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For Love, Fun or Money; Why I Chose a Side-Gig

adrmomandablog

About a month or two after starting my side gig business, a good friend and mentor asked me, ” So tell me, is this new business for love, fun or money?”  I had to pause for a second as I hadn’t really thought about it….and this was the dialogue in my head; well, I signed up hoping to make an extra income, I ended up loving the products, and I’m having a lot of fun doing it…So I answered. “YES!”  I’m breaking it down in my blog for all my friends giving me the side eye and because it has become a big part of life and well, my blog IS my life!

MONEY:  Yes, I’m a pediatrician and yes, I’m still working.  Yes, my husband is a doctor as well.  BUT,  we are still both paying off our student loans and rather than working more hours as a pediatrician away from my kids and their activities, I was looking for something I could do on my own time.  After being in the business 6 months, I have made a (small) dent in my loans and hope to pay them off completely in 1-2 years! Could I make more money if I worked more as a doctor…probably (although not much) but I wouldn’t be available to my kids like I am now which is immensely important to me and for which I am so grateful.

LOVE:  yes, I LOVE the products.  Before I even tried it I was so impressed with the results and the research behind the products.  We now have 150 physicians within the company. After trying the products, I’m hooked!  I will forever sell the products to at least just get what I want (need) for free!

FUN: YUP…it’s really fun!  I get to have parties with friends, for friends, at friends’ houses, hangout, drink wine, show off my developing cheese board skills and talk about products I love.  I’ve made friends with amazing people that I would have never met. And I’ve reconnected with people that I hadn’t talk to in years! Whether I make a sale or not really doesn’t matter because I’ve already gained from the connections or reconnections.

But there’s one more (BIG) thing.  About 2 years ago I went on a life changing journey with about 45 other like-minded moms.  It was a transformative experience and it started me on my self development path.  I strived to be better and use what we learned in my daily life.  It prompted me to start this blog and share my soul on the internet (way out of my comfort zone).  But as time passed those feelings faded and it was so hard for me to keep them alive in my mundane every day tasks…until my side-gig! With this company there is a culture of striving to be better, doing the little things every day to see the change in the long term, there is a huge emphasis on self development.  I have read (and finished) more self development books in the past 6 months than I had in my whole life.  I have made a vision board with my daughter. I have gone on a medical mission trip  I am more deliberate in my actions and how they will benefit me (I have majorly cut back on TV/netflix…that’s HUGE for me!) And for the first time, possibly as an adult, I’m being appreciated and acknowledged for my accomplishments, no matter how small. The culture of medicine is daunting at times and being involved in a side gig has been unbelievably refreshing. (See previous publication in kevin MD for more on that.)

I am not trying to sell anyone on this side-gig or another (at least not in this post!)  Just merely sharing my experiences and my why(s)! I know everyone has their own opinions about me, the products, the business…etc! But as I learned at my very uplifting conference… “other people’s opinions will not pay your bills!”

 

 

 

 

 

 

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No Shaming Allowed

adrmomandablog
girl standing in the middle of the road
Photo by Andre Melcher on Pexels.com

Recently I received that dreaded call, no, not the one about lice (although we’ve had our share!), you know the one from another mom about your kid hurting their kid.  Yup…that one!  My thing 2.  It wasn’t her first and probably wouldn’t be her last time.  Of course, I was a little devastated, went through the stages of denial, anger, and finally acceptance. (Denial stage was very short)   I told my husband, distressed and distraught, and he responded “good for her,” until he realized that’s the wrong answer.

So why am I writing about this in a public forum that’s read mostly by people I know?  Why aren’t I hiding under a rock or changing schools? Mostly because I refuse to believe I’m the only mom that’s dealing with behavioral problems.  Because I hope my friends (my true friends) would not judge me or my daughter based on this incident. Because I believe in having “a village of support,” whether it’s virtual or actual.  We can not and should not be doing this alone.  Our modern times have made it so that we move away from family and isolate ourselves in our own lives because of our busy schedules.  But here’s the thing,  I need you.  I need you to tell me it’s ok and your kid has done something else that isn’t stellar.  Because we’ve all been there.  In some form or another, we have ALL had that moment that we wish we could hide and pretend that thing that happened never happened.  But it did and it will probably happen again.

