Dr. Ann Tsung: Well, good morning, comm check. Sorry, just habit.
Stephanie Maas: So Dr. Ann, tell us a little bit about you and your background.
Dr. Ann Tsung: Yeah. Hi, everybody. My name is Ann Tsung. I am a physician and I'm playing in
emergency medicine also did a fellowship and anesthesia critical care. And I did another
fellowship in aerospace medicine. A my full time job is with NASA as their flight surgeon. So I
take care of astronauts through training, and then their mission. And then on the side, I work in the
emergency room and critical care, part time, productivity coaching on how to get people's time
back, and also a podcast show hosts of ItsNotRocketScienceShow.com. Everything I've ever
learned throughout the years.
Stephanie Maas: Wow, it sounds like a real loser. Your parents must be super disappointed.
Dr. Ann Tsung: Yeah, it's been, I mean, my mom has been telling me to be a doctor, since I was very
young.
Stephanie Maas: I did look through your background. And not only are your professional
credentials, incredible, but the things that you do in your spare time as well. So I wore my
glasses today, instead of putting in my contacts in an attempt to look smarter. So we'll see how
that executes.
Dr. Ann Tsung: You look amazing. You look amazing.
Stephanie Maas: So you have this incredible background, I heard you kind of say in passing,
you were told to be a doctor from when you were little. Walk me through that journey a little bit.
Dr. Ann Tsung: I was born in Taiwan moved to from Taiwan to Houston when I was nine. And yes, like,
you know, in the Asian culture, being a physician, or lawyer, as a very, like it's prominent in that
culture for parents who want their kids to, you know, go towards those professions, became a
physician, at that time already being in Houston, when I went to visit the Space Center, I already
know that I was interested in space. And no matter what specialty or what profession, I ended up
going into, I was going to work for NASA. And then third year medical school. That's when I was
studying at borders, but didn't want to study anymore. So I googled space doctor. And that's
when I came about, like this whole new world of aerospace medicine, fellowship training. And I
went down that route, essentially, I was always good at planning and visualizing the future. But
in terms of learning productivity, I wish I had known this like maybe elementary middle school
high school, I didn't learn this until residency or as an emergency medicine. When I learned about
Tim Ferriss, Tony Robbins, and kind of took me down that road of efficiency, maximal efficiency
that 80/20 rule. In general, my superpower is efficiency, I've always been able to achieve what
I actually set my mind to. And I realized that that's where I want to take it like I want to, you
know, not only do my main job, I would love to share in my knowledge about how to elaborate your
time. So you can spend that doing what you love and spend it with your loved ones.
Stephanie Maas: It think it's common in practice, regardless of what your practice is that you know,
time is money, your most valuable asset is time. So you mentioned specifically about coaching folks
on really how to spend your time when they come to you or when you talk to folks, what would you say
is the biggest time mistake you see people making.
Dr. Ann Tsung: I would say it would be doing things that you could be paying others to do less
than your current hourly rate, the leverage other people's time you automate it, you delegate it,
you'll eliminate it. For example, think about your hourly rate. And if you can pay somebody to help
you with housework, if your hourly rate is more than that, then go ahead and pay somebody to help
you with that. And so those are things that I pay for, and I can come down from work be, you know, I
can do things in my zone of genius. For me, my zone of genius is planning is talking to people is
coaching is working on the medicine. So my zone of genius wouldn't be utilized. If I was in the
medical room equipment room, that wouldn't be my zone of genius. So what is your zone of genius?
What is your ultimate goal? Like? What freedoms are you trying to achieve like time freedom,
location, freedom, emotional freedom, vitality, freedom, like for health, and then you worked out
you chopped down to perhaps a three year goal, one year goal than 90 Day goal. And once you have a
focus of the 90 day goal that you would like to achieve, then you have a plan on essentially
creating SMART goals very specific time base for the week. But once you figure that out, then
you're not distracted by the other little things that you feel like you need to control. Because
there are things that you can outsource to other people who can do a way better than you way faster
than you, for example, social media marketing, ads creation, or even just putting things in Excel
sheets. It's a micro step process. But once you can leverage other people, then you will free up
more time to work on your five goals and the focus things that move the needle towards your freedom
and not just doing things to be busy to check things off. So that's why I feel so passionate
about it. But I wanted to share this everything. I've learned that because when people get more
time freedom, it allows them to do the things that makes them happy. We're always stressed for time.
