Justin Trosclair 0:03
Episode 55 mommy burnout and child therapy expert. I’m your host, Dr. Justin Foursquare and today, we’re Dr. Cheryl Gonzalez. perspective.

Unknown 0:15
Join 2017 podcast Awards Nominated host Dr. Justin Foursquare, as he gets a rare to see look into the specialties, all types of doctors and guess plus marketing, travel tips, struggles, goals, and relationship advice. Let’s hear a doctor’s perspective.

Unknown 0:31
Welcome back. 2018.

Justin Trosclair 0:33
I hope everybody’s having a fantastic start to a new year. I know I sure am finally getting the nice little as acupuncture book fun finalized. That’s been a been a work in progress. Let me tell you. And speaking of books today, we have the author of mommy burnout, which will come out in February. She has been on the Today Show, Katie Couric show, NPR and a whole bunch of local Denver news channels, sometimes several times a week, she co owns Denver child therapy, her special his children and families. We’re going to go over many things like participation awards, eating habits, screen time, aka your phones with kids under five and what that can do for you. Plus, of course, what do kids to bring you to see a counselor, a psychologist for show around that I was some really creative marketing ideas and her take on what makes for a good vacation. All the show notes can be found at a doctor’s perspective, net slash five, five, let’s go hashtag behind the curtain.

a doctor’s perspective. We are still in America. So excited to have our next guest. We have a Dr. Cheryl Ziegler. She is from Denver, Colorado. She has a new book coming out I believe in February called mommy burnout. It is my pleasure. I hope we go on some rants today. Welcome to the show.

Unknown 1:53
Thank you. Thanks for having me.

Justin Trosclair 1:56
What is great a browse your website, Instagram, Twitter, you know, low social media stalking, as they call it, love and what I’m seeing, and that’s why I invited you on the show. And it’s gonna be great. But before we jump into your book, and your specialty, how did you become like the versus all the other things that you could have done?

Unknown 2:14
Yeah, well, I think I was very unusual in that I knew from a very young age, I wanted to be in the helping profession. I knew I wanted to listen to people and help people with problems. So essentially, I went to my guidance counselor and said, I want to be a psychologist, what do I need to do. And so in high school, he kind of mapped it out for me and said, you’re going to need to do an undergrad and masters and a doctorate give you this many years, 10 years. And I was like, okay, it was just like, that’s what I need to do. So I, I did and you know, an undergraduate and psychology have a master’s in counseling and mice ID in psychology, and counseling psychology. And I would just say that, that I knew that some people if they’re listening to this, and they’re thinking about this, you can get a PhD or society and I chose it because it’s a lot more counseling, it’s a lot more clinical hands on, versus a PhD, sometimes that route, people want to do research, they want to write papers, they might want to be professor. So sometimes that’s one of the distinguishing factors that makes someone she’s aside the program over a PhD program, and I’m very happy with the tracks that I chose. Why not just stop and masters? Well, you know, you can do, you can do lots of things with a Master’s, I didn’t stop in a Masters because I wanted to do some testing. So I wanted to have that evaluation piece. And I wanted to learn more, I wanted to dive deeper. And so I would say that, you know, having a Masters for me, I had a masters and then I practiced for two years before starting the doctoral program.

Unknown 4:01
I was still had a lot to learn. And so I felt like you know, I definitely was was good enough. And it was doing some, some good work. But I felt like wow, when when the issues got really big or hard for me just felt like I wanted more training. So my side D program, and including my APA internship, which is your fourth year, all four of those years, I was literally under a microscope in this fishbowl being live observed or videoed every session for four years, oh, my God, there, you get a lot of feedback. And so much has changed, you know, so I grew a lot because of that. It’s hard work. It’s hard. Every word that you say is criticized or your body language? Or did you have good rapport with a client, all of that was criticized, but it was all constructive and very helpful. So that’s, that’s how I came to be where I am. I can’t

Justin Trosclair 4:55
even imagine being criticized that often because oh, my goodness, but it is what’s you need to do? I guess the first couple of weeks is probably brutal. And then after that, you start accepting the change and accepting what they’re saying. And like, All right, let me How can I improve it in this area?

Unknown 5:10
Yeah. And it’s not just it’s like a professor, and your cohort and cohorts in doctoral level programs are generally very small. So mine was six or seven of us. So it says really intimate group, and everybody’s live observing you.

Unknown 5:25
So it was you know, and everybody, of course, always tries to point out positives, but it’s human nature, you hear seven positive things in one constructive thing, and you focus on that constructive piece, or Oh, man, I missed that. You know. So I don’t I don’t envy students in those positions. But I’ve been there. And boy, do you learn a lot, right? When you when you work with such a diversity. And that’s the cool thing to begin that kind of program. I’ve worked you work with adults, couples, families, kids. So it’s great training.

Justin Trosclair 5:59
So then we’ll Did you ultimately get become a special to this in

Unknown 6:05
a foot my focuses on children and families. So you know, you do your three years in a doctoral program on, you know, just everybody and then you apply for internships, and you have to get matched was like a whole match day. And I wanted to just focus on kids. So it was great. I got my first choice. And so I’ve always really just focused on kids. Even after my master’s program, I worked with adolescent males. I’ve always just really had a kid focus. And then one of the things I talked about, it’s actually an intro of my book, mommy burnout. It says, I’ve been working with kids my whole career, you might be wondering, why am I writing a book about moms, but you can’t work with kids effectively without working with their families. If you want to get the most change out of kids, you It’s a family system. It’s a systems that kind of issue. So I’m very interested in family systems and got a lot training and family work as well.

