Interview with Dr. Maiysha Clairborne
Dr. Maiysha Clairborne returns to the podcast to discuss mind remapping. Maiysha is an amazing coach. She has worked with hundreds of physicians to improve their careers and their lives. And she has a new program to share with you.
As a quick reminder, Maiysha is a Board Certified Family Physician, Integrative Medicine Practitioner, Master NLP and Hypnotherapist Trainer, Successful Entrepreneur and Author of The Wellness Blueprint and Eat Your Disease Away.
She is a fellow podcaster. Her show Next Level Physicians: Think Outside the Box, can still be found on any podcast app. But her recent focus has been on a new show called The Black Mind Garden in which Maiysha engages in conversations about the unconscious patterns that influence thoughts, emotions, and actions, and how to shift the narratives to improve our lives.
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Mind Remapping
Beginning earlier this year, Dr. Clairborne brought together all of her training and experience and created the Mind Remapping Academy. In today’s interview, she explains what NLP and mind remapping are, how we can transform negative thinking, and how to use language to empower ourselves and positively influence others.
You learn how to listen in a way that other people cannot listen… and you're unscathed emotionally. – Dr. Maiysha Clairborne
You may need to relisten to this episode several times in order to fully understand the concepts Maiysha described to us. They are very powerful.
What Is NLP?
Neurolinguistic Programming enables us to use language to empower ourselves. Using techniques such as reframing, and anchoring, we can transform negative thinking. This can be especially effective when pursuing a new career, as it gives you permission to dream.
Conclusion
If you are interested in learning more about mind remapping, you should definitely subscribe to her podcast The Black Mind Garden. And check out her website and academy at mindremappingacademy.com.
NOTE: Look below for a transcript of today's episode.
Links for Today's Episode:
- Mind Remapping Academy
- The Black Mind Garden Podcast
- How to Negotiate the Stages of Career Change with Dr. Maiysha Clairborne – 040
- How to Overcome the Top Mindset Traps – 151
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Podcast Editing & Production Services are provided by Oscar Hamilton
Transcription - PNC Podcast Episode 212
How Does Mind Remapping Help with Nonclinical Career Transition?
John: All right, everybody. This is going to be a really fun interview today. I have only had one guest that's making a third appearance here and that's today's guest, Dr. Maiysha Clairborne. She is a friend, a colleague, an expert in a lot of things, including NLP and hypnosis. She actually has her own academy now, which we're going to talk about. Without saying anything more, let's just get into the conversation with Dr. Maiysha Clairborne. Hi, Maiysha.
Dr. Maiysha Clairborne: Hi, John. It's so good to be back. I didn't know I was the only person who's been a third guest. I feel so special.
John: Who knows? Maybe it's four. I wrote down that you were here for episode number 40 and episode number 151. And maybe there's another one I've missed. It's hard to go back over my vast list of 200 episodes.
Well anyway, welcome back. This is going to be good because you're up to some new things that I think are going to help physicians and that's why we're here and we're all about.
Dr. Maiysha Clairborne: Right.
John: I think we both help others besides just physicians, but we're certainly interested in helping them get through their careers in one piece.
Dr. Maiysha Clairborne: Yeah. Yeah, absolutely.
John: Okay. So even though we've interviewed you before here, and we have some background in the previous episodes, which I'll link to, why don't you tell us a short version of your background and focus a little bit on the most recent work that you're doing and we will segue into what you're actually doing in terms of work. But what kind of other things have you gotten into in this last year or two?
Dr. Maiysha Clairborne: Sure. First of all, I have to say that in telling my short story, the very nutshell version of it, what I want in this moment for docs to come away with, it's okay to change careers as many times as you need to define your purpose. That's like my first nugget before I even get started.
John: All right. Are you suggesting that maybe you have done that?
Dr. Maiysha Clairborne: Well, for those of you who don't know me, Dr. Maiysha, I'm a family physician by training. I did integrative medicine for 10, 15 years. I owned my own integrative medicine cache-based practice for 10 years before I transitioned into being a coach.
Now, I will say that I was trained as a coach early in my clinical years. And I used that inside of my clinical practice for many, many years. It's where I found hypnosis. It's where I found neuro-linguistic programming or NLP as we'll talk about a little bit later. But I believe that every place in my journey really has led me up to what I do now. So, it's been like an evolution of stepping stones to where I am now.
I had my practice for 10 years, and then I decided that I wanted to support other doctors. And that other doctors became other medical professionals. It went out, expanded out. And specifically, I was supporting a lot of moms in medicine initially. For those of you who may or may not have heard of the Stress Free Mom MD, that would be me.
For a while, that's what I did. And that became career transition coaching, which became entrepreneurial coaching. And at some point, I decided, "Well you know what? Why support moms in medicine when I could support all of those physicians who want to be transitioning, who want to build their own businesses outside the box, focused on integrative medicine practices, coaching consulting, and those sorts of things". And inside of that, I've done work where I've been on stage with John Jurica at The Bootcamp MD both in early 2018 and 2019. I can't even remember at this point.
I got called into something. And that was to begin to look at what is the impact of our mindset on this career transition, on this condition of burnout that we experience. And that started in the last Bootcamp MD that we did right here in Atlanta when I did a whole half-day on mindset. And I began to realize for myself, hm, I am trained in matters of the unconscious mind. I have a background in psychology, undergraduate degree. I love the work of neuro-linguistic programming and language and how language influences and impacts our way of being and our confidence in ourselves and our ability to produce results. Language is so important. And that's what I taught that half-day.
