard to do, especially with a computer. Thank you so much for the tips and the resources. As always, all the show notes can be found at a doctor’s perspective, net slash two, three, stay tuned. The travel tip is coming up next. And as always, learn as much as you can from today’s guest.

big thank you to everybody who purchased the book for those who are considering it a doctor’s perspective. NET slash free ebook, in Get yourself a PDF version for free. If you watch the video, fantastic. You’ll see different reasons why you should read the book. We’ve got things from helping with headaches, stretches and exercises that you’ll actually do ways to figure out food labels. What’s the deal with sugar tricks for portion control and a nice chunk of the book? How can your body heal itself? Are you minimizing Why are some people negative about chiropractic? What does it actually do? What is pain? What is a misalignment or sublimation? You can go on Amazon, they got the Kindle version paperback book. As always, there’s merchandise at the Resources tab. There’s podcast t shirts, calm t shirts, mugs, what there’s getting a cup of coffee, all the stuff is high quality. Good job. Did you like what we’re doing giving back a little bit, keep the show going. Definitely not necessary. But of course, it’s appreciated.

If you head over to the website, the top right is all the social media flavors, pick what you like friend is, of course active on Instagram and Facebook the most and trying to do more live videos trying to keep everything fresh. The pictures of my travels are typically on both of those big rush on Facebook, slow drip on Instagram. Of course, if you want to leave a comment, definitely do that. It helps us to know how to improve the podcast so that you guys like it better. And of course, if you leave a review on iTunes or your Android app, that’s very appreciative if you want screenshot it, boom, throw it up on Facebook tag me and I’ll give you a shout out.

travel tip this week buy souvenirs if they fit in your luggage, you know I like to travel just carry on you want to move overseas that we have less the less to lose you know if you lose your bag that’s always a horrible when you’re gone for like a few days to begin with. But so I just carry on and I learned how to pack really nicely but you’re going to buy a souvenir, make sure you can actually take it you know, you get size restrictions and fluids are you can’t bring swords and knives. You know, you can’t do all that kind of stuff if you carry on. So if you’re like me and you want to just carry on, you gotta be careful what you get the weights not as much of an issue. But at the same token, if you’re someone who’s going to carry a bag, which is like most people, you still gotta think about these things. I did check fencing gear, you know, like the Olympic fencing. So it’s definitely doable when you check it that you know, but just be aware of what it is that we know, get confiscated, you know, you got to be careful to some places, they say, hey, you bought DVDs or something, and you can’t carry those over because they’re, you know, maybe there’s a bootlegged or something. So just be aware, buy souvenirs, just make sure that you are able to pass customs and that don’t fit in your luggage.

We just went hashtag behind the curtain and this episode has come to an end. I hope you got the right dose for your optimal life. Please spread the word about this podcast by telling to friends, share it on social media, and visit the show notes on a doctor’s perspective. net to see all the references from today’s guests. A sincere thank you in advance. You’ve been listening to Dr. Justin trust Claire giving you a doctor’s perspective.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai

About the Author
Dr. Justin Trosclair, D.C., an expert in Chiropractic Care, has been focusing on back and neck pain relief for over 12 years and has delivered treatment to more than 6000 patients. With advanced training in treating disc derangement conditions, you can count on him to keep up to date with the latest research in physical medicine for spinal pain. He has 5 years of hospital experience in China, is currently working in Germany, and had a private practice in Colorado for 6 years. Dr. Trosclair hosts a doctor to doctor interview podcast called ‘A Doctor’s Perspective‘ with over 220 episodes. During his free time he wrote 3 books. Today’s Choices Tomorrow’s Health (rebooting health in 4 categories), a Do-It- Yourself acupressure book for 40 common conditions called Needle-less Acupuncture, and a step by step guide to look like a local for Chinese dinner culture called Chinese Business Dinner Culture. If you have kids, you may be interested in his 6 series tri-lingual animal coloring book series (english, spanish and chinese).