Foreign.

Welcome to the Own youn Choices on youn Life podcast.

I know you are here wanting to change and rewrite your story.

You are desiring to step into the impact that you know you were here to create.

I am here to guide you with the proven tools and strategies used by myself and our speakers to support you in taking radical responsibility in your life and learning how to own your choices to change your story.

My name is Marcia Van Winesburg.

I am a storytelling business coach, master NLP trainer, speaker, podcaster, and seven times published author.

My clients have found freedom and purpose from overcoming their shame stories and learning how to share them with the world.

I am so grateful you are here.

Let's get started.

Foreign.

Welcome back to the show.

Today we are speaking Dr. Ann Sung.

Dr. Ann is a Nassau flight surgeon, triple board certified in emergency critical care and aerospace medicine, founder of Productivity md, Certified Advisor in Performance Neuroscience by the Flow Research Collective, and former physician in Antarctica South Pole.

Through her work at Nassau, in ERS and ICUs and in the harshest places on Earth, she has developed the five stages of time freedom.

Helping leaders access flow state on demand and achieve true time freedom so they can create timeless presence and beautiful moments that they will remember.

This is such a great episode when you really start to dive into the way that Dr. Anne explains the five stages of time freedom and breaks them down into all of the pieces.

You can start to see and understand like what is important.

People are chasing something throughout their life and actually when it comes down to it, is that actually what they want?

So this is an incredible, incredible episode.

Welcome to the show today, Ann.

I am thrilled to have you here.

Thank you so much, Marcia.

It's a really opportunity for me to serve and to really share what I've learned.

Thank you for having me.

My pleasure, my pleasure.

And as we even start, you and I have been having a little bit of a conversation about so many things in what you do and how it speaks to entrepreneurs, to like, parents, to women, business, all of these things.

When you look at what you're doing today, is this how you pictured your story unfolding?

Mm, I guess.

Depends on what stage of life.

You know, when I was younger, you know, in high school, it was always about becoming a physician.

It's more about security, financial stability, certainty.

Later on I thought, you know, I wanted to work for NASA and you know, I aimed for that for like 16 plus years.

Got that, you know, goal, you know, that mission checked off.

And then now I think just through having children, I have a 22 months old and a three and a half year old right now.

Oh.

So yeah, they're, they have changed my why significantly and my mission now is really, you know, in terms of time freedom.

Time freedom is about how to live and die currently without any regrets on how you spend your time.

Oh, how you decide to spend your time, how to live.

I say that again so everyone can pick that up.

Time freedom.

Time freedom to me is the most basic thing is to live and die without any regrets in how you chose to spend your time.

I think that is beautiful.

And I think that so many people will go their entire life and not have that realization, like have that understanding and catch that and realize.

Because, you know, as an, I mean I, as an entrepreneur, I'm a visionary.

I have tons of ideas.

Turning my brain off sometimes is, I know consciously it's the right thing to do from work, but then that is also.

I think the trick can be sometimes.

But I love what I do and it's good.

But we actually do have, it's, it's okay to have times where our brain is not wired for that.

So can you just share a little bit about what it is that you are doing Now I'm going to talk a little bit about how you got here.

Yeah.

So either you're asking like in terms of the five stages of time freedom or just in a broad sense of like how I serve currently, in broad

sense how you serve because then we're going to get into that piece of it.

Ah, okay.

So yeah, currently actually I'm on a one and a half year sabbatical.

I was from NASA.

I worked at NASA as a flight surgeon and also I'm an ER and critical care triple board of physician in aerospace medicine as well.

So our plan is to be traveling with the kids for one year.

And also I found a productivity MD which is a time freedom advisory.

Currently it is one on one advisory for really people, leaders, a lot of physicians, entrepreneurs who realize that they actually, if they stay the same, if they weren't here tomorrow, then they will have some regrets about the way they spend their time.

So I teach them how to access flow state on demand.

They can squeeze everything and have 5x output because they're in flow.

But now also they're in flow with their loved ones with presence and joy.

So in a way they're able to accomplish everything that they want to do without urgency, stress and the seeing the gap and the rush to do more to achieve that future self.

If that makes sense.

Oh, it does.

And you just said access flow State on demand.

Okay, so let's talk a little bit about what flow state is and how do we access that?

Yeah, so there are a lot of flow triggers.

I was trained at the flow Research Collective with Ste.

Stephen Kotler, who wrote like Superman and lots of like flow type of books.

Okay.