And that is what sparked me to move fully into and to face forward the work that I do with the neuro-linguistic programming and hypnosis and coach training actually. So, the program that I have, and I won't get into it exactly right now, but the program that I have is actually a coach training that involves the training in NLP and hypnosis.
And that's what I do now. I focus full-time on training other people and also one-on-one work. I still do one-on-one work. But my one-on-one work is now more focused on the pre-work of changing careers. What are the deep unconscious blocks? What are those blocks that stand in the way of us moving on the path that is more of our visionary path or our purpose path?
John: Well, listeners for you that have been on this journey or thinking of starting it, you are well aware of the fact that the mindset and the limiting beliefs and all those sorts of things are really a big deal, bigger than I really thought they were. To me, it's like three big steps. Getting over the mindset issues, then looking at the 10, 20, 30, 500 jobs you might consider, try matching up in your mind, your personality, and all those things. And then actually implementing that process of career transition.
But when I'm asked questions in some of the Facebook groups that I go into, most of it's like, "How do you get over this? I don't feel I know enough. I don't feel I'm worthy. I feel like I'm going to fail. I feel like I'm not going to make enough money". Whatever it is. I mean, it's all mindset. They haven't even thought about exactly what career they want to do. So, you're really helping the people out that have just hit that first major barrier to finding a better life and career.
Dr. Maiysha Clairborne: Yeah. And the interesting thing about it, John, is that I think that some people think that it's like the barrier at the beginning, and then somehow you magically get over it, and then it never impacts you again.
But those of us who have been in this career transition role long enough to know that that is absolutely not true. I've been doing this work, the work of mind remapping for almost 10 years. Like I've been doing personal development work for well over 15 years and it still comes up. So, it's not the fear or the butterflies in the stomach or the imposter syndrome. It's not that it just vanishes one day, it's that you begin to recognize it earlier and earlier, and it doesn't stop you because then you know how to manage it.
But that mindset is something that is pervasive work that we have to keep doing. I think that sometimes we think, "Oh, I've arrived. I've transitioned my career and I'm happy, and there's nothing else that I have to do". But this is the kind of work that if you really want to continue to expand if you really want to continue to grow that you need to always be looking at.
John: Yeah, that makes sense. And I think probably most of us that went into medicine had the imposter syndrome and other thoughts at that time, which we apparently overcame because we went on to med school residency and did all that and work clinically. But then here it is coming back again, as we're looking at a different career and plus, I'm sure it affects all of those major transitions in our lives, not even just the careers.
I had one question answered. You've kind of gotten to it. You're still doing some coaching. Most of that coaching is the prep to bring people up to the point of doing the training, to become a coach themselves that utilizes this mind remapping knowledge and the NLP. The thing I would say about that is that there are so many more coaches because there's such a need for coaches to coach. Physicians and other professionals will find themselves just really stuck in this mud here in trying to make a significant change in their careers. So, I got to hand it to you for doing that.
Dr. Maiysha Clairborne: Yeah. And I want to say something about that and thank you, thank you for that. The work I do, I just want to distinguish the one-on-one from the actual training. For some people, they feel like I just want to understand what it is that is stopping me. And that's where I do a lot of the one-on-one work, in which we do personal one-on-one sessions that we'll uncover what's the source of the imposter syndrome. What's the source of negative thinking? What's the source of that "I'm not good enough, I'm not smart enough"? And it's so ironic because I think as physicians, we are some of the smartest people on the planet and some of the most talented people on the planet, and yet we are some of the main people who deal with, and especially women in medicine, deal with these "I'm not enough" conversations.
I think it's a function of our training. Because in our training you're always led to believe that you never know enough. It's never enough. No matter how much you know it's never enough. And especially in residency even if you get something right, it's like, "Yeah, and?" Like that kind of attitude. I think that the type of personality that goes into medicine in the first place is that people-pleasing, that you know need to be a high-performing person, that driven, motivated person in the first place. So, we feed off of this need to be right or accepted or be top of the class. And then when we're constantly told, no matter how good we do, that it's not enough, then that does something. It does something to our mind. And a lot of times we compensate for it by doing more and doing more and doing more. When in fact there's still this sort of empty hole somewhere in our soul that's not being filled. So, for those who just want the work done with them as a coach, that's what the one-on-one is for.
But then there are some physicians or clinicians or healthcare people who want to really understand how the mind works. They want to understand what it is that makes them tick, whether they're going to use it for coaching or not. Some of them use it in their practice and their clinical practice, some of the docs go in and use it in coaching. I have a lawyer that just graduated from my program. So, I'm not even only training physicians anymore, but this is something that if you really want to understand how the mind works.
Because the benefit of that is when you begin to understand how the mind works, what makes you tick, you specifically? What are the rules of the unconscious mind? What are the rules of the way we communicate verbally and non-verbally? Then you become more confident in who you are and you understand, "Oh, this is why I tend to use these kinds of words versus these kinds of words". You learn how to listen in a way that other people cannot.
And I'm not just talking about your patients. I'm talking about when your colleague reacts to you in a certain way when your boss comes, your manager, your clinical manager, or your director comes to you, your CMO comes to you and starts talking smack. You know how to listen and how to interact with them in a way, and you are unstained emotionally. And you know how to interact with them in a way that empowers you and quite possibly empowers them as well.
