97: What You Didn’t Know About Time with Vikki Louise

Welcome to The Wealthy Mom MD Podcast, a podcast for women physicians who want to learn how to live a wealthy life. In this podcast you will learn how to make money work for you, how you can have more of it, and learn the tools to empower you to live a life on purpose. Get ready to up-level your money and your life. I’m your host, Dr. Bonnie Koo.

Hey everyone, welcome to episode 97. So, fair warning, you are about to get your mind blown. I have an amazing guest today, her name is Vikki Louise. She not only is a dear friend of mine, but she is a time coach. What? Yes, they exist. Like I'm a money coach, she is a time coach. And just like there's so much to unlearn about money, like what we've been taught about it, guess what? There is so much to unlearn about time.

I am so excited about this podcast because I know it's going to blow up everything you've been thinking about time. It's so, so good. It's so good that I actually listened to it again after the fact because I just was learning so much. And so I'm just so excited for you to experience a bit of what she does and to really start thinking about time differently.

And so let's get the conversation started.

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Bonnie: All right, welcome to the show, Vikki.

Vikki: Hello, thanks so much for having me. So happy to be here.

Bonnie: Yeah, I'm so excited for you to be here because, first of all, I'm sure my listeners would be like, “What? There's such a thing as a time coach?” And they get to hear your lovely accent.

Vikki: Mainly the accent, that's the main advantage of me being here.

Bonnie: Yeah. So let's talk about time. So, I love this topic for a few reasons because, obviously, as I talk about money, there's just so much to unpack uncoupling money from time, even though logically people know it's not related to time because obviously, there's people making lots of money and we all have the same amount of time.

So for everyone else, I am working with Vikki. Now I'm in a mastermind with her learning how to basically unlearn everything I know about time, just like I teach my clients unlearning everything we've been taught about money.

My goal is for everyone to obviously get to know you, Vikki, and just start thinking about maybe everything they've been taught about time might not be true. So it might be a mind bendy episode for people, but this is just the introduction.

Vikki: Yeah, you might want to listen again, that’s okay.

Bonnie: So the first thing I want to talk about is basically every person I know, every physician I know, especially if they're a mom is this, I don't have enough time. So I wanted to talk about that. And it's very similar to I don't have enough money. And that's just the scarcity mindset, but it's everywhere, right? Not enough money, not enough time. So let's unpack that a little.

Vikki: Yeah, well it's funny because every single day we actually have the same amount of time. We know all humans have the same amount of time if we break it down by our days. But I think the problem that we have with time as a society and as a culture is it’s kind of become like the weather. Everyone will speak about it and complain about it and it's just become part of our normal dialogue to bash time.

And we don't realize that it's just this narrative that we have that keeps us completely disempowered. And I'm going to give you an example here, I was coaching someone and she said, “I just don't have enough time because I get home from work and then I want to play with my kids and then make food.” And I was like, but what if you didn't play with your kids? Or what if you didn't make food? What if you ordered in? And it's like, no, I want to do those things.

And I was like, okay, so it’s very different to tell the story of I don't have enough time to do the things I want, as it is to say, oh, I'm already doing things I want to do with my time. So for anyone listening that is in that like I don't have enough time, you are consciously choosing how you spend your time.

And it can sound extreme to say that, that you don't have to spend time with your kids, for example, but some people literally don't spend any time with their kids. It is an option.

Bonnie: Yeah. Well, I actually really love what you said because that's actually something I talk to my clients about in terms of empowering versus disempowering language. So a similar sort of analogy for everyone listening is it’s like I have to do this, I have to do that, as if they don't have a choice in the matter. Versus I'm choosing to do this, or I get to do this.

I think the words you use, I mean, the words you use matter, right? And I love what you said, we're using time as the thing to blame as if we have no choice. It's like no one's holding a gun to your head saying you have to do X, Y, and Z, right?

Vikki: Yeah, yeah. And I will say that I do– You know, I'm a feminist time coach, that's how I call myself because I do think that as women, as working women, as working female parents or carers, all the current work time rules and norms that we are living in, the expectations on us were built without us in mind, often before we could even vote legally.

And we want to be conscious of being up against that and the narratives that we are living in and how we are comparing ourselves and how we are measuring success. So if we are measuring success as an ability to hold down an 80 hour a week job, and raise three kids, and go to everything, and keep a house organized, and book trips and cook meals.