Stealing Fire and also Ray and Doris.

So flow state, the simplest way is in the state where you take time actually disappears.

And you know, that'll get into.

When we talk about five stages of time freedom because you want to access that state where time disappears as much as possible.

Not only that, you for.

For entrepreneurial reason or performance reasons, you can 5x your output when you're in flow.

That's when you're drafting a email, maybe very deep email, or creating a slideshow or presentation, that time just disappear and you're not having that inner self critic again.

And you're just like having max focus, creativity and energy.

Another type of flow could be group flow, where you're, you know, doing a podcast, having a really great conversation with your friends and time also disappears.

Or it could be a one, well, like a one on one flow with your kids too, where time disappears and you're not checking your phone, you're just staring in their eyes, having fun or with your spouse, or a flow within yourself where, I don't know, maybe you're cooking, maybe you're knitting, you're not even checking.

Managing the clock time is what I call it.

You're the journey of whatever you're doing is the reward itself and not the destination.

Ooh.

The journey of whatever you're doing is the reward.

I love that.

And not the destination.

Okay, so how did you learn flow state for yourself?

Where was the moment where there was this light bulb moment of like, oh, wait, this is different.

I think I've always.

A lot of us have probably gotten into flow.

You know, sometimes you're like, time disappears.

You're like really passionate about this thing.

It's really curiosity, passion, purpose.

If you are curious, passionate, and you feel like it's purposeful, you'll get into flow easier.

At the same time, you.

I've learned about, you know, through the training, there are times based on your chronotype, there are three chronotypes, a lark, third bird, and owl.

When your peak cognitive zone, focus zones are.

And it's actually easiest to get into flow state during those peak zones.

So as you know, people who want a 5 extra output, you want to put in like 1, 2, 3 flow blocks is what I call it work blocks to get into flow, into those peak zones.

But if you don't do that and you put it into your low energy zones, the trough zones, you're going to go five times slower.

So you feel like nothing, you're just distracted and nothing moved.

You know, it's so interesting.

I know that there's a difference, right?

There's some days it's like wow, I just like flew through work, it was so easy.

And other days it's like why is it taking so long to do this email?

Like I don't understand.

So how can we access that to be able to be able to access it more often?

Yeah, yeah, for sure.

And you know, people want to learn more about this, you can Google Stephen Koller.

There's articles about flow triggers and having the right environment.

The easiest thing is, you know, figuring out what your chronotype is first.

So if, if you take away all the caffeine alarms, no obligations, what time would you naturally wake up or go to bed?

And then wake up and take the midpoint of that.

So for example, if I like to go to bed at 10pm, wake up at 6am, so the midpoint of my sleep is 2am so if it's before 3:30, you're in lark 3:30am so your peak zone is like between 5, 6 to like 10ish or so like 9 10ish.

Basically like 5 to 9.

You want to have like one or two flow blocks there, like undistracted, already there.

But if you're like your midpoints between 3:30am to 5:30am then your peak zone's 8 to 11am so you'll put like a flow block there.

When I say a flow block, usually your flow, it's part of a flow cycle.

People can stay in flow for about 60 to 90 minutes before they need a recovery cycle, which you talk about a lot of the recovery, the permission to recover.

And it actually takes grit to recover because you want to be just as like, you know, high performing as the prior flow blocks.

If you don't actually build that short recovery, then the rest of the day you're just going to have decreasing output.

And so Anyway for the third word, 8 to 11 for the owl, you're complete opposite, you're like 4pm to 9pm so you want to serve everybody else first, have your meetings, do your self care in the morning and then you like dive into work between 4 to

9pm Oh, I love that thinking.

And I, as soon as I'm.

Was the first one a lark.

Is that what you said?

A Lark and then third bird.

And then most people are third birds.

And then owls are.

It's hard for owls.

They feel a pressure to want to conform to society.

I'm just, I can almost picture different people when you're saying these terms.

And I understand that.

Okay, so how did you, like, what drove you to look at this work in more detail?

Like, what inspired you to want to do and learn more about this?

I think the original inspiration, I've always been called, like the most efficient person that people know in a way, since I was young, like college probably and on maybe high school initially was so that I could just get things done faster so I can hang out with my friends at happy hour.

And then later, after I had kids is like, oh, well, I don't have a lot of time, so I gotta, like, hurry up and get things done.

Because I didn't want to, like, have less face to face time with my kids.

I wanted to be there for their early years to shape their unconscious and the model of the world.