John: Yeah. Well, there's a lot of fertile ground here for sure. And I agree a hundred percent that we self-select into this profession and it sets us up for burnout and trying to be perfect and never stopping. And then it's of course encouraged while we're in our training. So, it's not to mean that the institutions that are contributing to that burnout shouldn't do something better than they're doing. But it's going to happen because of who we are and the training we've gone through. So, like I say, this can be a big need for this.
So, give us a little bit more detail about what exactly the term "mind remapping" means. And maybe show us or give us some examples of how to linguistically change things on the NLP side of it and all that. Just give us a little bit to really get a taste of it.
Dr. Maiysha Clairborne: Yeah. Well, I actually have coined the term "mind remapping". It's so funny because I would have thought that in the many, many years that NLP and hypnosis have been around that somebody else would have coined it already. But when I thought about it, I was like, oh. So, I coined that.
John: It doesn't involve any electrodes or anything, does it?
Dr. Maiysha Clairborne: No. It only involves your words and your thoughts. I'll distinguish neuro-linguistic programming. Some people may or may not have heard of this. If you've heard of Tony Robbins, the unholy unleash the power within stuff, that's the kind of work that he does. That's the kind of stuff that he uses. We are trained by the same person, just utilized in different ways.
NLP or neuro-linguistic programming is how we use language, spoken and unspoken, verbal non-verbal to empower ourselves. Specifically, to change the way that we think about things, to change beliefs, to transform negative thinking, to get rid of unresourceful emotional states or thinking states. That is what it's used for.
There are specific techniques like reframing. And by the way, there's nothing new under the sun. This is not some brand new thing that's popped up. Unfortunately, it's not as widely known as it could be, but it's gaining some momentum. But people have been using these types of linguistic patterns for eons, centuries.
And what NLP does is now gives name to many of these language patterns and gives a "how". Because like one of my students said, "Well, this is something I've been doing for a long time, but now I have the specific techniques of how to intentionally use it in my language to impact my own thinking and people around me". There are specific techniques that we use, like reframing. And I'll give an example of that in a moment, like anchoring, which is basically a stimulus-response. Pavlov and his dogs. Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there. Red light, yellow light, green light. Those are all anchors, visual audio. And then you have tactile ones as well. So, those are techniques.
Then there are language patterns that we use. Language patterns and reframing can fall into both of those categories. But there are specific language patterns that we can use like metaphor, which commonly is known as storytelling. The intentional use of storytelling or metaphor, some hypnotic language patterns, the way we use our words, and the way we put them together in order to decrease resistance in people who seem resistant to communicate with. Imagine, imagine you're dealing with a patient who is resistant and all you need to do is switch the way you speak to them, to decrease and disappear that resistance. Those are language patterns.
As an example, I'll give you an example of reframing and I'll use my son, because even though I'm talking about using this with patients or as physicians, we all know that we're people too. And in my latest graduating class, many of them were moms. And one of the things they most raved about was the positive impact it had on the relationship with their spouse and specifically with their kids. From teenager to elementary to primary school which is the age of my son. He'll be seven in October. We're at the time of 2021, we're August-ish.
My son does Kung Fu. And one day we were driving home from Kung Fu and he was like, "Oh, my muscles were hurting so bad. My legs are hurting. And my stomach is hurting". Because we were doing crunches. And he says, "Oh, I don't think I'm going to be able to do Kung Fu again". That's what he says, he's so dramatic. And I said, "You know what? It's actually great that your muscles are hurting because that means that you're getting stronger and those muscles are building every day so that you can get better and better at your Kung Fu". And then his whole attitude and face just changed at that moment. Like, "Oh, I'm getting stronger". That's a reframe. It's taking something that someone says and giving it a new meaning or a new context.
Just another quick story of something that happened to my son is that we were playing basketball outside. I live in Georgia for those who don't know. So, we have driveways and I have a basketball hoop in the driveway and we were playing basketball and he kept missing the basket. He stomps off and he says, "Oh, I'm just don't good at this. I'm just the worst of the worst." And you know as a mommy, we hate to see our babies down on themselves. But really pausing for a minute to think about how I can help him empower himself.
The question I asked him was "Now Delson, how can you say that in a more positive way?" And so, he says, "Oh, I guess I could say I'm not any good at it yet". That's what he says. And I said, "What does that mean?" He says, "Well, I guess that means I have to practice more". And I said, "That's right. Just like you practice your Kung Fu". And then that was it. He was like back shooting baskets and he made his baskets. So that's just an example of ways that we can in everyday life use language patterns specifically as reframing, to empower the people around us.
John: Can you give us some examples of how maybe your students or even coaching clients, whatever, what has the benefit been for them? Let's put it that way. Because obviously, I can imagine they were reframing, looking at things differently, trying to use different languages. Maybe give us some examples of the type of people you've worked with and how they've used that.
Dr. Maiysha Clairborne: I'll give you examples in different domains. The first domain is more from a clinical domain. I was teaching my class and when I teach my class, I do demos. So, one of the demonstrations I did was a technique called "like to dislike script". This is for people who do any kind of weight loss or work with someone who wants to get rid of a bad habit like smoking. One of my friends was demonstrating and he wanted to stop eating grandma cookies. Now I don't know what those are, but apparently, everybody else on the training site knew.
So, what we did was we mapped what he does something he doesn't like onto the grandma cookies. That was in April. Two weeks ago, we were walking through the Publix grocery store to get something else. And as we were walking out the story he said, "I just realized I haven't even thought about those grandma cookies since you did that technique on me".
John: Oh, yeah. Nice.