We just want to be mindful that what has happened over the last 50 years is we've added more roles to ourselves than ever before. And time hasn't changed. The number of hours in a day hasn't changed.

Bonnie: What? It hasn’t?

Vikki: And I even think about it as like a social media manager, like an inbox checker, like a communicator with the in-laws, whatever it is. We keep adding and piling on more to-dos, expecting more of ourselves, not being fair to ourselves, and not realizing that things have to give and at some point we want to be making those conscious decisions.

And it might be, like I have a friend who's like, I bring someone in and they make meals for my kids. I'm not great at it, I don't love it, that's what I'm going to be willing to outsource. But as women, so often, we're still fed this narrative, like we're still sitting in both worlds of women should go out there and have amazing careers and do everything. But you should also be amazing parents and carers and give everything to everyone else.

And you probably see this with your clients around money, it's like just understanding that the narrative that exists in the wider society is not necessarily serving you. And being able to just like question it instead of make you wrong for not being able to do 25,000 things in a day.

Bonnie: Yeah. Okay, first, I'm so glad you're bringing this up. Right now I'm in the middle of my virtual book club for my book, and a large part of the book, as you know because I know you read it, is understanding all the bullshit history that's created our money narrative. And so I actually would love to talk a little bit more about the time narrative and how it doesn't serve women.

Because one of the things I talked about actually on a call yesterday is that, and you and I have talked about it, the 40 hour workweek was made up by people. And I said, there isn't like some logical, natural reason for us to do that. Sure, it makes sense to measure time in terms of how the Earth spins around the sun.

That kind of makes sense in terms of the light and the night, although, obviously, that's not for the whole earth, right? There's parts of the world where during the summers, for example, in the Nordic countries it could be 22 hours of light. So those are extreme examples but it's not like there's anything about the way the Earth spins that says Saturday and Sundays are off, you know what I mean?

Vikki: Yeah, so good. Yeah. And it's really like most people don't know this but the 40 hour work week was created because Henry Ford of Ford Motors actually realized he was cutting hours. He was saying people are more productive in 40 hours than they are in 48. So he consciously chose to reduce hours.

This is like 100 years ago, the idea that we could work less and be more productive is not something that's new that we're just bringing up. It literally was what drove that decision then. And what we want to remember was it was a decision made for a factory. We're not working in factories anymore. Listen, I call it the factory mindset, where we are thinking of ourselves as like robots that produce output, as though the output is responsible for the value.

You and I, I know we've discussed this, it's no longer true that more output is more value. You and I could release podcast episodes every single day and it wouldn't necessarily be more valuable than one really powerful conversation like we're going to have here today, right? It's not quantity that produces value anymore. We are way beyond that.

Bonnie: I just want to pause you there because I think that statement is going to blow some people's mind. You know what I mean? Because I think we're so used to like, what do you mean? Because we're so used to doing things, doing things. And I think we think it's more valuable if we do everything, right?

Vikki: Yes. Yes, doing more is not better. I don't know about you, Bonnie, but I was that person. I was the person that was like doing more is better. I was highly ambitious. I wanted to be very successful and so I worked 80 hour weeks. I got certifications while I was working, I did an online MBA, I did accelerator programs, all of this stuff. I was like, this is how I'm going to be successful. Except it wasn't, right? It was literally just burning me out and keeping me busy and preventing me from being creative.

And I think that's one of the things that we miss the most, is the ability for our brain to understand information and actually let it sink in when we keep piling on more information. For example, we might think that it's more useful to read 50 books in a year. But what's the value of reading the same book twice? Or even three times?

Like your book for example, every time someone reads it, they are going to take something different from it. They can just dip into a chapter and take something and implement it. We don't tend to read a whole book and then implement everything in the book. So if you are someone that wants to create more wealth, then you don't just want to read Bonnie's book once.

Bonnie: I actually reread my own book, which I know might sound strange to people. But I think what Vikki is, you know, how I'm interpreting what you're saying is you read a book and then certain things in your mind change, like the way you think starts changing. And then when you read it the second time you are actually able to extract more information because you're listening a little differently. You're reading it with your mind already more open.