And then, you know, my colleagues, my people I come across, I realized that, you know, we're all on this journey to time freedom.

And there's actually various stages of time freedom.

And a lot of us feel like we want what's called the societal definition of time freedom.

But actually, when you get there, I realize myself that that's not true.

I'm.

I'm still trapped in a way, because we're trapped by our mindset, our relationship with time.

It's not the ability to control time, that's not the definition of time freedom.

Okay, so this is, this is incredible.

Can we take this into what are the five stages of time freedom?

Yeah, so this stemmed from me, you know, going on a sabbatical two months into, you know, my sabbatical from NASA.

Now I don't have the meetings, I don't have the work schedule dictated to me.

Right.

So theoretically, I had complete control of my time.

So then I started accepting collaborations, like having more meetings to explore more opportunities, working, you know, shifts in the ER.

I'm doing telemedicine.

And so two months in, I was, it was like, yeah, 1:00am in the morning post ER shift.

And I was laying in bed thinking about all the yeses I've said and all the open loops that were left unclosed.

Now it's just like, this doesn't feel free at all.

This isn't time freedom.

No, at all.

Like, I don't feel great about it at all.

Even though I had complete control of saying yes and no, on my time.

And I still spend like four or five hours with my kids.

I, you know, I, I, I get to spend actually a lot of time, we have date nights and all that stuff.

My schedule, my calendar looked like I had all my non negotiables, you know, appropriated for.

But my mind didn't feel free.

My emotions, I was having this urgency, this gap, like one that I wanted to close, like stagnation, a little bit of overwhelm.

So that led me to create the five stages of time freedom.

Because I thought I was at the top stage.

But no, there are two more stages.

So a little bit about the five stages.

You can be in all five stages in one day.

So and also depending on sometimes for physicians, depends on your clinical day or people who work.

You may be in the bottom two stages when you're working, but the non working days you may be in different stages.

Okay, so it's a little bit different.

So as I talk about this, the audience, I want you guys to think about the percentage of the time you spend most in kind of like a normal working day or a non working day.

Okay.

They can be different.

So five stages.

This Time Prisoner, Time Manager, Time Creator, Time Liberator, Time Transcender.

I'm going to go through all of them, the, the bottom stage and they go from the most fight or flight to the most calm as well.

Okay.

So the time prisoner is essentially like I, the one liner is like I don't have time.

So you wake up, you either check your email for work, you check your social media, you react to other people's demands.

Your time is not yours.

Your time is to serve others.

You don't want to say no to people because you're afraid of how that might look to other people.

Okay.

And you're just reacting to everything and you don't even have time to plan anything.

So number two is the time manager.

That is when you start using calendars, checklists, you have to dos, you have like things to check off, but you mistake busyness for motion towards your goals.

And everything is yourself.

So you don't have any leverage.

So you're not hiring people.

You're doing everything even though they're not in your zone of genius.

You're calling out some entrepreneurs right now, like, which I love, like some solo entrepreneurs.

Like that is, the piece is, is, I recognize that piece about time manager.

Trying to do all of it by yourself.

Yeah, yeah.

It's either like you're bootstrapping, which is okay initially, you know, you're bootstrapping or that you want to micromanage or control because you feel like only you can do it better.

So you just don't want to hire out.

Like this is the way I want to shop for my groceries.

So I don't trust anybody to shop groceries for me.

So I will spend two hours going to the grocery store like a few times a week.

So versus sitting down, you know, looking at your mission and then increasing the impact that you have in the world.

But yet I'm not saying I love grocery shopping on my own.

Well, not with my kids, but on my own.

I like to meander a nice schedule time to meander.

What I'm saying if this is not your love and it's sacrificing your time with your kids or your mission, then that's something to think about.

Beautiful.

The third stage is a time creator.

This is where most entrepreneurs are and this is where they think time freedom is.

This is a stage of fake time freedom.

So fake time freedom.

Just.

Okay, fake.

Got it.

Fake time freedom.

So your one liner is, I can make the time.

So because now that you have hired people, you have automations, you have leverage.

You eliminated, you know, your chronotype, you, you have your flow blocks within your, you know, deep work during your chronotype peak zone.

And so you're really good at freeing up time.

And now whenever there's new opportunities that come at you, you'll say, okay, how can I make the time?

How can I make it to this conference?

How can I juggle things and move things around the calendar?

Because you just never know until you try it out.

How would you know it's not a good fit when you're kind of like 50 50, right?