Justin Trosclair 7:03
When I was looking on your site, I saw some fun things that I think kids and drugs are bad peer pressure, eating habits, we kind of just mimic what our parents do. So if they snack all day on trash, guess what you’re probably going to do based on other interviews, games, screen time, like iPhones and all that kind of stuff. Participation awards in kind of talk about all that stuff. Any of these things you want to chat about real quick, be my guest, especially the screens. I’ve heard some crazy stuff that what before your five, you should even touch the screen because it really messes with actually how your brain develops. I don’t know if that’s still accurate. But either way you can talk now, please.

Unknown 7:39
Yeah. Oh, my gosh, absolutely. And this certainly can be its own podcast. But I would just say in general. I mean, I literally just got out of a session right now as I ran to you. And what we ended on was okay, mom and dad. So are you ready to say that there’s no screen time on school nice. And that there is, you know, we’re going to limit to two hours a day on Saturday and Sunday. Now that’s, I mean, then these are middle school aged children that they have that is a tall order to ask somebody these days. But what I’m seeing what we’re all seeing really is we are putting phones, so screens in the hands of toddlers, kids, it’s not uncommon to see a two year olds at a restaurant, right? Everybody’s eating and what’s the toddler doing? They’re watching Elmo shut up kid. Yep, exactly. And then they become three. And it’s like, oh, Elmo has a game now or, you know, whoever, whatever your favorite, whatever your favorite character is, whoever they are, they’ve got a game, or they’ve got an interactive kind of app. So we’re it’s not it touches on the brain development, it touches on also, though, just attachments, and how we used to have to regulate our kids and entertain our team. And, you know, we talked about healthy eating habits, well, when you’re staring at a screen, you can put anything into a kid’s mouth or in their hands they’re mindlessly eating, as well. So we’re seeing these really poor patterns. And think that one of the things that parents don’t realize is that when you start doing this, you know, under 18 months, two years old, and you start these habits that you don’t think maybe are that big of a deal. They actually really are. And I think that’s probably what you’re alluding to, in my posts, they affect obesity rates, they affect our rates of ADHD diagnosis, they affect social interactions, they affect the way that you attach and bond with your parents and how you communicate. They affect your own ability to be creative, because when you’re spending all of your free time on a screen, you don’t feel bored. You don’t feel like Huh, what am I going to do? I guess there’s Legos here. Let me build a rocket ship or spaceship and have to use your creativity, your mind? It’s like hijacked. Like, oh, you’re bored. Let me entertain you. And you never have to think for yourself in terms of like what to do creativity. So when we look at 21st century skills, we know that working together in groups, being highly creative are two skills that are only in more demand than ever. And running times is taking that away.

Justin Trosclair 10:09
What about the parents that say, Well, Elmo, or whoever? It’s an interactive learning game, so they’re learning their alphabet are learning whatever skills earlier? Is that true? Or barely?

Unknown 10:22
Barely? So and, you know, maybe if you used it, probably the way on a package or some sort of disclaimer is suggested it might be 20 minutes a day. So Sure, absolutely. I am not, I’m very moderate in almost all of my views, because I don’t think anything should be one extreme or the other. But I think, you know, I certainly am an advocate of children under the age of two really never been in front of screen that I’m, I am a little bit like know, under age to know, um, but you know, being realistic. Sure, if you’ve got a three year old, that wants to, you know, loves Elmo, and you’ve got a 20 minute game and like, mom needs to jump in the shower needs to do something. And you’re really conscious about what you’re doing your present to what you’re doing. I certainly I have a four year old, and he watches a show a day. So it’s 23 minutes long. There’s no commercials, because I don’t like kids watching commercials. And I do it as a tool. For me it is a tool like I need to get something done or I need to get an email out. Okay, you get to watch, you know, patrol right now kind of thing you know, but what happens is that nobody’s really playing the interactive educational game for 20 minutes. It’s going longer. And we’re actually looking at sort of the addictive nature of the way these games are made. And I know it sounds terrible, but you earn thing. Well, they are. Yeah, so what they were following research on like gambling, addiction, and just addictions in general, it starts really young, even with these educational games, because they reward you and they give you gold coins are they give you you know, things you collected a little shopping bag. And the way our minds are working? Is we like reward. It’s like, Oh, yeah, that’s an incentive. And so we’re starting kids young young brains off very early to basically say, you know, it’s like, picture them in front of a slot machine, maybe that would help a parent, you know, you’re if you haven’t, you know, front of that educational game for more than 20 minutes a day, you might as well you know, put them in front of a slot machine and see how that goes. You know, and it’s, it’s really pretty much the equivalent.

Justin Trosclair 12:25
Yeah, because I don’t think he said the games are built to be more of addictive, but they’re also built to spend money. So at some point, you can’t go any further. And mom’s looking at 99 cents, or whatever. And that’s just not going to work. So Gone are the days that parents are, but they got Pinterest, they got all this baking stuff, they probably have 100 craft the idea and I don’t have kids. So that’s easier said than done. But I’m big fan. And we’re like when I play with my nieces. Let’s go play soccer, basketball, we’re gonna play wrestling, and we’re going to do all kinds of fun stuff. And that was one of my hands when talking about having kids was like, Man, you gotta do that all the time. Like all day, every day, after 12 hour day of work, you got to come home, and you got two or three hours of like doing this stuff, or you can put in front of a TV.