It’s not so much I'm learning new things when I read it, but I get more ideas so I’m like, oh. It's either like I can explain this better because my mind is different. Or I realize that there's actually another concept that might help people. So for me it's actually been a way to create new ideas for my clients.

So I love what you just said because I actually love going through the same material over and over again.

Vikki: Yeah, and even for people listening it's going to be the same thing. There’s consuming and there’s creating and we think that those two things are separate. But how do they work together when you are willing to look at something? Maybe the first time you come to Bonnie's book or this podcast where it's talking about time, it's like, holy shit, everything feels new and weird. And is that even true?

But as your brain opens up to it you start to see examples very easily, or see ways to implement it which feel much more doable. So yeah, that's what I would say about the more is better story.

Bonnie: So let's go back to the I don't have enough time. I just want to make sure that there wasn't anything else we didn't cover. So first, she said, just the way you talk about time is important because, I love what you said, it's like the weather, we blame it. We keep blaming time for why we can't be– It’s like I don't have enough time, but otherwise I would do X, Y, Z, like workout or whatever, whatever it is they think they will do with more time.

Vikki: Yeah, and here's the problem with making time responsible, is if it is time, then there's nothing we can do about it.

Bonnie: Oh, so good.

Vikki: Right? Time is not changing, so if you can't work out now because of time, you've probably been saying that for three years. You’re probably going to be saying that in three years. So do you want to keep not doing that thing? Or are you willing to take on the responsibility and say that it's not time, it’s actually my conscious choices and the decisions that I've made so far and I want to change those.

Bonnie: I feel like this is like a mic drop moment right here. It's true, so many of us blame time. What's kind of absurd about that is it's not like time is going to say anything, it's not like some person or thing you can negotiate with. You know what I mean?

Vikki: Yeah, which is perfect if you want someone to blame. And like I said, everyone will agree with you.

Bonnie: Yes.

Vikki: Most people will agree with you and will validate that you are right, you don't have enough time. You are working, you have kids, you have a household. Whatever it is people are going to agree with you. But even when they agree with you, you know what they can't do, is get you into that gym and get you producing those health goals if that's it, for example.

So you have to decide what you want more, the excuse that's really valid, that everyone's going to be like, “Yeah, you're right, I understand.” Or the result that you want to change, which the example we're using now is going to the gym, but it could literally be making your first financial investment.

It's the same thing, the reason we don't do it is because that first step is really uncomfortable. It's about saying I'm not going to blame time, I'm going to take responsibility for why I've not done it. And when I take responsibility for why I have not done it, I'll see that it's because I either–

I mean, my philosophy on this is it comes down to three things. It's either because of my belief about myself, like I don't think I was capable of it, or my belief about the task itself, that it's going to be too difficult. Or it's about not wanting to make decisions, or it's about our fear of failure. And it tends to fall into one of those buckets. It’s never a time problem, it's always mindset, a decision, or a fear of failure problem.

Bonnie: Would you say for the decision problem, is that where procrastination fits in?

Vikki: So it actually fits in in all of them because a lot of people self-identify as a procrastinator. They’re like, “I'm a procrastinator, it's just who I am.” And it's like how you describe yourself is the most important description you will get. You are literally defining yourself in the world.

And I don't care if you have a history of procrastinating, I've been there, I was the procrastinator. You don't need to produce results in order to change that story, right? As you and I know, you have to change that self-story, that self-identity, and then your results will change.

And then, obviously, the second thing, the reason why I focus on decisions is everything we do or don't do comes from a decision. We can't skip over decision making. If we're not making decisions, we're not taking action, it's just a part of it. And the third one is we procrastinate often because we're afraid of failure, or disappointing others, or rejection. So it really fits in all three very well.

Bonnie: I love that, that's so good. I didn't think about that. Not that I've never procrastinated, but I definitely don't consider myself, because I definitely knew people who kind of waited till the last minute, but it didn't faze them. But for me I was like, “Oh my God, if I do that, I just can't do that.” I mean, so it's just interesting how we sort of decide how we're going to handle things. I just have too much anxiety about leaving things to the last minute.

Vikki: Even then, I want to re-frame for anyone who's listening that is like, “Oh, I leave things to the last minute, therefore I am a procrastinator.” I had a client once come to me for coaching on this and we re-framed it from, “I'm a procrastinator, and therefore I am bad,” into, “I'm actually really good at getting things done in a very short amount of time.”