So you have this pressure to optimize and you're really irritated if something gets delayed for five to 10 minutes or 15 minutes.

Because everything is like clockwork, right?

It's perfectly scheduled.

And when something delays you an hour, it doesn't match your identity as a high performer.

So you get really irritated.

Okay.

Wow.

Okay.

I'm seeing like, I'm seeing different stages of myself in these, so.

Sorry, Keep going.

Yeah, and we will.

Sometimes we drop in these stages, depending on the day, you could be 10% presenter, 25% manager, like hopefully 50 to 75%.

You're on the other spectrum.

But you, you will.

This is a framework that you can diagnose yourself.

Like, what am I acting like today?

Like right now?

Who am I acting like in stages?

Right?

So because of this pressure to optimize, and this is where, you know, I was and sometimes I drop into that 1am the middle of the night.

I was being a time creator.

I was in a trap.

My calendar looked like the next stage, but my mindset was stuck in the lower stage actually.

Oh, oh, that's a really powerful thing because.

So as what you're saying, just to confirm like you were in a space that your calendar on paper showed more space, like more what you would consider time freedom, but you nervous system wise energy, emotions did not feel that it didn't match.

It's amazing what happens when we have that like dissonance within our, within ourselves.

Right.

That is not something doesn't make sense and it doesn't connect.

Yeah, yeah.

You've scheduled everything out for your non negotiables.

You have workout three times a week.

You spend time with your kids, you have, you know, date nights, you don't work on the weekends.

But it doesn't feel great.

As great as this is supposed to look.

Yep, I understand.

Yes.

So, so sometimes we could have, we, we can look like we have an upper stage type of calendar, but the, our lower stage mindset could be a prisoner actually as well.

Like we were looking to serve, don't want to say no, et cetera.

So the next stage, the very important.

And you know, as a time creator, a lot of times actually you're living with regrets and how you spend your time.

Most people, except for one or two.

I've asked this question too, and I'll ask the audience this.

If you were not here tomorrow, what would you regret the most in how you spend your time?

And most people will say something like, I'm not living my potential, I'm not creating impact I want.

I'm not spending no time with kids, spouse, parents, aging parents.

Family are usually sacrificed because I'm doing this work for my family, so I need to sacrifice them right now.

So there's, I think, you know, a lot of them, 40s to 60s, they've already worked so hard their whole entire life and is still living life with regrets, which life is like too short to do that.

Right.

So, so short.

It's so short.

I don't even, I've never put it in context of time, of this.

But one of the ways that I always make decisions is I often ask myself, like, will, if I play the movie till the end, if I say no to this, will I regret it?

And if the answer is absolutely, then I will say yes and I'll figure it out.

I'm just gonna figure it out because I know that that's something I feel called to do.

I. I mean, I was younger, I remember my grandfather saying that to me shortly before he passed.

And he was just like, just live your life full out with no regrets.

And that's always played in my head.

I mean, it's not perfect, but it is.

I love that phrase and thinking of it.

And I think a lot of people, maybe they don't even stop to think about the regret piece.

And what do I want to do?

Somebody asked me this not that long ago.

They're like, if you won a bunch of money, what would you do differently?

And I said, you know, the funny thing is I would do exactly what I do now and that I'm so grateful for.

I would have other help, don't get me wrong.

But I. I would do exactly what I do now.

And I think that's like, that's a piece on the regrets that I just want to share.

Yeah.

There's people who are doing things that they don't want to do, but they keep doing it.

And I just don't see the point of doing that.

Right.

You.

You don't want to.

Because I see the people in the er, they die so suddenly, and you just never know what's going to happen.

Right.

And I want people to not have those.

I mean, you.

You would be dead.

You wouldn't know.

Yeah, I know, but I don't.

You know, I don't.

These type of things, it.

Depending on what it is, will kids, which will affect the next generation, the next generation in terms of, like, your presence, your joy, your ability to have white space, your ability to recover.

If you are, like, on the go right now, your definition of like, serving a purpose and impact is to do more, then your kids are going to feel that and model that.

And do you want that for your kids?

Anyway, I digress.

So regrets modeling for the world.

Ripple, Ripple impact, generational impact.

Those are things you can think about.

Um, kids are a great motivator if you have kids to, like, change that mindset.

Yes, they are.

Yes, they are.

So now, in terms of going up to the fourth stage, the fourth stage is the time liberator.

And this is where I say that's where true time freedom is.

