A physician career coach can be a valuable partner in your career transition. They can help you identify opportunities for improvement in your personal and professional life, which could lead to greater satisfaction overall. Gaining an outside perspective is a useful way to learn about yourself and your goals.
Here to learn more on this important topic, is Dr. Mat Daniel is a pediatric otorhinolaryngologist, educator, and coach who specializes in career development and leadership for doctors. He has a Masters degree in Coaching and Mentoring and is one of few coaches to have studied coaching at such an advanced level. He is also a licensed career coach and accredited with the European Mentoring and Coaching Council. If you feel you are at a point in your career that you are feeling unfulfilled, hiring a career coach might be an ideal solution.
Dr. Mat Daniel’s website:
https://matdaniel.net/
Dr. Mat Daniel’s Physician Coaches Profile:
https://www.physiciancoaches.com/coaching-category/mat-daniel-mmed-ma-coaching-phd
Transcript:
Dr. Mike Woo-Ming: Hey guys, this is Dr. Mike Woo-Ming. Welcome to another edition of Bootstrap MD. From time to time, I love to spotlight coaches who work with physicians to help them achieve the solutions that they’re looking for, and I was really impressed why. My next guest in terms of what he’s done and how he’s helped other doctors achieve what they achieve, their successes.
He has over 30 years experience in healthcare working as a consulted pediatric Otorhinolaryngologist. He has a PhD in Master’s in Coaching and mentoring, a master’s in medical education. These are leadership roles at university, regional and national level. He’s appraiser and a consult. Peer mentor and he’s passionate about diversity and he feels that coaching is a natural extension of his work as a doctor.
And he’s driven by wish to help others. Underpinned by his core values, curiosity, love of learning, honesty, fairness and kindness. And he really think he has based, just based upon his experience in the years of doing this and having a accredited degree in coaching, I really. Feel that he’s someone, if you’re looking in the areas of, especially in career, maybe you’re struggling in a career and you’re looking for help, you can explain why coaching is probably the most important thing that you can do.
So I’d like to welcome to the program Mat, Daniel. Mat, how are you my friend?
Mat Daniel MMEd MA(Coaching) PhD: Fine. Thank you Mike. And thank you very much for that introduction and thank you very much for having me on your amazing podcast.
Dr. Mike Woo-Ming: Now as I get older and listening to a lot of music over the years, my hearing isn’t as great as it could be, but I do detect that you do not have an American accent as most of my guests are Americans. Where are you? Where are you from and where are you calling in from today?
Mat Daniel MMEd MA(Coaching) PhD: I have an accent that very few people get. So I actually live in Nottingham, England, but I was born in Belgium and I grew up in Slovenia. My mom was Slovenian, I’m a bit Austrian, a bit Italian. My dad was Scottish and I, and that, all of that happened via Australia as well so it’s one of those accents that’s well travelled.
Dr. Mike Woo-Ming: Yeah. And where are you calling in from today?
Mat Daniel MMEd MA(Coaching) PhD: Nottingham, England.
Dr. Mike Woo-Ming: In England. Okay. If you’re gonna say Kansas City, I’d be like, totally blown, blown away. So let’s talk about this. You’re one of the few guests that I know has had a long career in coaching and been in involved with this. So tell me about how this journey is, because it certainly doesn’t sound like you started in.
Mat Daniel MMEd MA(Coaching) PhD: No, I started on a fairly standard clinical career. Always knew that I was interested in making a difference to other people and ended up in surgery, in otolaryngology with that. But fairly early on during my training, I realized that one of the things that really mattered to me was also.
Developing others and developing people around me and teamwork. And even as a trainee, I got involved in undergraduate medical education and attached myself to the university person who became my mentor and still is a really influential person. My career followed them around, started writing multiple choice questions.
And then, naturally progressed from their onwards into having much more of an education role, both in the undergraduate world as well as the postgraduate world. Although at the moment I mostly focus my education undergraduate world. And I think coaching really came along with that cuz it’s another way that I can help people.
I have patients that come in and, maybe I take the tonsils out. I have undergraduate students, they come and I teach them otolaryngology. And I have colleagues that need help with their career and I use coaching to help them with that. And some of that will be through one-to-one discussions.