So, the big question….what did we do? Or more importantly what didn’t we do….? Well, we didn’t ground her for life.  We didn’t take away every fun toy she owned, we didn’t take away all privileges for the foreseeable future.  We just didn’t see the point in all that.  The “punishment” just wouldn’t have fit the “crime!” My thing 2 is a free spirit.  She is bold and strong willed.  She is fiercely independent and will try endlessly to do it her way. (Don’t ever try to help her without asking!)  Are these amazing qualities…YES!!!! Do they sometimes (a lot of times) drive me crazy…..yes! But I’m not going to change her nor do I want to! I love her free spirit and at times envy it.  (I was and still am such a rule follower.)

We set up a consequence that fit the incident, we made sure she apologized. We talked with her about the possible appropriate ways she could have handled the situation. And then I hugged her tight and looked in her the eyes and said I know the warm, loving person that she is and I don’t want anyone else to ever think she wasn’t that person because of her actions. I don’t condone her actions but I made sure she knew that SHE was not those actions and that she needed to portray herself as the beautiful, caring, loving person that she really is.

We should support our children and we should support each other.  There’s no shame in the mothering game. All of our children will at some point do something that is unacceptable and will make us cringe.  But it also stems from all the wonderful attributes in them.  We need to nurture these qualities and lead them on the path to use their skills for good and not evil!

  • How do you deal with your children’s behavior?  Do you share with your friends and hope for support?  Do you usually get that support or advice or just glaring stares?

Your kids require you most of all to love them for who they are, not to spend your whole time trying to correct them. —Bill Ayers

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Don’t Judge Me…!

adrmomandablog

I think of myself as pretty non-judgmental.  I listen to my friends with an open mind and an open heart.  I know I don’t do it all perfect (or anywhere close to perfect) and have no expectations of anyone else doing it perfect.  I actually make a conscience effort not to judge.  BUT my subconscious on the other hand, that’s a different story!

I find myself waiting in line at the supermarket judging how people dress, peek into their carts to see what they’re buying.  I judge people when I’m driving and they are speeding, honking, cutting me off (like I’ve never done that…)  I judge people in a split second, literally.  But I’m trying to make those unconscious judgments conscious and stop them.  I know nothing about those people, nothing, and yet I have the gall to judge anything about them.

And knowing someone does not make it any better.  It could be your best friend in the whole world, your kids, your spouse.  You really can’t judge their behavior or their feelings or their actions.  We really don’t know what’s going on in anyone else’s life.  Even the people closest to us sometimes have things that we just don’t know about. Or feel something that they aren’t sharing with us.

My first child completely spoiled me, he literally only cried when he was hungry or tired.  And the first month he cried a bit more because I was starving him (blog about mom guilt in a future post).

Once we added formula he was angelic.  My daughter on the hand was a screamer…naturally. And of course after having Thing 1, Thing 2 had a hard act to follow.  So there were times that I wanted to launch her out of the window. I could picture the whole thing happening in my head.  I just wanted it to stop.  I was exhausted and not running on all cylinders….

But I would never act on it and I knew I would never actually do it.  At one point I even said I could understand child abuse, NOT CONDONE IT, but understand it. (I’m an advocate for the little people, child abuse is NEVER acceptable!)

If reading that last paragraph made you queasy or made you want to report ME for child abuse, I’m telling you now, we can’t be friends.  When I was feeling those feelings I needed my mom friends to say, I hear you, I’m here for you, and what you’re feeling is ok…hopefully while we are drinking a glass of wine.  There are so many things that we all do and don’t do, that we should do and shouldn’t do, that we want to do but can’t do, that we don’t want to do, but can’t stop.  I don’t need a lecture, and I usually don’t even need advice….I just need someone to listen and say; I hear ya sister…we’ve all been there!