And that's where you want to spend most of your time.

Okay.

Or percentage, you know, in.

And this is where it's called time liberator.

Because when a new opportunity comes to you, you ask, will this multiply or drain my energy?

And it's not even about if you have the time anymore.

Because you do.

You have the time.

You'll make it.

You'll make it happen just like you said.

You'll make whatever happen.

If it's a hell yes.

It's like trusting your gut, like you're.

What you're saying, trusting your intuition.

You would have already known your life vision.

You would have already known your massive transformative purpose for your life.

So it's very easy actually and quicker to say yes and no now.

And this is a stage where when you flip the switch, you're calm.

When an event comes, like say something not done or some a to do list that's on your list that's not complete or slow, you would have no emotions tied to it and you would just see it as a thing to be done.

And it will be done.

And you trust yourself so you don't see things as a gap anymore.

When things aren't like the list of things to do, you see them as is and you don't go down this negative spiral of anything.

And you.

If that makes sense.

So.

No, I.

No, no, no, it does.

So what's the mindset like of a time liberator in general?

I realize that's a, like a big question, but I'm just curious.

How do they see things differently?

So the mindset is.

Well, number one question, will this multiple hydrate my energy?

Number two question, how do I see the magic in myself around me and in everyone?

Oh, how do I see the magic in myself around me and in everyone?

Love it.

Okay.

Love it.

Amazing.

Yeah.

So it's either no emotions to something.

You, you take equanimity, you take things as is, or it's going to be positive.

Okay.

Like, it's the good.

It's a win, It's a lesson.

It's my medicine.

So.

And you really take on like one or two things for the quarter to work on and that's it.

And when new opportunities come at you, you a lot, it's.

It's.

Everything is a no unless it's a hell yes.

So it's an automatic decision no already.

It's not even like, let me think about it.

It's like, because you already know what you're working on the next two.

So anything new?

Like, for me, I know I'm going to be working on sabbatical.

I'm going to be doing the television.

I'm going to travel with my kids.

Anything new, it's like, no.

Unless it's like really good roi for depending on what I'm doing or complimentary, what I'm doing.

But anything very outside of that, like new speaking, new conferences, it's like no, no, no, easy.

And that's you.

I can see the freedom in what you're saying there.

And that is a.

It's interesting because even if you say no to that, that just might be not now.

Just not now.

Maybe that if that opportunity comes back around, maybe I'm in a different spot.

But your point of making a decision is much easier because you're clear on where you're going and what you're doing.

Yeah, yeah, exactly.

Like you have time to plan your life vision at 80s or 90s with full mental health and physical capacity, you would know your top three massive transformative purpose in life.

You have your five goals for the year.

So anything that's not aligned with that, it's like an automatic no.

Anything that's not aligned with your kids or your spouse or your health and vitality, anything that ruins the sleep is a no.

Um, I've had to give up the sleep but for jet lag one time for a conference.

But that's the tricky part.

Sometimes you say yes of a hell yes because it serves the mission, but temporarily it affects your health and, and

if it dies and if it's something like that, that is a hell yes.

Do you find too, like there have been times I've, I've said something to that it was an absolute hell yes.

And I look at the calendar, I'm like, okay, I know it's all aligned and it feels good.

But then also recognizing I'm going to need time after this to recharge.

Like I now you can't get in my calendar for the next couple weeks.

And that has been liberating in a way to feel.

As opposed to feeling like I have

to do it all.

Yeah, yeah.

Just a longer recovery or just like a regularly built in recovery.

I'm gonna start building in.

Like I haven't decided what week, but basically one week of the month is gonna be.

No calls, no appointments, nothing.

It's the last week of the month for me.

I'm just sharing that I implemented that last year.

I did.

I implemented it last year.

And it is, it's the week to work on my business and I help to set things up for the next month.

And it's a recharge and it's just not client facing work.

It's made a huge difference.

Oh, amazing.

I love it.

Okay.

I'm glad that's worked out for you.

So my, my thinking of like building a longer recovery for, for this is on the right path.

So definitely.

Definitely.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So the last stage is the, the time transcender.

I guess the best way to think about this is where the one liner is.

All there is is this moment now that time disappears.

There is no concept of time because you're in flow.

So this is the flow.

When you could be in flow state doing deep work, you could be in this flow state.

This is not a permanent stage.

You'll get out of it.

This is not sustainable because you need a container for the flow.

So without the container, you'll let go of like obligations, life maintenance stuff.