And when we can prioritize correctly, then we're not going to be missing out on time with our loved
ones, essentially. And this is why I do what I do.
Stephanie Maas: Absolutely. You talk about prioritizing tasks through the Eisenhower matrix.
Tell me a little bit about that.
Dr. Ann Tsung: Yeah, absolutely. I use that all the time. On days, especially on days, I'm
overwhelmed. So the Eisenhower matrix was developed from President Eisenhower, there's one
side on top, it will be like, urgent, not urgent. And then on the other side, it is important and
not important. The top left quadrant is the urgent and important. And that's where you don't want to
be, you don't want to be rushed. Things that belong there are family emergencies, and medical
emergencies. And some people say it would be like time sensitive items that you're working on. Like
say at work, like say the International Space Station is somehow is in jeopardy or the crew is
in jeopardy, that would be important and urgent, though, you want very few things to being there.
On the top right quadrant, if you're looking at it is the not urgent but important item. And that's
where you want to spend most of your time on, say, a big project that you're working on with a
deadline, like two or three weeks out, but you have time to work on it. You want to be, say
creating experiences or date nights with your spouse or your children and take each child out to
experience separately to connect. I think that's important. It's not urgent, but it's important.
Looking down and left. It is urgent, but not important. So those are items that people are
requesting things from you, and it seems urgent to them. But really, it can wait, a lot of times we
have this inner an easiness that we just want to respond right away. So then what the minute they
ask, or we have our notifications and that Outlook or email on all the time, and every time it pops
in, you want to respond right away because of fear of missing out. And actually, a lot of those
things are urgent to other people and maybe lead to us. But really it's not that important. The
bottom right? Is the not urgent and not important, as should be eliminated. Right? So those are
things like checking social media mindlessly. And I'm all for you know, winding down watching TV,
Netflix, but if you're doing that, in place of doing things that move the needle or
procrastinating that I will say that's a non important and not urgent task. Once your energy is
brought down, then you cannot work in your zone of genius, which is the important but not urgent
task.
Stephanie Maas: Absolutely. Thank you for walking me through that.
Dr. Ann Tsung: I would bring up also regarding delegation, we talked about delegation, in terms
of how about hiring house managers. And I would like to talk about the only the other huge help is
I had was my virtual assistant, my virtual assistant does everything from business to
personal, I'm leveraging his time to basically put something on a PDF or a slide or website and
putting in numbers in Excel, my time is used to go in there to the Excel to analyze it. That's my
Zone of genius, little things that once you hire a virtual assistant, you start realizing how many
things that you get annoyed that you don't want to do. And you just outsource it to them. Like they
can do all of it.
Stephanie Maas: And of course, I can hear people the audience go, oh, that must be nice, because
she makes all this money. She can afford it all these things. But that's that's what it is. It's
the catch. 22 is your time is freed up to do all the things that make you the most amount of money
instead of having to split your time on things that are better served elsewhere. Yeah. Okay. So
sometimes when we talk with folks that just have this on believable, over achieving presence, and
what they've accomplished, what they're doing, how they're doing it, it can almost make you
unrelatable and that I mean, I feel like on some days, it's a miracle that I brush my teeth every
day. So in the spirit of making you very relatable, What are you not good at?
Dr. Ann Tsung: Oh, letting go of control, it's always a work in progress. Because I'm very I mean
maybe in medicine and maybe that's why because you know drug dosages, it's in milligrans, I want it,
I'm very meticulous. It's letting go of control and doing things that that really matter in the
long run. But it's a work in progress.
Stephanie Maas: What do you do for fun?
Dr. Ann Tsung: Regularly? I do Olympic weightlifting.
Stephanie Maas: Yea that sounds super fun.