And if I just take away the idea that I should have started two months early because that's when the deadline was open. Like it literally doesn't matter whether you started two months early or two hours earlier. If you got it done, you got it done. So can we celebrate our skill and our ability to get things done fast? It doesn't matter.

Bonnie: So good, I never even thought about that. Yeah, love it. So I think I was telling you a few weeks ago, I guess I was procrastinating on just recording some new videos for my program. And I literally had been thinking about it for almost a year. And I think in my head it was going to be this big production, like, “Oh my God, I got to do X, Y, Z.”

And then when I finally was like, “Okay, I'm just going to do it today.” And I didn't really know how much time it would take but I’m like I'm just going to get started because I literally haven't even. And I literally planned it and videotaped everything in like two hours.

Vikki: That is so good. That was always the case, I promise you. We spend so much time putting things off and so much energy justifying it. And we carry around these to-do lists. I think of it, to give everyone a visual, it’s like you have this backpack with these to-dos and it's just like a bag of heavy rocks.

And all you need to do is stop and take out one rock and then another. But we're like, “No, no, no, I can't stop and take out one rock. It's just better if I just keep carrying them.” And we're exhausting ourselves with this mental to do list. It can be physically exhausting to carry around all these things. And the truth is, it's always faster and always better than our brain will let us believe.

Bonnie: Oh, I love that analogy, I never thought of it like that. Yes, I think sometimes, you probably see this too, that we think we’ve got to wait until we have time to work on 20 rocks at a time.

Vikki: Yeah.

Bonnie: Versus like one.

Vikki: Yes, and this comes from the narrative, and to go back to I don't have time, and I know you wanted to speak about this is that things take time. And as long as things take time and take a long time, then we have to somehow magically in our already probably overfull, busy lives find like eight hours to do these videos because we're convinced it's going to take us eight hours, or five days, or whatever it is.

Instead of just starting and exactly what you did, just committing and going all in, focusing and then actually getting it done. So yeah, when things take time and we already don't have enough time, we're never going to start anything.

Bonnie: Yeah, let's talk about that a bit more because I think what you're saying– So a few weeks ago Vikki talked about something that kind of broke my brain. And I have to like read it and I'm like, “Okay, do I understand this?”

But it's kind of like you said because I think everyone's like, what do you mean, things don't take time? Because I could definitely hear people asking that question like, what? But I think that’s what you said, time passes, but time is passive. I think it goes akin to what you just said, things take time.

Vikki: Yes.

Bonnie: And it's almost just going back to what we said earlier, as if time is to blame for why things don't happen. But then we give time the credit for making things happen too. So let's talk about that.

Vikki: Yeah, I mean, this is a very common one, unfortunately, with women is, and I've seen it with a lot of clients giving time credit. Like I was just in the right place at the right time, or timing is everything. Like another form of I was lucky versus I created the positive results in my life.

And that's such a big thing, to stop giving time credit. Because if we keep giving time credit, we keep taking away our ability to create results. Which is, like I say, something unfortunately I see with women in particular. We don't realize how powerful and capable we are when we are giving time credit.

And that's part of it, but with this time is passive, time passes but time is passive, often, I mean, maybe you have this as well. I had a client once say to me like, “Oh, every eight weeks I sign a client.” And I was like, “Well, it’s not the eight weeks passing that’s having you sign a client. What's happening during the eight weeks, on the eight weeks?”

And really I call it finding the blueprint, your success blueprint and really not allowing time into the conversation. If it's not time, how did you produce that result?

Even someone said to me, so I'm pregnant now and someone said, “Well, you know, but a baby takes seven to nine months. So it is time.” And I'm like, but it's not because even the fact that it's seven to nine months, there are certain biological things that have to happen in order for the baby to be made.

And that's why some babies, I mean, my friend had heard at like six and a half months, super early. And some people can have it at 10 months, because there are literal things that need to happen in our body, there are things that need to happen with the baby and those aren’t related to time. But in saying that, those things happen as time passes, right? I can't make a baby in a month.