But a lot of what coaching does for me, to be honest, for me become a way of leading and it’s become a way of being. With people around me and the coaching training that I’ve done, the way that I’ve developed myself as the skills and attitudes that I’ve acquired during my journey of learning to be a coach and, and it is still an ongoing journey.
A lot of that has actually been super useful in terms of how I interact with the team around me and… The theater team, for example, in the operating theater would be a really good example about how I tend to use my coaching skills as a way of leading to bring the team together to foster teamwork.
And when I first started doing things, coaches coaching type stuff, they all thought, has he gone mad? But years later I think they, they all embrace it and they all know. What it’s for. At least that’s what they tell me, Mike, maybe they talk behind my back, something else, who knows? But I think they enjoy it.
Dr. Mike Woo-Ming: So almost every coach that I have interviewed or been in contact with have had their own coach. And it sounds like you, you yourself benefited from that by having that mentor. Maybe you could talk a little bit more about how, maybe personally, how it affected your coach.
Maybe what problems you, you had and how did the coach assist you in helping you get to that.
Mat Daniel MMEd MA(Coaching) PhD: Yeah so actually you’re right. I got into coaching by having coaching and it made a massive difference to me personally. And that really sparked my interest in saying actually, you know, this is incredibly powerful.
I had coaching a number of years ago. I had significant health problems at the time and… that caused me to pause and reevaluate where my life and where my career is going. And as yourself or any of your listeners, if you have a big life event, it happens. You do pause and you do reconsider.
And our medical careers, they’re a bit like treadmills. You hop on when you are. And you run and you run from one role to the next. And and sometimes you pause and think and other times you just keep running and keep running. And I had to an event which paused me to step off the treadmill and reevaluate and think, where am I going?
And I work with the coach to. To decide what do I want from my life going forward? What kind of difference do I want to make? What kind of a person do I want to be? And and that those were the kind of questions really that influenced me and what came out of that discussion. Was for me specifically, this interest in developing others and, that’s always been there.
But probably not quite so crystal clear, but through working with my own coach it helped me really focus on that and say, actually, what I, what do I want my life to be about? And I want my life to be about developing others. And then, That, that’s become a really big thing for me and that for the years since I first got coaching, that’s something that’s permeated and that’s guided what I’ve done and how I worked and what kind of a person I’ve been.
Yeah, really transformational for me personally. As I’m sure a lot of your other interviewees have also said,
So being a doctor, so why in particular do you like working with doctors? Or maybe you don’t? I’m not You, you, on your website, you are a physician coach and you’re also featured in our, on our website, physician coaches.com.
What maybe some unique experiences that physicians have or any healthcare professional have that maybe someone who’s a non-physician may not know or experience.
Okay. I think it worldwide. I think there is a disconnect between what people go into healthcare for and what then happens. And I think that’s problematic and as shown up by the way, that so many of our healthcare systems are struggling.
So the thing is that, At the age of 16, 18, we’re taking enthusiastic people who want to change the world, who are altruistic, who want to make a difference to other and somewhere along the line they join a system that doesn’t necessarily look after them particularly well. That tries to pigeonhole them into specific category, that denies them flexibility of careers that makes it very difficult to work flexibly at least as a trainee.
And I like the people that are in healthcare. I’m sure there are similar people in other organizations, right? I like the people in healthcare because I think fundamentally we are a nice bunch of people who wants to help others, who wants to make a difference in the world. And fundamentally, when I coach people, you know that’s how I see, I coach people who want to make a difference to others.
And I think that for me, makes me think, okay, this kind of person… I want to spend some of my time helping them. And the problem is that sort of when it comes to the world of careers it’s often difficult for people to progress their careers in the direction that they want to progress.
Whether that’s around choosing specialties. Passing exams, how do you get the job? Do you choose leadership positions? What kind of life balance do you have? How you lead the team, what kind of relationships you have, how do you use emotional intelligence to have high quality relationships with the people around you?
And those kinds of things are really difficult. So I think on the one hand we have. Altruistic people who want to make a difference to other, but we have them working in a system that is really challenging, that isn’t necessarily designed in a way that, that makes it easy for people to thrive and for people to succeed.
And I think that really That’s why I like coaching in that space. Yeah. Because fundamentally I think it’s full of nice people who want to make a difference. And if I can support somebody to progress their career, so that’s ultimately that they’re making a difference to others, then through that person, I too am making a difference to the other person, to, to the other person’s patience.