Dr. Maiysha Clairborne: So, that's one thing. That's one of the techniques. Another benefit, there was a Ph.D. professor that I worked with back in April of this year. And she was wanting to transition her career and do some work. She's an organizational psychologist. And she was wanting to do some equity work and particularly in the environmental consulting space.
When she came to me, her conversation was "I don't know if anybody will pay me for it. I don't think I'm smart enough. I don't have the experience". Clearly, she had the experience. "I'm not trained enough". All of these different conversations, that imposter syndrome, that surround imposter syndrome.
And we did this specific technique called timeline therapy, which I teach in my training and I also do one-on-one. And what it does is it gets rid of these negative beliefs and negative emotion associated with the beliefs at their source. And so, we did this work over a period of eight weeks.
At the end of all of my one-on-one work, what we do is create specific goals that we insert into one future timeline. And the goal that she put down was by September of this year that she would land her first consulting contract. And by next year, she'd be on track for $250,000. Last week I got a text from her and she informed me that she was six weeks ahead of schedule and landed her first consulting contract and exactly what she wanted for $250,000.
John: What?
Dr. Maiysha Clairborne: Yes.
John: Okay, once you get over the fact that you're going to do it six or eight weeks from now, well, you're not going to really know anything more then, than you know now, so why not get it now? Once you have that realization, you're just waiting to run into the right client. It can happen any second.
Dr. Maiysha Clairborne: Yeah. And I think what happens is that once you allow yourself to get rid of the noise, because of the negative thoughts, the imposter syndrome, the negative emotions that we hold on to, it's just noise. And it puts a veil over what we can see, the opportunity that's there that we could see. And what there is to do in order to access that opportunity.
So, what happens is once you get rid of the noise, things become more clear. And the little reticular activating system, I love, love talking about the RAS. Your RAS actually begins to look for opportunities to match what we put in your future. When those goals are crystal clear, specific, measurable, actionable, responsible, and time-oriented then your RAS, your particular reticular activating system can actually seek those out and make them happen in a time period, much quicker than you would expect.
John: It kind of reminds me when people talk about affirmations. It's like, well you just say these affirmations, it's like magic. But no, it's that RAS, getting awake. And now it's looking for these things that you said to yourself you're going to achieve, or you're going to pursue. So, that's very interesting. When those clients come back, you must be like, "Wow, that's unbelievable". But we did expect that actually.
Dr. Maiysha Clairborne: Well, it's funny. I've been doing this for eight years and I don't care how many people that I've done it with, every single time I get these results, I do a happy dance. I know it works. I've been doing it for eight years/ But I had one client and he was like, "I'm going to write a book, but I don't know what I'm going to write about. And I don't know that anybody's going to listen to me". And all those things. And then we did this process and then a month later he completed the whole book.
John: A month later? Oh, my gosh. Yeah. Once your dead light switch flips, you're like, okay, I know I can do it and I'm going to do it.
Dr. Maiysha Clairborne: Yeah. You're on fire.
John: Now we need to know where we can find out about all this stuff. I know and I think I've mentioned on previous episodes that drmaiysha.com is your main site and anything can be accessed through that.
Dr. Maiysha Clairborne: Absolutely.
John: But with the new program, you do have mindremappingacademy.com that people can go directly to if they want to learn more about it, or look at it.
Dr. Maiysha Clairborne: For people who want to know a little bit more about not just the training, but just NLP, hypnosis, timeline therapy, if you want to learn more about that in general, if you want to learn how it works then you can go to mindremappingacademy.com.
There, you can also learn more about the training and when they are and reach out and schedule an interest call. If you're interested in personal breakthroughs, that's also a place where you can schedule personal breakthrough discovery sessions. And then if you are like, "I still need to know more", I do have a podcast called The Black Mind Garden. And I talk a lot about that there.
John: The Black Mind Garden. Okay. Somehow, I've missed that one. I mean, you have another podcast, don't you? Or did you switch from one to the other?
Dr. Maiysha Clairborne: Well, I had my podcast Next Level Physicians: Thriving Outside the Box and I wound it down and it's still available. You can still listen to it on any of the podcast platforms, but I merged that podcast and then started a new podcast at the beginning of the year.
John: Well, we're all going to have to check that out. I mean, definitely, that will help you just get sort of more into what you're teaching and talking about and sharing. So, that'd be great. I'll put that in the show notes for sure.
Well, this has been great. I think we're going to run out of time here in a minute. Any last comments or suggestions, advice for people, the listeners? You know my audience and kind of what they're looking at here. Because they want to make a big change usually around careers. Sometimes going from one type of practice to another, but something major. So, what kind of advice would you have for them?
Dr. Maiysha Clairborne: I think the biggest thing I want to leave the audience with is to give yourself permission to dream. In our training, we are really tunnel vision. It's got to be academic or hospital-based or office-based clinical work. And I know that it takes something to think outside that box.
One thing I love about your platform and even the group is that it's opening people up to all of the talents, all of the possibilities of what you can do as a physician. But we have to give ourselves permission to dream. Even if you don't see a title that's out there, you want to give yourself permission to dream that it could either be created, that you could create it and that it's okay to do something that's off the beaten path. People are probably looking for that.
John: Those were great words of wisdom and advice. It's funny because people do put themselves in a box. And even doing something related to medicine and being still in healthcare, there are so many things that you just can't imagine, you'd be so shocked. And I've been shocked by some of the guests I've had. I'm like, I'd never know you could even do that. And now you're actually helping more people and more patients included, but not as a medical doctor or even a nurse or some other clinical situation.