So those things, as they are happening, time is passing. But we forget that time is this measurement that we use after an event because it's known. Because it's universal, it's very comforting to say like, oh, it takes nine months to have a baby, for example. But it's not the nine months, and when we are saying it's the nine months, we're missing what's actually happening underneath.

And it's the same with our goals. If we're like, oh, it takes six months to make your first profit on a real estate investment, for example. I literally have no idea so I might be way off there, but to flip a house. It's like, no, it doesn't take six months to flip a house. Not all houses are flipped at six months. Some will take three years, some will take 10 years, some will take a month. Someone can literally buy a house and someone else can put an offer on it the next day.

It's not the time that's producing the result, what is it underneath that? And again, I'll point back to the three things. It's like our mindset, our decision making and our ability, our willingness to tolerate fear of failure.

Bonnie: Yeah, so okay, stop blaming time, stop giving time credit.

Vikki: Yes.

Bonnie: That’s basically what we've been talking about, right? Yeah, because I think the blaming time thing, I think we can all kind of get on board with that. But I also love that we're talking about how we also give time credit for a lot of things that we shouldn't.

Vikki: Yeah.

Bonnie: Okay, I want to talk a bit more about time as an investment, because you mentioned this, and I was like, what?

Vikki: Yeah, yes. So the way I speak about time and think about time is really time is an asset. And, as you know, assets are investable. We often think about time as this thing that happens to us, as this thing that we can't control. But I'm sure everyone listening has an example where they have been able to do something today that created more or less time for them tomorrow.

So for example, I did a course called Time Investing Sprint. And one of the things that came up was someone teaching their kids to stack the dishwasher. And it was like at first, teaching your kid to stack the dishwasher is like a time investment. It requires time, it requires patience, you have to let them do it, they're going to mess it up, they're going to do it wrong, all of this stuff.

But then for three meals a day, for 18 years, and okay, not 18 years, maybe it's like 10 years and maybe it's two meals a day, whatever, your kids are now going to be stacking the dishwasher. That's like a return on time invested. So it's like even if it took you an hour, you're talking about getting literally thousands of hours back in that time invested.

And the reason why I like to think about time as an investment is because it allows us to play with it and see it as a resource for us, and see it as something that we can create more of in the future, just like money, just like other assets. And I think it's very powerful for us to start thinking about how do I want to invest my time today to create more time tomorrow?

Bonnie: Oh yeah. Yeah, so this is such a great conversation, because obviously, so many parallels to money. Because actually, one of the things I was talking to my audience about yesterday was I think passive income is everyone is like, “Whoa, I want passive income.” But it's never passive initially.

And it's not like I'm trying to ruffle their feathers or destroy their dreams of passive income. But nothing is passive in the beginning, if it was everyone would be doing it. And I think it's really similar to what you're saying about time. And so a lot of my audience, they’re high income earning physicians which means a lot of them have the ability to hire some help, right?

So we all kind of know that concept because a lot of them will hire someone to clean their home, for example, right? But even some people have trouble with that because they're very particular of how they want their house cleaned. Or even when I give them the idea of hiring an assistant, a personal assistant, when they get over the fact that, yes, you can have a personal system, you don't need to be Beyonce to have one.

But then where I see them sort of go sort of off the rails is it's almost like they're not willing to put in the time to help them do their job very well. And so I almost feel like it's two things. One is they just expect everyone will know how they want to do it immediately, as if they can read your mind.

Vikki: Yeah.

Bonnie: That’s not a thing.

Vikki: Yeah.

Bonnie: The second thing is and then when they figure that out, they're like, what, I have to spend time teaching you how to do this? And it's like they're not willing, it's not even like they're willing to put in the time. They're not willing to have that person try it and then not do it right. You know what I mean? So I feel like it's like an unwillingness. So what do you think?

Vikki: Seriously, you know my story of my own assistant this last year. And I think I went through a fair few, now it’s going great. But yeah, it is like the willingness for it to be messy, the willingness for it to not work.

And as you were speaking, I was thinking about your audience and how we think about becoming a doctor, we think about the financial investment. But everyone who is a doctor has made a significant time investment in their career. You’ve actually got so many examples of already doing it.

I think the issue is less like an unwillingness and really just like as a society we're not thinking, we're not seeing the value in this. We're not speaking about the value in this. So we're up against our brains are primed for results now and immediately.