But when you are in flow, that's when you're connecting with people you love or you're really focused on the deep work and your mission that you have in front of you.

So we want to spend our life as much in like high flow life.

This could even look like you cooking or, I don't know, sewing or.

I had a five hour date with my daughter.

I didn't really look at my phone for like four or five hours at the mall.

We just went to a different, different places and she was like a year and a half.

So you can look like a lot of things and we just want to have more of those moments where we're checking the time clock time and have more presence time because that's when you build the memories that you're going to remember on your deathbed.

Oh, that's beautiful.

Thank you for sharing all that with me.

I'm curious.

I don't know if there's a way to measure that or just.

It's just something that's coming up to me.

When you're talking about the time transcender.

When you have those moments, they don't have to be long moments.

Right?

You're saying that, but I wonder almost like how much they compound.

Like those are the moments.

I can even, just as you're saying this, think of certain moments in my life where it's like I remember being here, I remember that experience.

It.

We weren't there long, but it made such an impression and such a visceral effect that I can tap into that experience if I wanted to at any time.

Yeah, yeah, for sure.

It's very, it can be very brief, but as long as there's connectedness or when you're in flow, you like, things just disappear sometimes that's longer.

Um, but as long as there's disconnect, like connectedness, that's all that matters.

When you've tied an emotion to it

that is so important People miss that piece sometimes.

Right.

When it's.

And something you and I spoke about earlier when we started was now everything that you've shared.

Can you share this and speak on your experience regarding emotion and nervous system and how this is all connected?

Yeah.

So when you are in the fourth stage, the Time Liberator, Time Transcender stage, you know, it's.

It's a state, I call it.

You are going to be in parasympathetic most of the time.

Rest and digest state instead of like the fight or flight.

And it does.

You know, another thing regarding.

You talked about recovery.

If you do not build in the recovery, you'll drop into Time Creator very easily.

You'll start seeing the gap in everything.

A Time Creator sees the gap in everything and a Time Liberator sees a gain in everything.

Great book too, by the way.

Yeah.

Yes.

And so if you build on the recovery, not only will your output be more faster, but you'll be able to have more of the equanimity that you want to have as a liberator.

The no emotions or more resourceful emotions, more positive emotions.

You know, you want to do things like I do sensory deprivation floats to activate my parasympathetic.

So for those of you who don't know, that's when you go into a tank, there's no sound, smell, voice, gravity, touch.

Well, I guess you feel the water, you're just floating.

But when you take away the stimulation, you drop into parasympathetic.

Other people can do workout, nature, socialization, things like that, Anything or just like Shavasana, lay on the floor.

So that helps keeps you as a Time Liberator versus dropping down to a Time Creator.

I don't know if that answers your question.

No, it does.

And I love.

I can just see like the difference.

Different energies and things that I do and how they fit into different times.

Right.

Like, it's just, it's.

I think it's taken me multiple decades to learn the power of nervous system.

Like being aware that I was in my sympathetic almost all of the time, not even understanding how to access parasympathetic and how important it is.

And that is like, that plays with creativity and time.

But if you're always in a sympathetic state, then you're like, there's no way you're feeling time freedom.

Right.

Like that is.

That's the first stage that you're talking about.

The Time Prisoner.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

So from Time Prisoner all the way up to Time Creator, you're you like a gradation of cortisol.

Like, oh, it's either a fire hose of cortisol as a prisoner or like a low drip cortisol as a creator.

Regardless of that, it'll make you secrete more insulin.

More insulin, more fat storage, more metabolic disease.

You'll like, won't slow sleep, harder to sleep, and essentially, eventually you'll have earlier onset of a chronic disease and potentially die sooner.

And so you will lose more time with your loved ones and your kids.

So that's my motivation.

Not just output for like as an entrepreneur and impact admission, but really like more quality, presence, time, more health and vitality for my kids and my husband.

See, I think that's beautiful and I love that you're saying this because I also feel that so much conversation happens around time management from the lens of like the entrepreneur and in business and how can I get more done.

But like, there are times and I've had great mentors who have said to me, but for what purpose?

Like for what purpose or what, what else lights you up?

And then start sharing of the things that actually we love doing.

So I often look at it and go, it's great that I love building business and I don't want to sacrifice family time, health for it.

I want both to exist.

So I think it's a, I think it's a very important conversation.

Yeah.

Because we set our imaginary deadline of where we should be in our business.

So we'll sacrifice what's important to us.