Dr. Maiysha Clairborne: Yeah. From equity work to patient advocacy, to physician advocacy. There's just so much stuff that we can do. We have so much knowledge beyond clinical knowledge. We don't even realize how many talents and skills we pick up in the clinical world or doing the work that we do. EMR consulting. I mean, your site, your platform, that membership has all the possibilities in there that people can explore. And I just urge you to explore.
John: Well, I thank you for that, Maiysha. I thank you for being here again as my favorite guest. Don't tell the others. You've done us a lot of good. Are you going to come on every year with something new? I don't know, but I think this academy is going to keep you busy for a long time and the other things that you're doing. So, thanks a lot for being here again today, Maiysha. I really appreciate it. And listeners, I will put all those links in there, so you can check it all out and learn from her again.
Dr. Maiysha Clairborne: Well, thank you. It is always a pleasure to be on with you and have conversations. And I look forward to maybe next year bringing something new, even within this domain.
John: Okay, great. All right, with that, I'll say goodbye.
Dr. Maiysha Clairborne: Bye.
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Transcription - PNC Podcast Episode 212
How Does Mind Remapping Help with Nonclinical Career Transition?
John: All right, everybody. This is going to be a really fun interview today. I have only had one guest that's making a third appearance here and that's today's guest, Dr. Maiysha Clairborne. She is a friend, a colleague, an expert in a lot of things, including NLP and hypnosis. She actually has her own academy now, which we're going to talk about. Without saying anything more, let's just get into the conversation with Dr. Maiysha Clairborne. Hi, Maiysha.
Dr. Maiysha Clairborne: Hi, John. It's so good to be back. I didn't know I was the only person who's been a third guest. I feel so special.
John: Who knows? Maybe it's four. I wrote down that you were here for episode number 40 and episode number 151. And maybe there's another one I've missed. It's hard to go back over my vast list of 200 episodes.
Well anyway, welcome back. This is going to be good because you're up to some new things that I think are going to help physicians and that's why we're here and we're all about.
Dr. Maiysha Clairborne: Right.
John: I think we both help others besides just physicians, but we're certainly interested in helping them get through their careers in one piece.
Dr. Maiysha Clairborne: Yeah. Yeah, absolutely.
John: Okay. So even though we've interviewed you before here, and we have some background in the previous episodes, which I'll link to, why don't you tell us a short version of your background and focus a little bit on the most recent work that you're doing and we will segue into what you're actually doing in terms of work. But what kind of other things have you gotten into in this last year or two?
Dr. Maiysha Clairborne: Sure. First of all, I have to say that in telling my short story, the very nutshell version of it, what I want in this moment for docs to come away with, it's okay to change careers as many times as you need to define your purpose. That's like my first nugget before I even get started.
John: All right. Are you suggesting that maybe you have done that?
Dr. Maiysha Clairborne: Well, for those of you who don't know me, Dr. Maiysha, I'm a family physician by training. I did integrative medicine for 10, 15 years. I owned my own integrative medicine cache-based practice for 10 years before I transitioned into being a coach.
Now, I will say that I was trained as a coach early in my clinical years. And I used that inside of my clinical practice for many, many years. It's where I found hypnosis. It's where I found neuro-linguistic programming or NLP as we'll talk about a little bit later. But I believe that every place in my journey really has led me up to what I do now. So, it's been like an evolution of stepping stones to where I am now.
I had my practice for 10 years, and then I decided that I wanted to support other doctors. And that other doctors became other medical professionals. It went out, expanded out. And specifically, I was supporting a lot of moms in medicine initially. For those of you who may or may not have heard of the Stress Free Mom MD, that would be me.
For a while, that's what I did. And that became career transition coaching, which became entrepreneurial coaching. And at some point, I decided, "Well you know what? Why support moms in medicine when I could support all of those physicians who want to be transitioning, who want to build their own businesses outside the box, focused on integrative medicine practices, coaching consulting, and those sorts of things". And inside of that, I've done work where I've been on stage with John Jurica at The Bootcamp MD both in early 2018 and 2019. I can't even remember at this point.
I got called into something. And that was to begin to look at what is the impact of our mindset on this career transition, on this condition of burnout that we experience. And that started in the last Bootcamp MD that we did right here in Atlanta when I did a whole half-day on mindset. And I began to realize for myself, hm, I am trained in matters of the unconscious mind. I have a background in psychology, undergraduate degree. I love the work of neuro-linguistic programming and language and how language influences and impacts our way of being and our confidence in ourselves and our ability to produce results. Language is so important. And that's what I taught that half-day.
And that is what sparked me to move fully into and to face forward the work that I do with the neuro-linguistic programming and hypnosis and coach training actually. So, the program that I have, and I won't get into it exactly right now, but the program that I have is actually a coach training that involves the training in NLP and hypnosis.
And that's what I do now. I focus full-time on training other people and also one-on-one work. I still do one-on-one work. But my one-on-one work is now more focused on the pre-work of changing careers. What are the deep unconscious blocks? What are those blocks that stand in the way of us moving on the path that is more of our visionary path or our purpose path?
John: Well, listeners for you that have been on this journey or thinking of starting it, you are well aware of the fact that the mindset and the limiting beliefs and all those sorts of things are really a big deal, bigger than I really thought they were. To me, it's like three big steps. Getting over the mindset issues, then looking at the 10, 20, 30, 500 jobs you might consider, try matching up in your mind, your personality, and all those things. And then actually implementing that process of career transition.