And the thing about careers is that. I think career success for us as physicians comes with seniority or certainly it’s a lot easier to have career success as seniority. But that’s often quite difficult to get there. When you are a trainee it’s difficult to make decisions.
It’s difficult to balance, other priorities with your career. And e even when you do. Fully qualified. There’s still a whole load of challenges that become about how one works. And if I can help people do that, if I can help people have successful careers then that means that person has a successful, meaningful career, which makes a difference to their patients and I guess through them, then I make a difference to their patients also.
Dr. Mike Woo-Ming: Now, I know you talked about one of your focuses is on in coaching is career coaching, and I think there’s maybe some confusion about what exactly is a career coach. Maybe you can help dispel some of those myths for us. What is a career coach and what exactly how do you help them and what exactly do you do to help them?
Mat Daniel MMEd MA(Coaching) PhD: Yeah it’s a great question and I wish that question got asked more often. And I think probably different people will define it differently. So I can give you my definition and how I work, but I know that other people might work differently. So I think.
The way that I would work as a career coach would be about asking questions to help the person decide where they want to take their career and how they want to get there. So it’s about what decisions do they want to make and it’s about how they get there. Now, the problem that I often hear and this often arises with people that are looking to leave clinical careers and people often will say for whatever reason they’re unhappy in the clinical career.
And they want to do something else but they don’t know what to do. And there’s an expectation that, that somebody will give you a series of tests and analyze you and tell you, and the ideal career for you is X and the reality is that, that just doesn’t exist.
Yeah. The way that I would, I would label that. Career Guidance. Yeah. If you imagine of when you’re at school, you go to see, to career guidance or career counselor, you have a series of tests done and then, you get a list of 10 ideal careers. The problem with that approach is that when it comes to working with grownups, people probably already know.
An awful lot of that for themselves and it just isn’t simple to reduce careers down to a list of 7, 8, 9, or 10, not list of which is that the careers that exist today, they might not exist in 10 years anymore, or those careers that might be suitable for somebody today, they’re gonna be completely different in 10 years time.
And actually, one of the things that I often see in my career, coaching is a lot of anxiety cuz, people are worried about making the wrong decisions and usually if that’s the case, we then have a discussion about, okay how do you make a decision, number one and number two, is there such a thing as a wrong decision?
And number three. We’re making decisions today with limited information because, who knows what it’s, what’s it gonna be like to be an orthopedic surgeon in 10 years time, or 20 years time, or 30 years time? So when it comes to co to, so career’s guidance, career counseling, that would be somebody doing a series of tests and then getting a printout that tells you can do X, Y, and Z and that in, in the world of groans up is just far too simplistic.
Yeah. So career coaching would be around, me asking questions to help people figure out and the typical way that I would work in careers coaching with somebody who’s trying to make a decision whether they, whatever they wanna do within healthcare or within medicine or outside, or whether they take leadership roles or which specialty.
So the starting point would be around, what matters to them? What makes them come alive? What are the values? What are the peak moments? So some of that will be paying attention to what they really enjoy, and then looking back at their careers as to what’s been really successful.
What made them thrive? What were the peak achievements that they’ve had? Perhaps focusing on what are they good at and asking the people around them, what am I good at? And outta that, you produce a list of things that, that you want. So this is what I want in my future career.
And you might end up with, maybe seven to 10, not seven to 10 careers, but seven to 10 things that you would want in your future career. Yeah. And, and that might be working with the team or it might. Life balance, or it might be a rural environment, or it might be working from home, or it might be doing procedures, or it might be, doing something that’s really an intellectual challenge, different for everybody, but you end up with, 7, 8, 9, 10 things that I would want in my career.
And then once you have that list, then the next step then is saying, okay, what kind of career? Potentially would meet these needs in me. And then me as the coach together with the coachee and their friends and family and people around them. We brainstorm and they go away and think about it and ask people around them about, this is what I want in my career, what kind of careers would meet their needs.
Yeah. And then typically you find there’s that, that there’s. Usually 20, 30, 40 different careers that would all meet that kind of needs. And then the next stage then follows the process of deciding actually okay. There. There’s lots and lots of opportunities out there and people are usually surprised when they see that and they think, oh my God, there’s so much out there that potentially I could do that all would be a really good career.