And I think the most important is our body with our body energy, how can we build our business?

And we have this imaginary deadline that we set for ourselves and then we rush to do it.

And when we don't meet that, we see the gap and we rush even more.

Like you said.

So just you don't have to have a deadline.

There's a balance of course, in setting goals, but being flexible with it.

Okay, I love that.

So let's just talk for a second.

As someone, as yourself, you have two young kids, you are on a sabbatical from your job, but you're also building.

Right?

You're in this time of building and what you're doing.

What does your daily calendar look like in order to maximize for you?

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

So wake is like 4:30 to 5.

I get the first flow block in probably between 5 to 6, 5 to 7.

Um, so I will do all my business stuff, all the deep work stuff.

Sometimes like, like maintenance stuff.

Like this morning was taxes, like, you know, tax report, like filling all those things plus all like the Business stuff too for you know, the time freedom advisory.

Then I get, I build in my recovery with my kids.

So 7 to about 8:30 or 9am it's all kids.

So that's my recovery actually.

And then I dive in again to the second flow block, maybe eight to.

I've been able to extend my flow blocks now to about two and a half, three hours without dropping efficiency.

Um, so I go two to three hours for my flow block, seeing patients in telemedicine.

Then the next recovery is working out in the gym.

So weightlifting lunch and then the afternoon like 1 to 3 ish is more of like communication, batching, serving other people meetings and things like that.

Finally checking the text, the group texts or whatever there is the comms.

Then 3 ish to 5 is like picking up the kids.

Well actually 3 to 8 or 3 to 8 is kids time.

And the last 2 hours is maybe like night routine and go to bed around 9, 30, 10.

So on average the way I've controlled it is probably at least five to six hours with kids per day.

Beautiful.

And plus I love the, the blocks like as you're describing it in time because it really is like I think that if we're, if you are in a space that you have the flexibility to set up your own calendar, like learning.

This concept is really powerful to understand.

Like where I'm not expecting myself to sit down for six to eight hours of focused.

It doesn't work that way and it's definitely not as efficient.

So I love how you shared that.

You're putting a lot into a day, but in a beautiful like balanced way.

Rhythm.

Yeah, rhythm.

I like rhythm.

I like rhythm.

Better than balanced.

Yeah, it's, it's the ultradian rhythm.

It's just like your sleep, your sleep is every like sleep cycle.

You have five sleep cycles, 60 to 90 minutes.

You're building the same ultradian rhythm into the day, which are flow blocks.

The flow blocks are 60 to 90 minutes.

Then you build on the recovery and then another filler block, another recovery.

So you can do everything that you want depending on how you intersperse it throughout the day.

Wow.

Okay, so this is what has taken you like as you are on your sabbatical right now.

Where do you see this going?

What, what's your goal with this work that you're doing?

Currently I am writing a book regarding this whole entire process.

Just getting it down on paper so that more people can be exposed to it.

Since right now I do one on one advisory and perhaps the next thing I'm Going is perhaps creating like an education system that I can give to like companies for their employees.

So that would be the next step.

Yeah, I can see this.

I can definitely see this for companies because I think this is and I mean this is also, I don't say openness and learning in it to see things a different way.

Yeah, they'll have happier employees who can output more perfect.

Even more perfect.

First off, how can people connect to you and learn a little bit more about this work?

I know you're writing the book right now and we would love to have you back as this is something that you bring out into the world.

But just share with us where people can connect and find you and learn more about you.

Yeah, yeah.

So anybody who wants to know how they can ascend to the next few.

Well, the easiest thing is, well, the podcast Productivity MD Podcast.

It'll give you tools and tactics to ascend from stage one to stage three.

Now when you're at stage three and you want to go flip and you'll have a little bit of flow state which is stage five.

But to permanently to be spend as much time in stage four, like as much as possible to flip that mindset and switch and emotion, that's where I could probably help you the best to do like a one on one advisory and productivityMD.

Or you can go to zoomand.com, there's an initial 30 minute initial console that's complimentary and we'll see how we can get you up the the stage from three to four.

Okay, amazing.

I will make sure all of those links are in the show notes and I am curious, like can you share?

Because I have never had a Nassau flight surgeon on the podcast.

Can you just share a little bit about like the work that it took to for you to get to that point.

This is why I think you're even more of an expert to share what you're sharing now because of where you took yourself to.

Yeah, I think when I was young I always wanted to work somewhere with space cause I was just fascinated.