But when I'm asked questions in some of the Facebook groups that I go into, most of it's like, "How do you get over this? I don't feel I know enough. I don't feel I'm worthy. I feel like I'm going to fail. I feel like I'm not going to make enough money". Whatever it is. I mean, it's all mindset. They haven't even thought about exactly what career they want to do. So, you're really helping the people out that have just hit that first major barrier to finding a better life and career.
Dr. Maiysha Clairborne: Yeah. And the interesting thing about it, John, is that I think that some people think that it's like the barrier at the beginning, and then somehow you magically get over it, and then it never impacts you again.
But those of us who have been in this career transition role long enough to know that that is absolutely not true. I've been doing this work, the work of mind remapping for almost 10 years. Like I've been doing personal development work for well over 15 years and it still comes up. So, it's not the fear or the butterflies in the stomach or the imposter syndrome. It's not that it just vanishes one day, it's that you begin to recognize it earlier and earlier, and it doesn't stop you because then you know how to manage it.
But that mindset is something that is pervasive work that we have to keep doing. I think that sometimes we think, "Oh, I've arrived. I've transitioned my career and I'm happy, and there's nothing else that I have to do". But this is the kind of work that if you really want to continue to expand if you really want to continue to grow that you need to always be looking at.
John: Yeah, that makes sense. And I think probably most of us that went into medicine had the imposter syndrome and other thoughts at that time, which we apparently overcame because we went on to med school residency and did all that and work clinically. But then here it is coming back again, as we're looking at a different career and plus, I'm sure it affects all of those major transitions in our lives, not even just the careers.
I had one question answered. You've kind of gotten to it. You're still doing some coaching. Most of that coaching is the prep to bring people up to the point of doing the training, to become a coach themselves that utilizes this mind remapping knowledge and the NLP. The thing I would say about that is that there are so many more coaches because there's such a need for coaches to coach. Physicians and other professionals will find themselves just really stuck in this mud here in trying to make a significant change in their careers. So, I got to hand it to you for doing that.
Dr. Maiysha Clairborne: Yeah. And I want to say something about that and thank you, thank you for that. The work I do, I just want to distinguish the one-on-one from the actual training. For some people, they feel like I just want to understand what it is that is stopping me. And that's where I do a lot of the one-on-one work, in which we do personal one-on-one sessions that we'll uncover what's the source of the imposter syndrome. What's the source of negative thinking? What's the source of that "I'm not good enough, I'm not smart enough"? And it's so ironic because I think as physicians, we are some of the smartest people on the planet and some of the most talented people on the planet, and yet we are some of the main people who deal with, and especially women in medicine, deal with these "I'm not enough" conversations.
I think it's a function of our training. Because in our training you're always led to believe that you never know enough. It's never enough. No matter how much you know it's never enough. And especially in residency even if you get something right, it's like, "Yeah, and?" Like that kind of attitude. I think that the type of personality that goes into medicine in the first place is that people-pleasing, that you know need to be a high-performing person, that driven, motivated person in the first place. So, we feed off of this need to be right or accepted or be top of the class. And then when we're constantly told, no matter how good we do, that it's not enough, then that does something. It does something to our mind. And a lot of times we compensate for it by doing more and doing more and doing more. When in fact there's still this sort of empty hole somewhere in our soul that's not being filled. So, for those who just want the work done with them as a coach, that's what the one-on-one is for.
But then there are some physicians or clinicians or healthcare people who want to really understand how the mind works. They want to understand what it is that makes them tick, whether they're going to use it for coaching or not. Some of them use it in their practice and their clinical practice, some of the docs go in and use it in coaching. I have a lawyer that just graduated from my program. So, I'm not even only training physicians anymore, but this is something that if you really want to understand how the mind works.
Because the benefit of that is when you begin to understand how the mind works, what makes you tick, you specifically? What are the rules of the unconscious mind? What are the rules of the way we communicate verbally and non-verbally? Then you become more confident in who you are and you understand, "Oh, this is why I tend to use these kinds of words versus these kinds of words". You learn how to listen in a way that other people cannot.
And I'm not just talking about your patients. I'm talking about when your colleague reacts to you in a certain way when your boss comes, your manager, your clinical manager, or your director comes to you, your CMO comes to you and starts talking smack. You know how to listen and how to interact with them in a way, and you are unstained emotionally. And you know how to interact with them in a way that empowers you and quite possibly empowers them as well.
John: Yeah. Well, there's a lot of fertile ground here for sure. And I agree a hundred percent that we self-select into this profession and it sets us up for burnout and trying to be perfect and never stopping. And then it's of course encouraged while we're in our training. So, it's not to mean that the institutions that are contributing to that burnout shouldn't do something better than they're doing. But it's going to happen because of who we are and the training we've gone through. So, like I say, this can be a big need for this.
So, give us a little bit more detail about what exactly the term "mind remapping" means. And maybe show us or give us some examples of how to linguistically change things on the NLP side of it and all that. Just give us a little bit to really get a taste of it.
Dr. Maiysha Clairborne: Yeah. Well, I actually have coined the term "mind remapping". It's so funny because I would have thought that in the many, many years that NLP and hypnosis have been around that somebody else would have coined it already. But when I thought about it, I was like, oh. So, I coined that.
John: It doesn't involve any electrodes or anything, does it?
Dr. Maiysha Clairborne: No. It only involves your words and your thoughts. I'll distinguish neuro-linguistic programming. Some people may or may not have heard of this. If you've heard of Tony Robbins, the unholy unleash the power within stuff, that's the kind of work that he does. That's the kind of stuff that he uses. We are trained by the same person, just utilized in different ways.