Unknown 13:04
Right? Right. But so here’s the thing, here’s the here’s the tie in a little bit to what I write about, and mommy burnout, I’m really looking at. So I’m looking at the way that our culture is currently set up. that’s causing moms to do things like this. I mean, when I’m not, I am not faulting or or even saying, Oh, I don’t understand why kids are spending hours in front of a screen, I do understand. It’s a it’s a simple way to keep your kid quiet. contained, right? Because we don’t have the kinds of environments where kids are just out all day long come home when sun goes down, right. So whether we should or not as a whole nother topic, but it’s just sort of not the general culture of the way children are being raised. So and now what we have our mothers, majority of mothers work outside of the home. So and what we know about what’s causing burnout in women is that work never ends. We haven’t on always on culture. So you know, they’re they’re looking still at their phone while they’re driving home. They get home and you’re returning quick email grabbing a quick call. And then they’ve got their kids who haven’t seen them. And so there’s, it’s a lot for I’m I am focusing on moms right now, I think it could probably pertain to fathers as well. But in terms of a mother’s role, mothers are juggling a lot. And they are juggling their own 24. Seven always on culture. And so it’s easier. Sometimes they start off with good intentions, right? I’ll just let them watch one show. To let them get one. I just got to cook dinner,

Unknown 14:40
right? Just gotta I just got to fill in the blank. And before you know it, you’re like, Oh, crap, especially on a weekend. You know, where the day is really long. And what we know is that, you know, women and men, but people parents in general, they don’t stop working on weekends. You know, teachers even so some professions that you might think, Oh, well, no teacher spend Sundays, preparing lesson plans. And moving on. And nevermind, if you’re, you know, maybe like a CFO or you’re, you’re a manager of some sort, you know, you’ve got things. You’ve got emails coming in, that the sort of the expectation is, you’re always going to answer them. Right, your your answer my questions, I got a question. You got an answer. And it’s quick. So I think what has started off as being, you know, seemingly harmless, you know, I just want to get through lunch. I just want to Oh, gosh, this meal will be I want to go to a restaurant once in a while. It starts off there. And before you know it, these hours and minutes add up.

Justin Trosclair 15:41
Yeah. Well, I if it could one more little rant, maybe about I call them participation awards, there’s probably some PC term for it. But what are your feelings about that? Why is it good? Was it bad? I’m guessing they had good intentions to start with? So give us give us your insight on that. If you don’t mind? Yeah,

Unknown 15:58
this will be probably a little of a rant. But do you remember where I think it was like a year, year and a half ago, there was an NFL football player that tweeted something about like, my son got a participation award? Like, what is this? There’s no participation awards in our house, you know,

Justin Trosclair 16:16
you when you cross our knee,

Unknown 16:17
right. So I would you know, when that came out, I was asked to come on, you do some local media around, you know, what same question, what are your opinions about that? And, you know, my opinion, and even recently, I did a segment like that. But my opinion is also I agree, I think that we are giving kids accolades, and positive reinforcements all the time, to the point where what we know about at least the older millennials, and maybe some post millennials as well is that it’s difficult for them when they get in the workforce, take constructive feedback. And it’s difficult to to understand that not everybody’s a winner. And it’s a harsh reality, when you get into the world, when you’ve been raised as a child say like, even if you came in last place, like you still get a ribbon. I mean, when I grew up, and maybe you you know, maybe the I was a runner, the top three people got medals. Number four didn’t get a medal. Maybe first state needs larger meets the top six did but you know, it’s all proportion to the number of people competing, like at some point, you came home with nothing at all, except for your coach talking on the bus about how you like get you to run faster and train harder. And now That’s not at all what would happen. Everybody does go home with a ribbon. And everybody feels like a winner. And I will say it’s I I have experiences both professionally. Those are my thoughts professionally, I think it’s helpful for kids to understand that there really are there people who when you lose, whether it’s a board game, or an athletic event, or you know who’s the top of the class in math,

Justin Trosclair 17:59
and it’s not always fair.

Unknown 18:00
Life’s not fair. That’s a big mantra mind. It’s not always fair. But you know, my, my son just participated my older son, you know, football tournament couple weekends ago, and they came in they were the runner ups, they came in second place. And they weren’t expecting anything. And but the league had, you know, the larger trophy for the winners. And then the second place, you know, the runner ups that a smaller trophy. And yeah, I saw the boys face is lined up. I mean, they now they didn’t care that they didn’t win, because they still walked out with a sweet trophy. And so I quietly processing, what do how do I feel about this? What did I think?

Justin Trosclair 18:39
Um, it’s a tough one.

Unknown 18:40
It is a tough one. I mean, I’m because at that age, seven years old, there’s seven and eight year old boys. Right? Yeah, it’s like, you want to keep them motivated, and they love those kind of trophies. But they also they didn’t win. So it’s, I think it’s one of those things where I wish that this was just a vacuum kind of issue where you could talk about ribbons and trophies, but unfortunately applies to so much that yeah, it’s not just in like athletics, that this is an issue. It’s all over the place. It’s an issue. If you’re a winner, you’re great, you’re smart, you’re the best. You can do anything, even the you can do anything message to girls. You know, there’s, you know, some people would beg to differ with that. They’re like, certainly girls have a lot more opportunities than ever. I don’t know, but can you really do anything, but yet those are the messages so it puts pressure. So there’s my rants on? I think in general, we need to teach kids about winning and losing and fairness.

