You Can't Compare Your Career To One You've Never Lived: Why So Many Physicians Resist Coaching | Ep62
What if the skepticism that protects you in medicine is the same force quietly limiting your options outside of it?
In this solo episode of Better Physician Life, Dr. Michael Hersh takes listeners inside his own transformation, from the doctor who proudly corrected his wife for calling a lollipop a “sucker” and rolled his eyes at coaching, to the physician who finally got curious enough to try it.
He explores how medical training rewards certainty, independence, and the ability to figure everything out alone, and how those strengths can become a trap when applied to career dissatisfaction, burnout, and the quiet question so many physicians carry: Is this really it?
Through personal stories, honest reflections on FIRE, productivity metrics, and the online backlash against coaching, Dr. Hersh distinguishes helpful due diligence from the kind of skepticism that stops information-gathering altogether. He shares what he observed in other physicians who stayed skeptical while coaching, and still walked away with clearer decisions, less emotional carryover from clinic, and a different relationship to the same job.
This episode is not a sales pitch. It’s an invitation to examine the version of medicine you’re currently living and ask whether it’s the only one available to you.
Episode Mentioned;
Episode 16 - What If You Took the Risk? Physician Entrepreneurship & Change with Dr. Jimmy Turner
About the Show:
Created for physicians who want more than clinical competence, Better Physician Life is a space for honest reflection, reinvention, and reclaiming purpose beyond the pager.
Hosted by Dr. Michael Hersh, each episode dives into the questions we didn’t learn to ask in training, offering tools and conversations to help you live and lead with intention.
Three Actionable Takeaways:
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Separate Useful Skepticism from Protective Momentum: Skepticism that leads to due diligence is valuable. Skepticism that becomes “this could never help someone like me” without further investigation is simply momentum. Notice which one is operating when you dismiss options that fall outside your current playbook.
- Ask the Question That Breaks the Loop: “If I don’t do this, what changes?” forces an honest inventory of the status quo. If the answer is “nothing,” you now have data that staying the same is an active choice rather than a neutral default.
- Compare Your Life Only to Versions You’ve Actually Lived: Rating your career a “7” only makes sense relative to the experiences you’ve had. You cannot accurately evaluate whether a different way of practicing is possible if you’ve never experienced one. Curiosity, not certainty, is the only way to gather that missing information.
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