NLP or neuro-linguistic programming is how we use language, spoken and unspoken, verbal non-verbal to empower ourselves. Specifically, to change the way that we think about things, to change beliefs, to transform negative thinking, to get rid of unresourceful emotional states or thinking states. That is what it's used for.
There are specific techniques like reframing. And by the way, there's nothing new under the sun. This is not some brand new thing that's popped up. Unfortunately, it's not as widely known as it could be, but it's gaining some momentum. But people have been using these types of linguistic patterns for eons, centuries.
And what NLP does is now gives name to many of these language patterns and gives a "how". Because like one of my students said, "Well, this is something I've been doing for a long time, but now I have the specific techniques of how to intentionally use it in my language to impact my own thinking and people around me". There are specific techniques that we use, like reframing. And I'll give an example of that in a moment, like anchoring, which is basically a stimulus-response. Pavlov and his dogs. Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there. Red light, yellow light, green light. Those are all anchors, visual audio. And then you have tactile ones as well. So, those are techniques.
Then there are language patterns that we use. Language patterns and reframing can fall into both of those categories. But there are specific language patterns that we can use like metaphor, which commonly is known as storytelling. The intentional use of storytelling or metaphor, some hypnotic language patterns, the way we use our words, and the way we put them together in order to decrease resistance in people who seem resistant to communicate with. Imagine, imagine you're dealing with a patient who is resistant and all you need to do is switch the way you speak to them, to decrease and disappear that resistance. Those are language patterns.
As an example, I'll give you an example of reframing and I'll use my son, because even though I'm talking about using this with patients or as physicians, we all know that we're people too. And in my latest graduating class, many of them were moms. And one of the things they most raved about was the positive impact it had on the relationship with their spouse and specifically with their kids. From teenager to elementary to primary school which is the age of my son. He'll be seven in October. We're at the time of 2021, we're August-ish.
My son does Kung Fu. And one day we were driving home from Kung Fu and he was like, "Oh, my muscles were hurting so bad. My legs are hurting. And my stomach is hurting". Because we were doing crunches. And he says, "Oh, I don't think I'm going to be able to do Kung Fu again". That's what he says, he's so dramatic. And I said, "You know what? It's actually great that your muscles are hurting because that means that you're getting stronger and those muscles are building every day so that you can get better and better at your Kung Fu". And then his whole attitude and face just changed at that moment. Like, "Oh, I'm getting stronger". That's a reframe. It's taking something that someone says and giving it a new meaning or a new context.
Just another quick story of something that happened to my son is that we were playing basketball outside. I live in Georgia for those who don't know. So, we have driveways and I have a basketball hoop in the driveway and we were playing basketball and he kept missing the basket. He stomps off and he says, "Oh, I'm just don't good at this. I'm just the worst of the worst." And you know as a mommy, we hate to see our babies down on themselves. But really pausing for a minute to think about how I can help him empower himself.
The question I asked him was "Now Delson, how can you say that in a more positive way?" And so, he says, "Oh, I guess I could say I'm not any good at it yet". That's what he says. And I said, "What does that mean?" He says, "Well, I guess that means I have to practice more". And I said, "That's right. Just like you practice your Kung Fu". And then that was it. He was like back shooting baskets and he made his baskets. So that's just an example of ways that we can in everyday life use language patterns specifically as reframing, to empower the people around us.
John: Can you give us some examples of how maybe your students or even coaching clients, whatever, what has the benefit been for them? Let's put it that way. Because obviously, I can imagine they were reframing, looking at things differently, trying to use different languages. Maybe give us some examples of the type of people you've worked with and how they've used that.
Dr. Maiysha Clairborne: I'll give you examples in different domains. The first domain is more from a clinical domain. I was teaching my class and when I teach my class, I do demos. So, one of the demonstrations I did was a technique called "like to dislike script". This is for people who do any kind of weight loss or work with someone who wants to get rid of a bad habit like smoking. One of my friends was demonstrating and he wanted to stop eating grandma cookies. Now I don't know what those are, but apparently, everybody else on the training site knew.
So, what we did was we mapped what he does something he doesn't like onto the grandma cookies. That was in April. Two weeks ago, we were walking through the Publix grocery store to get something else. And as we were walking out the story he said, "I just realized I haven't even thought about those grandma cookies since you did that technique on me".
John: Oh, yeah. Nice.
Dr. Maiysha Clairborne: So, that's one thing. That's one of the techniques. Another benefit, there was a Ph.D. professor that I worked with back in April of this year. And she was wanting to transition her career and do some work. She's an organizational psychologist. And she was wanting to do some equity work and particularly in the environmental consulting space.
When she came to me, her conversation was "I don't know if anybody will pay me for it. I don't think I'm smart enough. I don't have the experience". Clearly, she had the experience. "I'm not trained enough". All of these different conversations, that imposter syndrome, that surround imposter syndrome.
And we did this specific technique called timeline therapy, which I teach in my training and I also do one-on-one. And what it does is it gets rid of these negative beliefs and negative emotion associated with the beliefs at their source. And so, we did this work over a period of eight weeks.
At the end of all of my one-on-one work, what we do is create specific goals that we insert into one future timeline. And the goal that she put down was by September of this year that she would land her first consulting contract. And by next year, she'd be on track for $250,000. Last week I got a text from her and she informed me that she was six weeks ahead of schedule and landed her first consulting contract and exactly what she wanted for $250,000.
John: What?