Justin Trosclair 19:37
Well, just to follow up on my end is one with football. Only one person gets a ring, but I can karate, which is what I did second place. Third place didn’t get a trophy. Yeah, you know, it was and if only the first place I guess I don’t know that could be maybe it’s de de motivated enough where I was like, I’m not normally number one player on using number two or three in the karate real back then. And if I never got a trophy or anything, I don’t know, I might have quit competing. Because it’s like, man, I just I know. I’m not number one. But dang second place is pretty good too. Usually. Yeah, but I don’t remember.

Unknown 20:07
I don’t know. What about last place.

Justin Trosclair 20:08
That you didn’t try harder, man. Right. That’s just not gonna work last still

Unknown 20:11
get to read it. Yeah, today last regulations, right. They still for this is what they get. They get the participation, trophy metal or ribbon. So, you know, and so but you could debate with me, that’s fine. It just says you participated. But when you’re younger, it’s still a symbol of some sort of accomplishment that for some people they think, but what was that accomplishment? Isn’t motivating worth, right.

Justin Trosclair 20:37
Yeah. I remember for us if if we went to a tournament, and you got a piece of paper that said first place, we were not happy? No. Because sometimes you can get a three foot trophy for first place and you’re giving me something you could have printed at Kinko’s. Come on you cheapskate. That’s right. But now I’m curious to one more time is when it talks about moms. There’s there’s some women that they don’t really want the job. They just want to be a mom and 24 seven, I love it. This is what I want to do. I want to homeschool my kids not because I’m crazy. But for other reasons. And maybe even to that extent, but that’s their goal in life is to be a mom. And it almost feel like nowadays, if that’s all you want in life, there’s women groups out there that bash you and say you are what’s holding us back because you don’t want to have the 40 hours a week and daycare and all this other stuff. Any opinions on that? Oh, yeah.

Unknown 21:23
Yeah, for sure. You know, there used to be something referred to as the mommy wars. Right. So that’s the stay at home moms versus the working moms. And sometimes there are there are issues that will kind of bring that up again. And one of the things that I write about in mommy burnout is I say, I think if and I call them at home moms because I say stay at home moms never stay anywhere. They are as busy as can be they’re driving all over the place they’re shopping there never staying put anywhere. But these at home moms what I want to see is a shift from you know, not just being like oh, well I just did home but but really taking it like this as a career. Like right yeah, rear choice you have the most important job ever. I mean, for me just even staying home on maternity leaves was too much I am not cut out to be a full time at home mom I am not good at Yeah, you know and I can I try to openly admit that because I’m trying to model for people like if that’s your life’s dream is to be a homemaker and you want to you love cooking meals you are Pinterest Mom, you want to be the volunteer for everything. Like own that rock that like being we need that right? We totally we really need that. And be the best that you can be proud of it. Yeah, you know and and make it a respected, respected job. It is a vocation. Right? It and you think it is a job. You know,

Justin Trosclair 22:49
they with a kid, oh my good night

Unknown 22:51
all day home cleaning, cooking, because the childcare part is one part of it. But when you’re an at home, Mom, you have to do everything else you have to food shop, you have to cook you have to clean relentlessly, and do laundry and all these other things. And so I just I want to see the movement where that is a risk, very respected position that women Yeah, you know, and that they also own it like this is like a career mom, and a great career Mom, you know, I’m at the top of my game. Like I think that’s the mentality that both sides need to have. Because our kids need that. They need moms who if they are home, love being home, or they don’t love every aspect of it, but they really they have respect even in their own cells and they feel like it has purpose which is one of the things I see with working with so many moms is sometimes an at home mom just feels like is this it’s like this My whole purpose. Is this my existence cooking cleaning and changing diapers and sometimes you know, they feel lost within them.

Justin Trosclair 23:52
Yeah, I can see that for sure. Well, this excites anybody her book mommy burnout catch it when it comes to even probably the pre release. I’m sure right

Unknown 24:00
now right now there we go.

Justin Trosclair 24:03
So we’re gonna we’re gonna switch gears a little bit here on as far as like psych the the field that you’re you’re you specialize in with kids and families? Are there any common misconceptions or maybe common things that patients come in clients like the alcohol and patients or clients?

Unknown 24:18
We call them both, I mostly called clients.

Unknown 24:21
For me, common issues that so in my practice, I see in one week, I see half adults, and have kids. And the adults that I see generally are about parenting issues. Could be co parenting through divorce, it just could be blending families, it could just be parents who, you know, want some new ideas, things like that. So the kids that I see that most common issues absolutely number one without a doubt, or Generalized Anxiety disorders. anxiety, really? Oh, yes. Number one, number one At what age? ages seven and up? Why? Yeah. Anxiety

Justin Trosclair 25:01
life supposed to be easy at this time.

Unknown 25:03
Yeah, no, not at all. And so it’s, it’s very interesting on there’s a subset of the kids do I see with anxiety that are the highly gifted kids, so the kids that may be pulled out of school for, you know, gifted and talented, very, very bright kids. And when you have a very bright kid, there’s there can be this profile to them, which they are perfectionists. They don’t want to try things they’d rather not try something new, if they don’t think that they can master it, rather than try it. So they have a hard time sometimes taking risks, they very much have a hard time with failure. So with those kids, we work on their anxiety, but we also work on risk taking and messiness in life and lots of gray. So that you know, they don’t view the world is black and white, good or bad, there’s lots of gray in the middle. So that would be my number one profile of a, of a client and, and in my practice, there’s myself and eight other therapists. So all of us we see kids with anxiety and probably number one, and number two would probably be divorce. So kids that are going through divorce families that are going through divorce, and just how to navigate it because there really is a way to do it well, as well as can be right to make make the best out of a really difficult situation and ways that just people missed the mark and there’s tension and there’s kids that are having all sorts of issues there regressing, they have anxiety, they might get depressed, they might rebel if their adolescence they might start experimenting with drugs. It’s a really tough you know, as much as we may be as adults are used to divorce and it being nearly you know, half half the country half of married couples

Unknown 26:48
for kids is so really really difficult. So there are ways to do it where your kid like can really be okay you know they can they can be the best that they can be so that’s probably the second thing that I do so things it in divorce for me.