And when I was in 19 I set the goal of I knew I was going to medical school.

I just said no matter what specialty I did, I would, you know, work for NASA.

So I went through emergency medicine residency and then a critical care two year training fellowship.

I was brunched US Hospital then two more years aerospace medicine training and fellowship, then went to NASA and I learned about, you know, really all different systems that has not just medicine but you know, how to keep a human in top performance and anticipate their risk in 30, 40 years.

So that's like the biggest thing.

You know, we can't burn them out when they're in the high stress environment already.

So essentially it was there for five years before I started my sabbatical.

I don't know if that answers your question.

Yeah, no, I just wanted to share because I think you spent time and years in higher pressure environments like you.

I think I, I'm sure that sets you up to even understand and want to learn this even more.

Right.

To be able to have that balance and that rhythm.

Oh yeah.

I love nerding out on all of the neuro like, like as the neuroscience behind flow.

So yes, you're right.

Yes.

I just, I think sometimes when we can look back at like the experience that we had that led us to there, it's like, oh, you know what?

I did spend a lot of time in like this area.

So it did actually set me up to be open to learning so many other ways.

I mean, I just.

Sometimes it ends up we become the best teacher possible because we've also lived and experienced and walked in.

Yes, the lived experiences.

Yeah, for sure.

And also I, I didn't mention if they want to like send me a message or find me on social.

It will be an.

On YouTube too.

It would be Ansung MD a n n T S U N G M D okay.

Amazing.

I will make sure all of the links are in the show notes.

And I also, I mean as I'm looking at your notes, I'm like, okay, before 28, you also completed a couple of different things, didn't you?

It depends on where you're.

I know.

Okay, so by 28, you summited Kilimanjaro, Is that correct?

Amazing.

What was that like?

It was the hardest thing physically and mentally I've ever done.

That set me to become like bring everything on.

I can do anything I can find.

Yeah.

Was like, I, I just, I. I've never talked to anybody who I've heard

of lots of stories, but I've never

talked to anybody who's done it.

So that is.

I just wanted to, I wanted to ask that because I think it's fantastic.

And you know, the other way of like pushing your resourcefulness and pushing, even drawing boundaries of saying no to people.

Because part of the thing to send up the stages you gotta start, you know, just saying no to put yourself in a physically demanding challenge like mountain climbing or going with a tour.

But if you could push yourself physically and mentally at somewhere with high altitude it's really the best teacher, I feel like, to really, unapologetically allow you to say no and be very resourceful and capable.

So you're problem solving instead of limiting and victimizing yourself.

Mm.

Isn't that.

That's.

That's so powerful.

I am so grateful that our paths connected.

I have loved having this conversation.

I've learned so much.

So thank you for everything, and I would love to be able to have you back on as your book is coming out into the world.

Just to help to share that out there, I have one more question for you, Ann.

It is, what lesson in life are you most grateful for?

No, I mean, the immediate thing, the instinct was that none of the successes that you achieve will be significant enough to fulfill you without having a good relationship with people you love.

That's cold, because I was finishing residency and fellowship, too, and throughout my life, actually, but I never had a great relationship with my mother, and I never really started feeling the peace, the fulfillment, like, the path to fulfillment, until I began healing, that journey, the forgiveness, but really on the path to, like, unconditional love for, like, my mom's baby self, in a way.

Oh, that is.

When you allow yourself to do that work, it's emotional.

It's really powerful.

And we start to see that even if you don't have a great relationship with a parent, that there's a little version of them inside of them that are still trying to figure things out.

Yep, exactly.

So none of the external stuff matters.

Entrepreneurial pursuits, I think matters if your relationships are not full or complete or, you know, like, if you don't make amends as much as possible in a way, for yourself.

I was just gonna say amends as much as you can for yourself.

You can't control someone else's side of the street, but you can do your best.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

You can forgive yourself, and you can try as best as you can.

Sometimes you have to draw boundaries.

If you can draw the boundaries and see what I call the essence and the light behind that person, then that's all you can do.

But without that work, without actually going through it yourself.

For me, my lesson is that that's why I didn't feel fulfilled.

That's beautiful.

Thank you so much for sharing, and thank you for being here.

Thank you, Marcia.

It was really honored to be able to share this, the lessons I learned with everybody.

Thank you so much.

My pleasure to have you.

Loved it.

Thank you so much for tuning in to another episode of Own youn Choices, Own youn Life.

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Remember, when you own your choices, you truly own your life.

Sam.