And then of course that then comes some decision making about what they actually want to focus on. And that sort of often induces a bit of anxiety because people are afraid of closing doors because, if you go down in one route, that means you’re closing another avenue. So that introduces a little bit anxiety.
And sometimes one way that that one can overcome that would be, rather than making massive jumps into their unknown, you say, okay, now what small step can you take to find out more of what small step can you take to move you in that direction? So you then, get it down to, there’s maybe two or three that I want to explore.
And then the final step of the career coaching is the coach then goes out there and says, okay, these are two or three things that I’m interested in. I’m gonna go out and I’m going to find out more to see what it actually takes to get there. So that kind of would be a typical process, but the content largely comes from what the person wants and what they’re interested in and what drives them and what the values are and what they’re good at rather than diagnosing them and giving them a list. Yeah, and I’m glad you asked me because often people expect that, that I’ll plug them into a program and, and I’ll give them a spreadsheet what they need to do.
And, life is just not that simple.
Dr. Mike Woo-Ming: Yeah, I have a friend who is also in this discipline, and she was like, they come in and sometimes they think that I’m gonna give them a list of all these jobs that they can do right now, and here’s all the different employers.
That’s not what it’s all about. It’s about identifying, like you said, what they enjoy and then decide where they want to go. It’s not surprising to me that they feel like they made the wrong decision. Or they’re worried about making a wrong decision because oftentimes it sounds like they come in feeling they made the wrong decision many years ago and spent all this time and money in this case be becoming a doctor. How do you help over overcome that?
Mat Daniel MMEd MA(Coaching) PhD: I mean it’s interesting isn’t it, that people talk about that, that they’ve made the wrong decision because n normally the way I would start a conversation by how they make a decision and what is the wrong decision.
And like they’ve made the decision it was the right decision at the time. It might not be the right decision now, at the time it was the right decision. So usually. If they come with something like that I would probably. Probably just have a little bit of a philosophical check about, is there such a thing as a wrong decision?
There are just decisions, aren’t they? Yeah. Ma made with good reasons. Yeah. So that would be the first thing. The second thing, I think when it comes to healthcare careers and, my own personal disclaimer is I enjoy my healthcare career. I think healthcare is a very rewarding career.
It’s a tough career. Yes. But I do enjoy my healthcare career. So that usually I bring that to any coaching conversations and anybody that claims on my website will hopefully see very clearly that that I do happen to think that Healthcare careers are rewarding.
I do have a portfolio career as do you. And there are lots of us out there, the sort of, that are interesting portfolio careers and entrepreneurship and, that adds extra things to my career and that gives me satisfaction that I don’t get. But fundamentally, I do enjoy healthcare and I do believe that healthcare is a good career.
So if somebody, Worried that they’ve made the wrong decision, then at the beginning I would probably try to understand what’s behind that. And, and that really serves two purposes. So the first pur purpose would be to, to unpick, whe whether we can really say that this was a wrong decision because, maybe they come say in the field, this is the wrong decision.
But it turns out that they are being bullied by a line manager, for example. They’ve been bullied by the head of department and they say, they hate their job because they’ve been bullied by the head of department. And if that person then has the courage to go and change and work in a different department.
The problems resolved, so the medicine wasn’t the wrong decision. The wrong decision was working in that particular department. Or people will come and say they felt they made the wrong decision. But people are not good at putting up boundaries between their work life and other aspects of their life and, and the professional life over spills into every single aspect of the private life. And then actually what we then need to work on is boundaries to do that. So if people come feeling that they’ve made the wrong decision in medicine and they want to leave, understanding why they say that is important because, maybe they haven’t made their own decision at all and, and if it does turn out that actually truly is the wrong decision, then understanding what’s made it the wrong decision is super helpful.
When it comes to creating a career somewhere else, because if somebody says that they’ve made the wrong decision because they don’t like the pressures of having to make life and death decisions, or they don’t like the pressure of having to make really significant decisions, then when it comes to a career change, That’s really useful because you then know that they want a career that does not involve life in their decisions.
Or if somebody says that, they don’t like healthcare because they’re responsible for a hundred patients all at the same time and they really struggle to pay attention to a hundred things, which, most of us as physicians all of the time, we are juggling so many different things. So if somebody says they can’t deal with that, then we know when we’re looking for a career change, we’re looking for something that means that they sit down and they focus just on the one thing.