Justin Trosclair 27:02
Isn’t that interesting that as adults, we I don’t know, I think at this point, most parents know that divorce is gonna be hard on the kids, but it’s really interesting that it would even be that way. Because I kind of look at it like that. And then I do what you kid like it really doesn’t I just hate your mom. And but that plays out, I guess and all these different ways. And then I guess I whenever I was a kid, he didn’t really have a lot of the you didn’t see it except for like a couple of the crazy one. You know, the crazy kids that were acting out. You’re like, oh, be like, kind of an abuse or kids. Their parents were alcoholics. But divorce didn’t really play in but now whenever I’m seeing kids around 16 1824

It seems like a lot of them are just like, why would I get married? like everybody’s divorce? It doesn’t it was brutal. I saw it um, I das lot of my mom. I’m not I’m not ever getting married anymore. Yeah, that’s kind of a rotating the whole whole institution. It seems like

Unknown 27:49
Well, you know what you are? You’re absolutely right. Because what we see in in millennials and post millennials is that they are getting married at lesser rates. They are living with people more often, rather than necessarily getting married. So it’s

Justin Trosclair 28:08
Oh, where’d you go?

Unknown 28:09
I’m frozen. But can

Justin Trosclair 28:11
Yep, no, I hear you again. Okay, good. The last like 20 seconds was was going like you’re saying, they they live together more often than getting married.

Unknown 28:19
Right? So we see that in, in the millennials and post millennials that they are, they are having a different approach to marriage, and that marital rates are actually down. Because of that they’ve they rather cohabitate or just date or, you know, also women don’t feel like they have to get married in order to have children. So the option of starting families without, you know, feeling you need to have a life partner or husband is on the table for women these days.

Justin Trosclair 28:50
Does that have any? Not back when I was in school? I was a psychology major was cohabitate and really messed up the marriage rates like it doubled your rating was not really a good idea to go from a cohabitation to being married? Is that still accurate? Or

Unknown 29:05
it actually is still accurate? Is that the is the research will still show that if you live together, you’re more likely to get a divorce.

Justin Trosclair 29:16
So the research does show that in the first couple of years, or what,

Unknown 29:20
oh, that’s a good question. I don’t know if I know the distinction. Okay. But in general, it’s still considered Yeah, that it’s not, it doesn’t, it doesn’t help the longevity of marriages.

Unknown 29:33
But I think what now millennials and post Millennials are doing is just simply say, we are going to cohabitate period, we don’t intend to get married, we don’t need marriage. Right? So that is something that is different. Okay,

Unknown 29:49
interesting.

Justin Trosclair 29:50
Well, if you were to have any students come by and say, Hey, I’m thinking about doing what you’re doing, or you have some doctors out there, they’re like, I’m not making it, either I’m burning out or not making the money that I thought of you have any advice for these types of individuals?

Unknown 30:04
I do. And I would say that I I tried to, you know, mentor, some students, I try to mentor young professionals, I say that one of the things that can happen when you’re in psychology program, whether that’s a master’s program or a doctoral program, is there’s two things, one of them is you some, some still get this message that like, well, you don’t go into this field to make money. You know, you just go into this field to help people and

Justin Trosclair 30:32
wasn’t gonna be like that, I want to make some money. And hell right.

Unknown 30:34
And I and that’s what I’m here to say is I think you can do both, and you both with integrity, it is hard to get into the mind of sometimes like a helper helping professional. But, you know, sometimes those things are uncomfortable. Because the spirit of where a helper comes from is generally, you know, just wanting to do good in the world, right? And oh, with money comes along with it, then great. But I think that you can can still have integrity, you can still want to be the best therapists or physician or whatever you want to do. In this case, the best sort of psycho therapist or psychologist that you can be, and make money and feel okay about that. It’s it’s part of its valuing yourself, which the more we value ourselves, the better we are for our clients. And so. So that’s the first piece of advice that I give people. And the other one is that this profession, in my mind is limitless. You can do so much. I mean, I have, like you said, I’ve written a book, I blog, I write, I contribute to a national media outlets. I do. I’m a News contributor, anywhere from sometimes once to three times a week.

Unknown 31:48
So I’m really in my profession, I’ve gotten to do so many things. I’ve been on a marijuana education panel, I do public speaking.

Unknown 31:58
There isn’t too much that I don’t do. I mean, so I’m on radio and TV and panels and speak in front of business groups, educational groups, teachers, and their, this field is limitless. Because what we have is something everybody needs, we understand the way human beings work, we understand the way Child Development unfolds. And there are whether it’s corporations, or schools or businesses that need that kind of information. So if there’s anything that I would share with somebody who’s considering going into this field is think big, because I think that we’ve got so much to offer, especially right now mental health is at the top of everyone’s thoughts in terms of we need to improve mental health, we know we need to improve mental health, what do we need to do? So we need people who have all different kinds of backgrounds, people who want to do research, but people who want to public speaking people who want to create, let’s say, the next bullying program, you know, we need, we need so much.

Justin Trosclair 32:59
These are all things that you can make money at, they don’t have to be pro bono.