So don’t judge me, I know I’m not perfect, not even close.  I know I have things that I can improve on and I’m  working really hard on trying to fix them (I really am) but I don’t need more mom guilt (I have enough).   The concept of judging favorably comes from the original self help book, the Bible.  (And if you’re not religious, that’s ok, because it’s really not about religion, it’s about living our best life!) I have attended a number of lectures on this topic (Lori Palatnik, Adrienne Gold, Sharon Shenker) and one of my favorite quotes is; “You are meeting this person in chapter 3, you don’t know what happened in chapters 1 and 2.” We can’t judge anyone if we are not walking in their shoes. And although you may know everything that’s happened with your kids or spouse, you don’t know their feelings, their interpretation of each situation and therefor you can’t judge their response.

If you need to vent about your kids driving you crazy, dreaming about running away to tropical Island, need to let off some steam about a fight you had with your spouse, even if you want to launch your baby out of a window…. come over, have a glass of wine and tell me about it…I won’t judge!

  • Do you feel like you get judged by others? In what circumstances?  Do you (consciously or unconsciously) judge? (No need to answer that, just something we all need to think about!)

Everyone has untold stories of pain and sadness that make them love and live a little differently than you do. Stop judging, instead try to understand. -Anonymous

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Attitude of Gratitude

adrmomandablog
affection appreciation decoration design
Photo by Carl Attard on Pexels.com

I have the privilege of being a doctor,  I have the distinct honor of taking care of people, little (very cute) people to be precise.  I don’t take this task lightly but much of what I do is run of the mill colds and flus, earaches and throat aches.  I work with a population which, for the most part, is healthy and I’m happy about that. But that doesn’t mean I don’t see my share of badness. Bad things happen to good people, bad things happen to little people.  Babies and young children that live and unfortunately die in hospitals.  As a doctor, we sometimes have to develop these hard shells to deal with it, to be able to keep going, to see another patient and then go home and hug our families. A recent visit melted my shell and shook me to the core.

The patient was a newborn baby boy and he was doing just fine.  His mother, on the other hand, was a young mother of 2 boys with a new diagnosis of terminal cancer, she was diagnosed only one month before giving birth to her second son.  A son she may never see walk or talk.  As she told me her story, she started crying and tears sprang to my eyes as well.  My shell was gone and in its place was fear, anger, sadness, hope and most of all gratitude.  Gratitude was my first thought as she shared her diagnosis.

I was doing a home visit and felt so fortunate that I could have the time to spend with her, that she didn’t have to sit in a waiting room full of germs, that I didn’t have to rush her because I had a roomful of patients waiting.  All I had to give her was my time and support and my prayers.

So why does it take this tremendous tragedy to make me feel gratitude? I wake up every morning (wishing I could go back to bed) checking my Facebook/Instagram and email (see previous post),  thinking about my day ahead, my errands, my schedule, my kids’ schedule, who needs to be where and when and how I’m going to get them there,  what am I making for dinner and whether I had time to sneak in a nap (I never do but I like to dream I do).  Of all those thoughts I have first thing in the morning, none of them are thoughts of gratitude.

First I should be grateful to be awake, that I have another day to live, to dream, to be,  to love. Then I could list 100 or  more things I should be grateful for on a daily basis (don’t worry, I won’t).  But if you are reading this then that means your list will be pretty long too!

I get so bogged down every day with mundane things and even get angry about them, why?  Because I’m human, because this is my world and sometimes I need to feel the petty things and then I need to let go of the petty things.  I’m working on the second part.