Yeah. And that’s just a different way of being. Of course, in healthcare, you can also have a career. The focus is just on the one thing. But understanding what makes somebody say that it was their own decision. If it really is the wrong decision, which often it’s not then you can at least understand what it is they’re looking for.
And then instead of doing a away move, so instead of saying, I’m running away from medicine because I don’t like the pressure, or I’m running away from medicine. Because I don’t like having to spin so many different plates. Instead of that, you’re making them towards me. So I’m making a move towards a career that allows me to just focus on one thing at once, or I’m moving towards the kind of career where I can make decisions that influence, quality of life, for example or money or finances rather than lives.
Yeah. And that sort of moving, doing towards moves rather than the way he moves that from is a really important career concept.
Dr. Mike Woo-Ming: That’s really powerful. In my own experience, as a primary care physician, I didn’t particularly like working in the hospital. It just, I was not my thing to do.
So why would I be born to become a hospitalist? I realized I can start my own practice and in wellness and weight loss. And I enjoyed that. And I enjoyed that population. But for the most part, you can leverage what you already have if you are a physician.
I don’t know how often you come across it, but I don’t think you’ve had many people say, you know what? I just don’t want to take care of humans. Now I wanna take care of animals. I’m gonna go to a veterinarian. Probably unlikely. There are probably. As you say, there are activities that you can do in medicine that let’s say you want to be more involved in public health, or maybe you want to be speakers maybe you wanna be, be involved in public relations or be of a hospital or.
Another avenue that you can go to that really focuses on the sprints, on the things that you like to do, and having that credibility as a physician will open doors more often or not. Would you agree?
Mat Daniel MMEd MA(Coaching) PhD: Yeah, absolutely. And again, I share your personal opinion and as a coach, I make that very clear that, that is what I believe in.
So that there are so many careers in healthcare and, as a fully qualified physician, Undoubtedly it opens doors for you. If I think of my own career, I have three different aspects. I’ve got my coaching career, I’ve got my medical education, and I’ve got my clinical career.
And the fact that I am successfully in my clinical career has very much opened the other two doors for me. And, yes, it is a question of finding out where your place in medicine is. Medicine is such a wide area that there really is. For everybody. And we talked about whether you like hospitals or you like sort to work with lots of people or just with one people.
All of that is possible in healthcare. And a lot of the things that people struggle in healthcare, people say, oh I don’t like responsibility, or, I don’t like the pressure, or I struggle with work-life balance. Newsflash those things are there in all the other career also. You find a career that’s that’s gonna give you a six figure income with no stress that’s that, you can do for a couple of hours a day, from a beach.
I think we’re probably all gonna go there, aren’t we? They don’t exist. Yeah, they don’t exist. Those kinds of careers, where wherever you go if you want a career that’s making a difference, you’re gonna be having responsibility. If you want a career that gives you good income, you’re gonna be having to work hard, easy careers that, that with no responsibility and big income.
Like there, there’s no such thing. And sometimes what people need is. Is sometimes people need a bit of a reality check and to realize that actually as physicians we are actually quite well paid and we are well respected and, and if you leave being a physician, you’re probably gonna find of, there’s a really tough world out, they’re far tougher than healthcare, number one.
And what people need is a set of skills that enable them. To have a rich, successful, meaningful career. And those skills are needed in healthcare. Those skills are needed in business. They’re needed in an industry, and anywhere else that you go, you need to have the skills. That means that yes, you can be successful.
And yes, you can switch off and yes, where you draw the boundaries. And yes, you can make decisions about how much you want to work or not, they’re not healthcare specific skills. They’re skills that you need. Whatever sector you are in.
Dr. Mike Woo-Ming: Yeah. Yeah. That’s very interesting that you say that they’re looking for this no responsibility and just sit on the beach and like you said, in society money.
What is money? Money is given. If you can provide value right to whatever you’re doing I’ll, because you’re in Europe, I’ll give you… Messi right in, in football, right? So they pay him millions and millions of dollars cuz he’s very valuable to that team. If he couldn’t if he couldn’t hit the ball into the net.
He wouldn’t be getting all of this and all of these endorsements. He’s very valuable. So what that’s part of being a career is how much value that you’re going to give to whatever who’s ever paying you, for that. And that does involve responsibility. And that is how we are it, money’s not the only way that we determine our self worth, but in the society, that’s how it goes.