Unknown 33:02
Absolutely. You can make we can do webinars, you can create workbooks, you can, you know, go around to schools all over the country and talk about, you know, character education programs, there’s the sky is the limit. And those kinds of places what I always reiterate, even pediatricians, they need us, they need people to refer to, they need to know what to do when you know, a kid comes in and they’re anxious or kid comes in and they’re suicidal. They need to know who to go to and what resources are available. And so we can provide those things for them. It all sorts of fields. So I’m so happy and enthusiastic about our field because it applies nearly almost everywhere. You know,

Justin Trosclair 33:43
not like to ask about marketing questions, and you could definitely a different answer. But it seems like you’re already mentioned a couple workbooks online stuff, consulting with your pediatricians and trying to get your foot in the door in their offices. You got any other great ideas to get clients?

Unknown 33:59
Yeah, I mean, I think part of getting clients is your number one source is always going to be referrals. So you want to maintain really positive relationships. Like if you’re working with kids, with the parents, you want to have a lot of communication, don’t want to just be like, Hi, okay, I’m taking a little jelly back, I’m going to do therapy with him for 15 minutes, and then I’m going to come out wave goodbye to you. That actually, to me, it’s not, you know, certainly part of the therapy process. But if you think of it part of marketing is parents want to know, what did you guys just do and what can I do, and if they feel like, hey, this person is great for my son, but also great for me has made me a better parent, I’m more likely to brag about you to other people and moms are going to be have a lot about buying power. And they also have a lot of power in terms of word of mouth. So that’s number one, your number one client is the parent, and probably more specifically the mom. But number two are going to be Yes, other physicians and pediatricians you want to, you know, send them a quarterly letter, keep them on your newsletter list, have a have a newsletter, you know, what are you up to have a great website and make sure you have a blog on it, and blog about things. So people get a sense of you. And those are, you know, nowadays really easy things that you can do and any opportunity like me, especially when I started off but even now, I don’t say no to anything. I say yes to pretty much everything, you know, that I’m interested in doing? Because you never know, you never know what opening or what collaboration is there who is listening or so you know, especially in the beginning, take speaking opportunities, and doesn’t matter if your group is 12 people, sometimes that’s all you need for three or four to them to walk out and go tell somebody who tells somebody. So, you know, I would say though, there’s two things, therapists generally don’t have a good business sense, and they don’t have a good marketing sense. You know, just really, it’s not what you’re taught. You’re not taught it number one, but

Justin Trosclair 36:00
can hire these types of people to by the way.

Unknown 36:02
Exactly, exactly. So, you know, those are those are some some marketing ideas. I think there’s plenty of them. I think advertisements are less, I would save money on advertising, because it’s such a personal field that people want their doctor or their neighbor or the mom friend did you know car line to give you the stamp of approval so that they feel comfortable?

Justin Trosclair 36:26
Yeah, agreed. I like it. Everybody should not just this would not have been the first time anybody’s heard these things. But it’s good to hear it again. And that it actually bridges, not just in Chiropractic and physical therapy, but in psychology and counseling is it’s almost the same stuff just tweaked for your profession.

Unknown 36:41
Absolutely. That’s great, too. And they are they are basic things. But you need to know you need to put yourself out there and know how to communicate with people. And that goes back to your almost your first question about like, we have kids, we’re spending too much time, you know, on computers, and in front of screens, they don’t have the practice to go up to a complete and total stranger and say, Hi, my name is so and so. And I have this you Therapy Center I’m offering you know, the services and I would love for you to consider you know, referring your patients that takes confidence.

Justin Trosclair 37:10
A lot. And the fear of rejection, Gus gatekeepers can be serious in some of these offices.

Unknown 37:16
Yes. And you know what you just hit on the right thing. It is if you get past the gatekeeper, the physician or the pediatrician is the easy one. You got to get past the Secretary and the nurses. I’m not the easiest. Yeah.

Justin Trosclair 37:30
And then like said, there’s, there’s programs out there that you can talk to, you can probably you know, contact me if you want to do, but there’s ways to do that. And people who figured it out that you can pay them to learn their secrets. Absolutely. You’re right. We’ve only got a few more minutes left with you. So we’re going to shift gears. I always love these questions coming up. When we’re talking about entrepreneur, we don’t work for a hospital usually, what are a way to take vacation? And if you can’t, is there a way to take more?

Unknown 37:58
Yeah, you know, so there’s a there’s some research that I came across on this topic as well, because so much of what I emphasize a mommy burnout to obviously avoid burnout, especially in the caring and helping professions is self care. And we hear that term self care so much, you know, probably feels like yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, I’ve heard that. But I personally in Denver area, yes, Denver’s their health oriented and, but what I would say is that, here’s the funny thing. So they say that in order for you to get true rejuvenation benefits from a vacation, you actually need to go on a two week vacation. Because the two weeks, two weeks, because the first week is just coming down from all of your stress. This is just so I broken it down two different ways, right. So most of us are going to take a two week vacation, right. But if we can take many vacations throughout the year, those kinds of things are add up. So you don’t have to wait till you’ve got seven to 10 days to go to Maui or something. Wherever you you live, if you can take many vacations. Sometimes for some people, even a staycation where you’re just at home, but you take a couple days off, those things go a really long way we need and, and the quality of what we do on the vacation is also very important. So just simply because you’re laying on the beach in Hawaii, it doesn’t even mean that you are relaxing. If you could have not turned off, right, if you’re not turned off, it doesn’t matter whether you’re you know, sitting in your town you’re from or you’re in Maui, you’re not going to get the benefits that vacation should be giving you that you need to rejuvenate to take care of yourself. And so just unplugging is a great favor you can do for yourself, you know, maybe you do that Sundays, maybe you start pick one day of the week where you truly are unplugged, and just plan many vacations, places that you can drive to.