Dr. Ann Tsung: I mean, I've been doing it since our emergency medicine residency and I love it. I
think it's it's been almost 10 years. I started with more of our CrossFit type workouts started
learning Olympic weightlifting. And for those of you guys who don't know Oh, it's more. It's like
snatches cleans and jerks, plus, you know, a lot of front squats, back squats, deadlifts, etc, as
training for it. And I just I don't do any cardio anymore. And I just love the feeling of like,
flexibility core strain, I don't need anyone's help carrying my 50 Plus pound luggage. When I go
trekking in the mountains, I could carry my own pack because I got the 60 pounds, and that's fine.
And I like the feeling afterwards. And it's efficient, I can get done really fast and an hour
and the burn it's gonna continue on. And it's for longevity as well because it'll keep my bow strain
and bone density, muscle strength and bone density high as high as possible. And then other things I
do for fun cooking, but I don't like prepping and only cooking certain things but not regular
cooking. So I love like special things. I love sourcing, authentic ingredients, things that you
can't get. Unless it's like from that country like special Italian like Parmesan Reggiano from the
red cow olive oil that's harvested last season. Marcona almonds, I love like culinary delights.
And then the other part is traveling sharing experiences with my child. And also with my
husband and myself to like, Anywhere. Anytime I get a chance I would like just take off and
travel. And we've taken our eight month old on two plane trips, and I think two or three road trips
already. And two hikes when he was 10 weeks old. So yeah, just creating experiences.
Stephanie Maas: Who is somebody you've always wanted to meet, but haven't yet.
Dr. Ann Tsung: I would love to meet Jay Shetty. I listened to his his podcasts a lot his teaching,
you know, in terms of authenticity, his message has a lot of great content and tips for emotional
intelligence. And I feel like if we can be done like a mug, high emotional intelligence, then no
matter where we are in life, or what life throws our way we can handle it and will actually become
stronger from it.
Stephanie Maas: What book are you reading right now are listening to.
Dr. Ann Tsung: I just finished "what happened to you" by Oprah and talks about the childhood trauma
and why people could be acting the way they're acting. And instead of saying, Why are you doing
that? Why do you do this, but instead ask what happened to you, because a lot of times it can be
traced back to infancy stage, from then Nick Nicola. Abuse, etc. And that's why they act the
way they act. And this is a different approach to treating.
Stephanie Maas: So do you think you'll spend your entire career as a traditional doctor?
Dr. Ann Tsung: No, no, no, I don't think so. I think and they, and I'm hoping to achieve the five
freedoms. And two, so the five animals again is time freedom to be able to change, you know, work
my schedule, location, freedom, or location agnostic, I could work anywhere, anywhere in the
world, really, emotional freedom, that's where I want to be in terms of emotional intelligence, and
having the capacity to take on anything in life, vitality, freedom. So in terms of longevity, and
financial freedom, of course. So it's always working towards that goal. And I want to be able
to control my own time, I definitely want to do medicine, on my own time. So it's not like full
time, like I need it to survive, but on my own time, to practice to provide value, and also do
coaching to help create time for other people, and to travel the world, with my one son and more kids
to come and to share and teach them through experiences, like going somewhere to do some sort
of volunteer work in a different country to actually travel and track and experience the
hardship of going up on altitude to track for like hours a day to be on the coal to carry their
packs, etc. To survive. Those are the things I want to create down the line.
Stephanie Maas: What is, and this is a kind of a silly question, but I like asking anyway. What's
like a little known fact about you that not very many people know.
Dr. Ann Tsung: I don't know this, people know or don't know. But English is my second language. And
I actually had to learn English I didn't. I was an ESL until middle school. And I actually didn't, I
had to use a dictionary but one of those electronic dictionary that you type in one word to
translate. I will use that all the time in middle school in order to read books. So I wasn't able to
get out of an ESL English as a Second Language Program. I didn't go into regular classes until I
was in seventh grade.
Stephanie Maas: Wow, that had to be difficult.