I told this mother that she was doing a great job, she had a beautiful healthy baby boy and she was instrumental in bringing him into this world.  She said to me she is blessed to have supportive family around her.  Let me repeat that, she said she is BLESSED to have supportive family.  At that moment, I was in awe, in her darkest times this women was able to see her life as blessed.  I stayed for a while and answered her questions, reassured her of how wonderful of a job she was doing, and left with a heavy heart and only one thought in my head, gratitude.

This does not mean I will now forever wakeup with only thoughts of gratitude, I wish it would, but I’m human.  I still get mad, sad, angry and frustrated even about the petty stuff. But I will strive everyday to live in gratitude. I will strive to always feel blessed as this courageous woman did.

  • How do you stay in gratitude?  How do you deal with the petty things?
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Disconnect to Connect

adrmomandablog

I’m not a blogger,  I’m a mom, a wife, a daughter, a sister, a friend and possibly least of all that is important to me…a doctor.  Being a doctor is amazing, in numerous ways and I worked incredibly hard for those 2 letters behind my name but everything else is….life….my life.  I couldn’t live without all those people in my life, I could live without the 2 letters behind my name.  So why am I blogging?  Basically becuase I want to share my thoughts with anyone who wants to listen, beacuse sometimes I want to write in a (public) diary, because I’ve been around long enough to know, if I’m thinking about it….probably others are too!
On my mind most recently, you have to disconnect to connect.  I always find it so ironic when I’m reading an article on facebook or other electronic modes of communication about ways to be more present in life and less attached to our devices…as I’m reading it on my device….
And now I’m writing about disconnecting from social media to be more involved in life and I’m doing it on….social media! THE IRONY!
Mostly, I just want to share my experience when I detached from social media for a short time (like a month).  It was hard,  like really hard.  It was like detoxing!  But here’s what happened, I got phone calls from people I never talk to, texts just to say hi, I reached to some people just to say hi and people reached out to me knowing I’m not on social media so that I would know something happening with them.  My husband was proud of me as he thinks it’s all a waste of time and there’s no need to know what Sue had for dinner last night and with whom. So that was all the good things…here’s some of the bad…I felt out of touch with people, I felt like I was on an island a little bit and had to rely on ships passing by to tell me the news. Mostly I missed my friends that I had been on a recent journey with, spiritually and physically, who didn’t live near me.  We had our own facebook page and seeing inspirational messages or update posts from them fed my soul.
Here’s another positive that people don’t want to admit…no one posts anything bad on facebook, everyone’s happy and smiling and doing something awesome.  No one is fighting with their husband, yelling at their kids, or washing the dishes.  So we all get this very skewed view of our friends’ lives and the green monster seeps in….it’s subtle but it’s there and no one wants to admit it.  That was huge for me.  I would see friends out with other friends doing something cool (something I totally want to do) and say “oh, how cool” and “like” their picture but on the inside I was seething, I was sad, I was angry, I was lonely….all from a little picture of something I probably wouldn’t know about if I wasn’t on facebook.  OH FACEBOOK!  How I love and hate you!!!!!!
Therein lies the dilemma….and I don’t believe there is a right answer.  Certainly there is no one right answer and different people feel differently about it and will approach it differently.
But what has worked for me….I’m back on facebook…and instagram (but that’s all), I scroll through it daily (or ten times/day…) But I’ve emotionally disconnected.  I don’t let toxic thoughts seep in and if they do, I stop and think…why?  Why is it bothering me that Sue didn’t invite me to the cool new restaurant she went to with Debbie?  Would I really invite Sue and Debbie if I were making plans?
And if I really want to go to the restaurant then why don’t I just make plans to go?
I’ve also tried to focus more on my family and close friends, as much as I do check my phone I really do try to make a conscious effort to put my phone away when I’m with my family and friends.  Out of sight, out of mind (kinda…)   Basically I try to connect in the real 3D world happening in front of me with the ones that are important to me.  Everything else is noise, fun noise, but noise.

What do you do to deal with feeling disconnected?  Or dealing with social media envy?