Justin Trosclair 39:57
What’s the mini vacation link? Three days, four days?

Unknown 40:00
Yeah, I think three days at a minimum. Okay. Um, and, you know, so again, I mentioned this like phrase before, but doing it with intention is so important. So like, here, I’m in Denver. So for me a mini vacation would certainly be to drive to the mountains, which is like glorious, right. So I would love to say drive up to Vail. But if I drive up to Vail, and I have my work bag with me, and I intend to return 25 emails, but it doesn’t matter. Because I’m going to take a hike, you know, I find that I’m just not, I’m not really reaping the benefits of the sunshine and the trees and the oxygen and all the things that are so therapeutic about being in nature. And so I need to make commitments. And so and I try to do that. And I will say as a therapist, very important that I do that. You know, I work hard, but I play hard. So I when I’m done working, I need to be done working. And that’s a boundary, I’m always working on it, but I’m very active conscious of it. And it’s made a huge difference. So instead of maybe three days unveil, maybe I do go two days because I’m going to spend one day at home finishing everything I have to do so I drive up there blaring the music singing along doing whatever it is that makes me happy. And and I have a clean plate I’d rather have to quality days, then three days that lack quality. And you know,

Justin Trosclair 41:23
there’s a big push right now to have an online online business of some sort, or at least have some kind of passive income coming. But the joke was not a joke, perhaps. But it doesn’t just run on autopilot. So even if you have an empire online, there’s some maintenance that has to be done. So I don’t think there’s something wrong with if you’re in Maui, maybe there’s an hour of the day, each day perhaps that you actually spend some time working like I answer these emails, I make sure things are running. And now for the next rest of the day. I’m completely relaxed, and I can actually unplug. But I do have to have that one hour a day even on my vacation. I don’t know if that’s a bad thing, if you can control it.

Unknown 41:57
Yes. And I think that is I think that’s consistent with what I’m saying. Like, if you mention unity mean, this is the key, I think I really see for kids and adults to the key is that you feel in control of your own schedule. Once you start feeling like your email box controls you or the phone calls control you, it’s over. But once you can say I agree with you, you know, I might drive up to Vail and a fall weekend and have my work bag and say I’m going to be very intentional. Tonight, I’m going to work from six, you know, six to eight. Tomorrow morning, I’m going to work from seven to eight. And as long as I am I feel in control and I really can obey my own boundaries and limits and then spend a I’m free. And that’s what you know, we’re almost always striving for is this sense of freedom. That’s what provides us with, you know, relaxation. So I agree with you, I think you can do that. But there’s one I keep talking about this intentional or awareness. A lot of times when we’re under stress, we kind of work on autopilot. We are same routines and rituals. And you know, they say when you wake up in the morning, the first thing you should do is not look at your phone. But how many people do that I think millions every day, you know. And so it’s living life with intention that helps prevent burnout. And it helps allow to enjoy the things that you do have at your disposal, like a mini vacation or a long vacation or even dinner with a friend. If you’re staring at your phone. And you leave your phone on the table. There’s a little bit of an implication of I’m not totally present here.

Justin Trosclair 43:30
Oh, that’s the worst that

Unknown 43:31
is the worst, right? Like I’m here. But if I get a text or a call that is more important than you, I might need to step away for a few minutes, you know, and it’s sort of like this friendship culture that we have where like we accept that from one another. And I don’t think we should accept that from one another.

Justin Trosclair 43:45
Yeah, I’ve heard some people they say the first person that pulled their phone that has to pay. Yeah, that’s everybody’s meal. That’s a good one. What is one piece of advice you could give the make sure that you keep your marriage healthy? our spouse, whatever? I mean, I’m assuming you know, okay,

Unknown 44:00
in general, in general. Yeah. in general.

Justin Trosclair 44:03
Yeah.

Unknown 44:04
Definitely prepared. Okay. For parents. Okay. So I’ll, I’ll take this one off of one of the one of the articles that I just recently wrote. And it was, I think the biggest piece of advice is carving out time where you have kid free talk times. So you know, you might feel great about yourself right now, if you’re like, yeah, I mean, my husband, due date night, you know, once a week or whatever, once a month, whenever you do date that, and you feel great about it. But when you break down, so I got this truly just from working with my own clients, but when I would break down with them, they’re wonderful dinner, what did you talk about? Most of the kids? Oh, we talked about the kids and what are we signing them up for? And, and I’m not even saying necessarily some of it. Sometimes it was contentious. But sometimes it was just they felt like we have no time to talk. So then they use their date night to talk about the kids or school, the teacher, whatever it’s going to be, is the game plan. Is that