Bonnie: Yes.

Vikki: And then we've got a society that's rushing us along and not having these kinds of conversations and not thinking about time as an investable asset. And we've got our own primitive desire to not fail.

Those things together are like a recipe for, oh, it's just easier to just do it myself. I'll keep doing what I've always done. And then 10 years later we're like, this is literally impossible. I'm burnt out. I'm literally doing things I don't even want to be doing.

Bonnie: Yeah, plus the narrative that we should do everything ourselves. And we almost like judge– And I definitely used to feel this way so I think this is really common. Where like you judge women who are well rested. It's so messed up because they should be doing more.

Vikki: Yeah.

Bonnie: They have too much help. What’s going on? I do everything, she should be doing that too. I think there's a lot of that.

Vikki: Well, this is like the secret weapon of the patriarchy, is turning women against each other and making a right and wrong way. And, unfortunately, it's how we've been conditioned to think. And unlearning that is a process and does come up.

And you know my story of taking a few months off last year and even I'll tell you today and yesterday I spent most of the day in bed. And you’d think I rest, I promote rest, I speak about rest. My brain decided to be a bitch about it and be like, well, you could have done something. Which maybe we should of or maybe we should be. Is this really necessary, two days of rest on top of working like, you’ve not even worked 15 hours this week?

And it's like just recognizing that there's a narrative in your brain that has been conditioned and taught and told to you. And really, we just get to choose what we do with that narrative. But there is no place where you are necessarily going to get rid of that voice completely.

Bonnie: Yeah, I think women, we’re also if you're not doing something with your time, you're lazy.

Vikki: This is like such a big one, I have to tell you, that comes up. And even for me, when I first created my own 15 hour work week, just so everyone knows, that's part of what I do. We challenge time rules and norms, and probably some of you are like what the fuck is that? We won’t go too far into it.

But when I first did, I found in my free time I was making it productive. I was like, I'll go on a two hour walk, I will read a book, I will listen to a podcast. It still had to all be–

Bonnie: Time filling, right?

Vikki: Yeah, productive. Like this idea that our time is to be productive. If that's like the correct thing, is our time is supposed to be productive instead of our time is just our time. We don’t need to be productive even in our off time. And something that a lot of my clients will do, is they'll start to have more time and space and they'll start to fill it with like, okay, I'm going to do yoga and then go to the gym, and then I'm going to do a meditation.

Bonnie: I’m just laughing.

Vikki: Is that what’s happening with you?

Bonnie: Because it’s like I think we could all relate to that, right?

Vikki: Yeah, yeah. And it's the same mindset, it’s this idea that our time should be productive, that we should be productive. It's the factory mindset.

Bonnie: All the time.

Vikki: Yeah, our best use of our time is to be doing, mindset.

Bonnie: And I almost feel like, so especially as doctors during our training, right? So it's a lot better now than the prior generation, where they would work 100 hours a week and people would be like, “What, you can't handle three hours of sleep?” It's gotten a lot better. But I almost feel like there's this animosity towards specialties where we actually get the right amount of sleep.

As a dermatologist, that's one of the specialties, right? Because maybe time wise we don't work as many hours as other doctors, our hours are regular. It's almost like a badge of honor to be working all the time and not sleeping enough, but still functional. Which is not true, right?

Vikki: Yes.

Bonnie: And so I just want to mention that. And the last thing I want to talk about is about the time as an investment piece. Because I think when you mentioned the 15 hour workweek you were like I know some of you are like, “What is going on here?” But that's because so many of us think time creates money. We're giving time all the credit, and not just that, but we think if people are making a lot of money–

Well, for example, our business coach Stacy Boehman, she works 15 hours a week and her business made about $10 million last year. And then people are like, “She must clearly be doing something weird and shady. That's not right.” I could hear people saying that, right?

Because we think there must be something like, I was going to say woo-woo, but in a bad way. Like she's being shady or she's immoral for being able to do that. Because we've been fed the narrative that you need to work hard, which includes a lot of time, in order to make a lot of money.

Vikki: Versus what are we able to create in that time? I do think we touched on this earlier, but we aren't robots, right? Our biggest value is not in in out, in out, it really is. And even for doctors, like your ability to problem solve and think creatively and solve problems for your clients and help them find solutions.