Mat Daniel MMEd MA(Coaching) PhD: The other thing also that’s relevant to hear is that the people that I talk to often, they are people that want to make a difference. Yeah. Yeah. There’re people that have entered healthcare because they wanted to make a difference to the lives of others, and they still want to make a difference to the lives of others.
Yeah. They just they want to do it in a way that’s sustainable, they want to be successful at it. They don’t want to burn out, but they still want to make a difference to the lives of others. And, sitting on the beach. You’re probably not making a difference to the lives of others, and they might be occupations where you can sit in a beach and do nothing and earn a nice salary.
I’m sure they exist, but you’re not making a difference to others. If you are wanting to be making a difference to others, that, that means there’s gonna be some work that’s going to be involved. And if you sit on the beach and then lots of. I dunno. Would that be a meaningful career?
I’m not sure that it would, it would be income, yes. And you might be fabulously wealthy, but would that give you a meaningful career? I’m not sure that it would, but, the people that come to me, and most of the people that I see in healthcare, they’re there because they want a meaningful career.
And that does mean that’s, there’s gonna be work involved.
Dr. Mike Woo-Ming: Yeah, I always like to say, leaving a legacy, you know what and this might sound a little bit morbid, what’s it gonna say on your your gravestone, right? What did you do, what it’s gonna say in your obituary?
When my dad passed away a couple years ago, it was like, wow, he had a really meaningful career. And we didn’t even realize it at the time when he was a pediatrician and, all the things that he had did not only just in medicine, but outside of medicine. And that at the end, is what do you wanna leave?
And I think legacy is that’s why, I’m trying to see as help as many people as I can because I wanna build that legacy for me and my.
Mat Daniel MMEd MA(Coaching) PhD: Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. And that, that idea really permeates the coaching discussions that I have with people is because, we are, we’re all here because we want to make a difference.
That’s why we’re in healthcare. Vast majority of us at least, even though perhaps we’ve forgotten. 16 years ago, there was a little boy that wanted to make a difference and, and you need to find that little boy again and and resurrect him and say, okay, you’re doing this cuz you want to make a difference.
Go or and, it’s rediscovering that and rediscovering that passion and you know that, that. Creates a meaningful career and yeah. Question about what do you want your legacy to be? That’s one of my stock questions in my first stage of my coaching discussion.
Dr. Mike Woo-Ming: Little boys and little girls too as well.
Mat Daniel MMEd MA(Coaching) PhD: Yeah. Boys, as in I’m a little boy or was, so that that’s why it’s gendered. Yeah.
Dr. Mike Woo-Ming: This has been a very fascinating discussion. Where can people go if they’re looking and looking for help in this area? I know you not only work with career coaching, leadership coaching as well.
Mat Daniel MMEd MA(Coaching) PhD: Where can they go to get more information about you and potentially working with you?
So the, probably the best thing is to look up my website, which is www.matdaniel.net, so m a t d a n i e l dot net. And there’s information there about me. And usually if somebody’s interested in coaching I would arrange a chemistry session, and I do that as a one hour free coaching session.
And I think that’s really important because if somebody wants to work with me, it’s key that they know what I have to offer them and that they can work with me. And equally it’s key that I need to know that I have what it takes to offer that person. So very much two-way discussion to make sure that we can work together.
And that’s how my coaching starts.
Dr. Mike Woo-Ming: Dr. Daniel, this has been really I said very insightful and fascinating. Any last minute thoughts before we end our call today?
Mat Daniel MMEd MA(Coaching) PhD: Thank you very much for having me on your brilliant podcast. And I’m, I was looking through the episodes. I can’t believe how many episodes you’ve done, Mike, so thank you very much for having me.
Dr. Mike Woo-Ming: Thank you. I think it really shined the light on the importance of coaching and especially for those maybe who are struggling in your career. Coaching is the number one thing that you can do to help you define the the solutions to the whatever you need and help you determine what your legacy or whatever you want to achieve is.
So thank you Mat. Thank you for the time. And as always guys, if you’re struggling out there and you’re not sure where to go or what to do there’s always someone who’s probably been there and done that. They can help point the way, show you the way, maybe give you some other options that are out there.
As always, don’t just sit on it and think about it. Find real solutions to these problems and keep moving forward.