Justin Trosclair 44:59
right? Getting the knowledge

Unknown 45:01
exactly instead of like, so what I say now to the clients I work with, and it works. So that’s why I share it. I try not to share things that I haven’t either walked myself or other people haven’t is I just say to them, I just say, Okay, so what’s your you know, like, what’s your date night plan for the next few weeks? And they say, oh, we’re going to go to dinner Saturday night. Okay, great. So how many minutes? And I say minutes? How many minutes? Do you think you need to talk about the kids, or even want, maybe you’re even talking about how great they’re doing doesn’t matter, but just talk about the kids. And then they kind of laugh and they’ll pick a certain amount of time. Sometimes they’ll just say, I think we just need like 15 sometimes they’ll say I think we need a good half hour. I don’t care what their answers. That’s great. Who’s gonna be the timekeeper? You know, so you sit down, you’re going to do it over the app, you can do it on the drive down because date night to me starts the second year in that car, or you’re walking and you’re by yourself with no kids. And, and someone’s a timekeeper. You legitimate because you know what, you can talk about evens, pretty serious thing about your kids in 30 minutes, I mean, therapeutic sessions or 15 minutes, we cover, right? Right D minutes, you know, you don’t definitely don’t, I don’t think you need more than a half an hour. Again, unless there’s an exception. For the most part, just talk about how your kids are doing, and then be done. Be Done. And then it faces you to have to talk about yourself, or inquire about your partner, spouse, husband, whatever. And that gives you a lot of information. Did you have anything to talk about? Did you even have anything to talk about besides the kids?

Justin Trosclair 46:31
You might find out you need to go see account right? So that you can get your relationship a little bit. Exactly, but you got it and that’s okay, too.

Unknown 46:38
Yeah, you gotta kick clear the kid stuff out of the way to see what is left there.

Justin Trosclair 46:42
Yeah, that’s important. Last question. You got time. Okay. That was a great answer, by the way. Love it. Books, blogs, podcasts, favorite apps on your phone, any anything that you secretly love, and definitely some resources that you just like everybody should be reading these things.

Unknown 46:57
Sure, I would say right now. I’ll start off with my tried and true, which is Lena and I’m a huge fan of lean in. And for women, especially working women or women who are thinking about, you know, thinking about working and raising a family. I love that book. And my second is anything and everything by Bernie Brown, Renee burn a brown, she is, you know, talks about shame and vulnerability. And it is so powerful. And she’s really the queen of she really is. She’s a researcher who really brought us her research and made it very real for people and how like, the power of being vulnerable. And talking about your shame is what makes you powerful, what transforms your life. And boy, I can’t say enough about all of her books, but you know, you can start with daring greatly. So that would be one of them. And as far as podcast, or as far as

Unknown 48:01
an app right now, my favorite app would be headspace. And headspace is guided meditations.

Unknown 48:12
And guided imagery is for people and I can’t just say enough about it mean headspace. I have so many people on headspace because it’s so cool. It gets you It gets you in the mode in the mindset of having meditation be a daily part of your life. And you can set timers on it. So you can you know, because meditating is hard, especially in the beginning, I minutes feels like an eternity. So you can set timers, you can have you choose probably at this point from thousands of like, it’s like a catalog of what you even want to address. You know, Are you anxious or depressed? Are you nervous? What are you what are you? So I’m a huge fan of headspace, as as a way to is certainly like a stress response, but also just preventative measures. So I’m a big fan of that. You know, I listen to different podcasts for different reasons. I mean, I love Tim Ferriss. Yeah, you know, he’s great, and how things are built. I love that podcast, and I particularly love an interview they did with Kendra Scott. And she kind of just talks about how she built her Empire and how she took risks. And it’s really a great interview. But I mean, there’s so many great ones. But that’s just one that came to mind. And Gretchen Rubin, she has a podcast on happiness, and interview some pretty great people. So the cool thing is that there’s so much information out there for us. Yeah, so anything you want to find it’s out there somewhere.

Justin Trosclair 49:48
Agreed. Well, Dr. Cheryl Ziegler, how can people get more contact with you find out more information and all that.

Unknown 49:55
So people can check my website out, which is Dr. Cheryl Ziegler de calm. spell that please Dr. Sh, er y l z, ie Ll er. com. So on there are lots of all my blogs and my media contributions and you know, pre order information for mommy burnout on for more information on the book, mommy burnout, which is out February 20, 2018,

Unknown 50:26
you can go to mommy burnout calm. And, you know, at this point, I’m available for speaking engagements,

Unknown 50:36
and kind of book signings.

Justin Trosclair 50:39
Very good. You heard it here. I’m excited for your book, because does everything that we talked about, if it’s anything like that, that’s gonna be a page turner, congratulations on writing that for sure. And thank you so much for spending your time on a doctor’s perspective.

Unknown 50:54
Yes, thanks so much for having me. I really appreciate it.

Justin Trosclair 50:59
I’ve got some new things to talk about, of course, you can always review is give us that five star review on wherever you listen, but I got four new t shirts, you know, there’s chiropractors, some of them that just like to adjust. There’s some like me who rehab and you know, decompression and cold laser things like that. And we call us streets versus mixers. So created some mixed tour shirts. They’re supposed to be kind of tongue in cheek Hope you like I’m also the Atlas at remove the DNS, so therefore check that out. Maybe you like that better. Today’s choices tomorrow’s health book, version two point O is now out. We got nerve stretches, optimal calorie counter calculators a section on fasting and a big section on how to budget and try to get your financial life in order all the things that I talked about all the time it’s over 100 extra pages so get it now bonus my new hot off the presses book needless acupuncture self treatment guy for 40 common conditions is finally finished. It’s been in the works for quite a while stop the hurting with no needles are meds, your roadmap to self treat your conditions painlessly with needless acupuncture. It’s got pictures, it has descriptions as of course the conditions and I plan to have video tutorials soon. Go to the website and check it out also on the website, but in the top right. All the social media icons are right there, whichever you’d like to follow me on, click that button and say hello.

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. sincere thank you in advance. Even listening to Dr. Justin trust Claire giving you a doctor’s perspective.

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