And I think probably what's happening a lot in the medical world, you tell me, is the pressure to see X number of clients in a day or to see all these people is actually taking away from our capacity or from their capacity to make decisions, right?

I told you I was invited into a program for doctors to coach and someone literally said this had been a decision and they hadn’t known what to do and there's like a right and a wrong. And it feels very pressured because there's lives on the line. And in the medical industry it can feel pressured and drastic–

Bonnie: High stakes.

Vikki: Yeah, so therefore that puts more pressure on the decision. But if you're putting more pressure on the decision and then you're like back to back with all the people, then that decision just doesn't get made and doesn't get made. And when you aren't making a decision, you are making a decision. And what I mean by that is when we aren't making a decision, we are deciding typically no.

So her decision was about whether to prescribe a medication to a client that hadn't shown up in person, when that was the condition of the medication. And it's like putting off the decision is not an option because by putting off the decision you aren't giving the prescription.

Bonnie: Right.

Vikki: So the decision is made then, it’s out of your hands. And I just think this idea that we should be squeezing as much as possible into our days or having as long days as possible, what's it actually doing to our ability to make decisions? Especially because, I mean, doctors are intelligent. Your biggest skill is not in being like a–

Bonnie: A factory worker.

Vikki: A factory worker, and a yes person, and an in and out person, all of this. And I've spoken to you about this before, and I will say there’s certain industries, doctors, lawyers, I come from finance and investing where you guys are up against old fashioned institutions where there's a lot of rules and decisions made from a time when women couldn't even vote. From a time when technology was nowhere near as pervasive as it is now, when we did not have a 10th of the roles and expectations on us as we do now.

So I think you guys are up for an interesting challenge. But at the same time, that's why it's so important for you to separate yourself from this idea that things take time, from this idea that time creates your results, from this idea that time happens to you and we are victims to time, because you kind of don't have the luxury of– I think for me, as an entrepreneur, I really get to do what I want. And for you guys entering into that institutional world, it's a different ballgame.

Bonnie: Yeah. I feel like I could go on and on about how for those of us who are employees working for large hospital systems, you know, they tell us what we can and can't do. And that's a whole other story about autonomy.

And I didn't even think about what you were saying, like it makes sense if we're pressured to see– Because I've definitely been told that in certain places I used to work, it's not even like the number of patients, but you need to have it's like a permutation of number of patients plus procedures, blah, blah, blah so that you make the most money.

It's not that time creates my ability to make decisions. But if we’re packing in more patients then I can't use my brain to the fullest extent that I've been trained to do.

Vikki: Yeah.

Bonnie: And really help the patient really actually create a result that's going to be great for them. So that's a whole other conversation because the way doctors are paid doesn't account for that. But you and I aren't going to solve this in the next five minutes.

Vikki: Yeah, but right now, but yeah, I think for these old industries it is about thinking, do we want to just keep accepting how they are? Do we want to start moving towards how they could be?

So I'm in your Defining Wealth for Women pop up group and I even saw a conversation come up there of someone saying like, well, this is great for doctors that earn great money. And you having that conversation of like but we're always choosing the kind of doctor we are. We can be a doctor that prioritizes private practice or whatever it is. It comes back to the decisions that we make. And the very first thing we said on this podcast, which is like owning that we're choosing instead of–

Bonnie: Blaming time.

Vikki: Yeah, exactly.

Bonnie: All right. Well, I think this was an amazing conversation. And I agree, I think I'm going to have to re-listen to it myself. But I just recommend you re-listen to this again, because I think a lot of the things we said, for most people are going to be like, “What are they talking about?” Which is good, I love when I listen to an episode and I'm so excited to listen to it again. So I think this is definitely one of those episodes.

Thank you so much for being here and having this chat with me.

Vikki: Yeah, thanks so much for having me and for bringing this conversation to your community.

Bonnie: Yeah, how can people find you if they want to learn more about you?

Vikki: Yeah, so I'm on Instagram @feministtimecoach. I have a website, vikkilouise.com where you can download the four biggest time wasters and what to do about them. V-I-K-K-I, just so you know. And I have a podcast called Hack Your Time.

Bonnie: Yeah, so we'll put all those links in the show notes so people can just easily click on that.

All right, see you guys next week.

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