This blog platform has been valuable to me in the past as a place to collect ideas about being a doctor, and I think I would like to use it more frequently again, with a slightly new aim. I continue to work part time “within the system” as a family medicine doctor in an FQHC clinic. I continue to have a dream of practicing medicine in a “new” way, that at times seems substantial enough to make walking away from the old structure seem like an obvious choice. There can be so many challenges to navigate working within the system, and others that arise with career transitions. I know there are many people who would like to be in my corner, but often neither they nor I know how they can help. A good step is to write this blog for them (you) and to invite them (you) to read it.

I am planning for my next round of MBSGs. I have sent out about 20 invitations, and have 4 confirmed participants. I think the ideal size is 8-10, but for this particular round, I am committing to do it with whatever size group I end up with. My intention was to invite participants who feel like a “Mastermind Group” to me who are particularly interested in my personal transformation story as a doctor, or who are in wellness entrepreneurship themselves to build a happy little cohort. But I wonder how much flexibility to roll with the way things flow should be balanced with my original intention? I spoke about the groups with a friend at a child’s birthday party, and after a dance workship with folks who made sense to include. It is often much more difficult to communicate the value of these groups than it is for me to see and feel why a person might benefit from participating. I have been asked recently by a business coach to more clearly name the benefit for the participants or clients. This has been a step that I have resisted in the past for feeling too much like sales. Maybe it is a kind of stubbornness that has been impeding me from more easily attracting clients/participants to the groups I am offering?

So a question I am still working on, is who is this next MBSG for? While I set out to build a mastermind group for myself, when I am asked about the benefit for the clients, it seems odd for them to come to support me. They have to come for their own benefit. And these benefits can overlap, but it seems cleaner and true if the group I am offering is designed for the benefit of that participants rather than for myself. Aha! And I still CAN build a mastermind group, but it is just going to be a different process than leading a MBSG group. And by writing about it here on the blog, maybe I can identify my masterminds and build that group in a different way, on a different time scale.

As recently as a few weeks ago, I was feeling increased clarity that I would want to move more fully into doing “new medicine” work, and allowing the old pattern of seeing patients using my medical license to fall away. But in the last two weeks, I have had surprisingly satisfying and meaningful experiences in the clinic that tilt me back into my holding pattern of continuing part-time clinic work while setting up the group visits on the side. (While I also have to name that the days are still exhausting, overfull and HARD. Sometimes I like doing hard things, and “how much of a challenge am I supposed to metabolize?”)

It seems that an important step will be how do I more easily recruit more people to these groups in the future? If I can imagine a broader pool of potential clients (I’m going to stick with that term for now, instead of “participants” in the MBSGs), but I need to create tools like a website that help share the message of who I am and what I am offering. If I had 30 clients ready to go this week, I think leading the groups for them would be no problem (except that I’d be overstretched on time with my current commitments at the clinic.) I don’t think I have to reduce my hours in order to make progress. But I am going to have to decide if I want to keep a foot in that doorway or not. If you consider a full-time doctor to be working 4 full days a week, then my 3 half days could count for 37.5% time. That feels wise and good and fortunate to be able to do that. But I want to cut it to 25%. It would really make such a big difference for me. It would make it easy to add a second group to my week. 1 group a week feels possible with 3 work days. 2 groups feel like they fit with 2 work days without me getting overstretched.

This blog might get long-winded at times. It’s helpful for me to share about this process. I do hope it has value for you, the reader. I guess if you’d like to be supportive, you can let me know by leaving comments.

That’s all for now, more ahead! Thanks for reading.