Dr. Maiysha Clairborne: Yes.
John: Okay, once you get over the fact that you're going to do it six or eight weeks from now, well, you're not going to really know anything more then, than you know now, so why not get it now? Once you have that realization, you're just waiting to run into the right client. It can happen any second.
Dr. Maiysha Clairborne: Yeah. And I think what happens is that once you allow yourself to get rid of the noise, because of the negative thoughts, the imposter syndrome, the negative emotions that we hold on to, it's just noise. And it puts a veil over what we can see, the opportunity that's there that we could see. And what there is to do in order to access that opportunity.
So, what happens is once you get rid of the noise, things become more clear. And the little reticular activating system, I love, love talking about the RAS. Your RAS actually begins to look for opportunities to match what we put in your future. When those goals are crystal clear, specific, measurable, actionable, responsible, and time-oriented then your RAS, your particular reticular activating system can actually seek those out and make them happen in a time period, much quicker than you would expect.
John: It kind of reminds me when people talk about affirmations. It's like, well you just say these affirmations, it's like magic. But no, it's that RAS, getting awake. And now it's looking for these things that you said to yourself you're going to achieve, or you're going to pursue. So, that's very interesting. When those clients come back, you must be like, "Wow, that's unbelievable". But we did expect that actually.
Dr. Maiysha Clairborne: Well, it's funny. I've been doing this for eight years and I don't care how many people that I've done it with, every single time I get these results, I do a happy dance. I know it works. I've been doing it for eight years/ But I had one client and he was like, "I'm going to write a book, but I don't know what I'm going to write about. And I don't know that anybody's going to listen to me". And all those things. And then we did this process and then a month later he completed the whole book.
John: A month later? Oh, my gosh. Yeah. Once your dead light switch flips, you're like, okay, I know I can do it and I'm going to do it.
Dr. Maiysha Clairborne: Yeah. You're on fire.
John: Now we need to know where we can find out about all this stuff. I know and I think I've mentioned on previous episodes that drmaiysha.com is your main site and anything can be accessed through that.
Dr. Maiysha Clairborne: Absolutely.
John: But with the new program, you do have mindremappingacademy.com that people can go directly to if they want to learn more about it, or look at it.
Dr. Maiysha Clairborne: For people who want to know a little bit more about not just the training, but just NLP, hypnosis, timeline therapy, if you want to learn more about that in general, if you want to learn how it works then you can go to mindremappingacademy.com.
There, you can also learn more about the training and when they are and reach out and schedule an interest call. If you're interested in personal breakthroughs, that's also a place where you can schedule personal breakthrough discovery sessions. And then if you are like, "I still need to know more", I do have a podcast called The Black Mind Garden. And I talk a lot about that there.
John: The Black Mind Garden. Okay. Somehow, I've missed that one. I mean, you have another podcast, don't you? Or did you switch from one to the other?
Dr. Maiysha Clairborne: Well, I had my podcast Next Level Physicians: Thriving Outside the Box and I wound it down and it's still available. You can still listen to it on any of the podcast platforms, but I merged that podcast and then started a new podcast at the beginning of the year.
John: Well, we're all going to have to check that out. I mean, definitely, that will help you just get sort of more into what you're teaching and talking about and sharing. So, that'd be great. I'll put that in the show notes for sure.
Well, this has been great. I think we're going to run out of time here in a minute. Any last comments or suggestions, advice for people, the listeners? You know my audience and kind of what they're looking at here. Because they want to make a big change usually around careers. Sometimes going from one type of practice to another, but something major. So, what kind of advice would you have for them?
Dr. Maiysha Clairborne: I think the biggest thing I want to leave the audience with is to give yourself permission to dream. In our training, we are really tunnel vision. It's got to be academic or hospital-based or office-based clinical work. And I know that it takes something to think outside that box.
One thing I love about your platform and even the group is that it's opening people up to all of the talents, all of the possibilities of what you can do as a physician. But we have to give ourselves permission to dream. Even if you don't see a title that's out there, you want to give yourself permission to dream that it could either be created, that you could create it and that it's okay to do something that's off the beaten path. People are probably looking for that.
John: Those were great words of wisdom and advice. It's funny because people do put themselves in a box. And even doing something related to medicine and being still in healthcare, there are so many things that you just can't imagine, you'd be so shocked. And I've been shocked by some of the guests I've had. I'm like, I'd never know you could even do that. And now you're actually helping more people and more patients included, but not as a medical doctor or even a nurse or some other clinical situation.
Dr. Maiysha Clairborne: Yeah. From equity work to patient advocacy, to physician advocacy. There's just so much stuff that we can do. We have so much knowledge beyond clinical knowledge. We don't even realize how many talents and skills we pick up in the clinical world or doing the work that we do. EMR consulting. I mean, your site, your platform, that membership has all the possibilities in there that people can explore. And I just urge you to explore.
John: Well, I thank you for that, Maiysha. I thank you for being here again as my favorite guest. Don't tell the others. You've done us a lot of good. Are you going to come on every year with something new? I don't know, but I think this academy is going to keep you busy for a long time and the other things that you're doing. So, thanks a lot for being here again today, Maiysha. I really appreciate it. And listeners, I will put all those links in there, so you can check it all out and learn from her again.
Dr. Maiysha Clairborne: Well, thank you. It is always a pleasure to be on with you and have conversations. And I look forward to maybe next year bringing something new, even within this domain.
John: Okay, great. All right, with that, I'll say goodbye.
Dr. Maiysha Clairborne: Bye.
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