Dr. Ann Tsung: I think it was initially because when I first came, I was nine years old. I took
English classes in Taiwan and Sesame Street with Sesame Street for seven years wasn't enough and I
was very shy. So I spoke a few words and I had you know, friends who are only Chinese and we spoke
Chinese only Mandarin, and it was during a competition and middle school, that the more books
you have You need to go and answer questions in the library, you get points and whoever wins gets
like a prize and that was competitive. So I wanted to win. So I read books, like voraciously in sixth
and seventh grade up to like the 10th and 12th grade level, but I did it by, you know, started
lower, of course, and I did it by translating, almost like every sentence had a few words, and it
just learned English that way. And Full House.
Stephanie Maas: Full House, that's great. Oh my gosh, that's awesome. Okay, so this is just a
personal question. I'm curious about you went to Antarctica. So my son loves penguins. So my bucket
list is to take him. I mean, he wants the real penguins. I want to take him to Africa. I've
looked into some and now look, I hate the cold. So this is not going to be we're not going to be
trekking anywhere. I'm not playing around. I'm gonna get off of something warm, walk around, take
some pictures and then get back on to something work. So what advice would you give knowing I want
to go to Antarctica?
Dr. Ann Tsung: Um, let me think. Yeah, so for those of you don't know, I went to Antarctica as
part of the aerospace medicine program when University of Texas Medical Branch Galveston and
you go there to learn remote medicine, just like when the astronauts go into space and the space
station's remote medicine, telemedicine. So I was there for a month. It was summer. And McMurdo. So,
I would say if you want to go to Antarctica, number one, it's not as cold as winter in the
Midwest, when it's summer.
Stephanie Maas: Okay, so go in the summer, okay.
Dr. Ann Tsung: And it's maybe 30s, unless you're on the south pole can be colder. But it's yeah,
it's like 30. Sometimes there's Windchill sometimes, of course, there's snow storm, there's
like, but it's not like negative. So it's doable, because we do it here in the Midwest. And so it
depends on where you want to go. You can go from Christchurch, New Zealand. Or you can go from
Oshawa, I believe as well South America. And you could go to the McMurdo Station and the in the US
side. Or you can pay a little more, you can go to South Pole, but the penguin sightings a lot of it
is that McMurdo Station from when I was there, and when the ice starts melting, I believe it was like
January, February, later on, that's when they see the penguins come out. And then the penguins. I
mean, we saw, we saw seals, and I believe we saw occasional penguins when they started warming up.
But I know later on, you'll see penguins like within the base, just roaming around, not scared
of people at all. That would be so cool. Yeah, just oh, one of the warm tie, and specifically
asked them for penguin sightings. And I know there's other bases, too, that is close to the
water. So it may be a different timing in terms of when you can see wildlife. But it's not that cold.
It's not like I'll just dress warmly dressed like it's for the Midwest. If you go to the summer,
you'll be fine.
Stephanie Maas: Okay, noted. Thank you. All right. Anything else as we head to the end of our time
together?
Dr. Ann Tsung: Yes, I would say one big takeaway I want you guys to take you know to get from this
whole thing is to please leverage your time. Think about your hourly rate. And think about what
you're doing. If you can outsource that to somebody else, like a house manager to do your
dishes, fold your laundry, your proper you then outsource it. So you can work on creating your
five goals for your life, your year, your 90 days. So think about that. And then think about hiring a
virtual assistant as well. Reach out to me at Tsu and GANN md@gmail.com. Also, if you need my help
to kind of assess your five goals for your life, I am offering a 60 minute complimentary coaching
call that you can schedule with me. You can go apply at Anne Sung md.com. That's n sang md.com go
through the questions. There's a Calendly link at the end, you can book a call with me one hour, the
space is very, very limited because I do work full time. And then the last thing is that if you would
like to check out the podcast you can go to It's not rocket science. show.com I'm on all the social
media, Instagram, Facebook, they're all and sung MD A n n t S u n g MD and feel free to check me
out. Also YouTube as well. You can see me in person, see what this and lots of ways to reach me
if you need help.
Stephanie Maas: Awesome. Thank you so much. I really appreciate your time. And just the
opportunity to get to know you are truly inspiring. It was really great to see some of
their realness and really appreciate you being here. Thank you.
Dr. Ann Tsung: Yeah, thank you so much, Stephanie for having me on The Action Catalyst. I love our
time and I hope this was a valuable to your listeners.