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Ordinary Sherpa: Family Adventure Coaching and Design


Mar 24, 2021

Imagine you are 8 years old and your hero, your dad, a well-known and respected physician passes away unexpectedly.  Life just gave you a moment of pain, learning and growth that is unimaginable to most kids.  You decide your dream is to become a doctor.  Despite the challenges in front of you like working through academic rigor with a learning disability, the grunt work of med school, through the trenches of residency, and years of unforgiving night shifts you achieve that dream and are a full-fledged medical doctor.  Except in reaching your dream, you have built protective armor so you can’t hurt anymore, and your sense of humor has gone dormant.

The path to the summit is a journey, filled with good intentions and aspirations; People rooting us on and society celebrating our achievements.  But what happens when our fuel gauge is empty and our compass seems off?

I don’t know where I first heard Doc G’s story, but I do remember feeling completely validated.  My path was not that of a doctor, mine was a teacher.  There is a dark side to every dream and today Doc G shines a light on the aspects of life allowing armor to crack, giving way for joy and purpose to seep in. His empathetic approach creates the space for individuals whose identity is often intertwined with their careers.  

Doc G is a husband, father, writer, prophetic storyteller and physician who discovered financial independence and opted out of medicine for a life of greater meaning and purpose.  Doc G it is such an honor and privilege to have you here today, welcome to Ordinary Sherpa.

To Connect with Doc G
Website: http://earnandinvest.com
Podcast: Earn & Invest
Instagram: @earnaninvest
Twitter: @earnaninvest

Key Takeaways

  1. The identity that fits us best may not be the one that we grew up with or that others put on us.  
  2. Having enough was as anxiety provoking as not having enough.  Sometimes having too many options, too many decisions, too many possibilities can be numbing. 

  3. Walking away from his physician identity created two losses.  The first loss was his own grieving of all that he worked for. The second loss is when friends and family realize that their vision of you doesn’t align with who you want to be anymore.  People don't like to question deep things. So they don't necessarily want you to either.

  4. When it was time to step away, he systematically started subtracting the things that weren’t fulfilling.  What are the things in your life that aren’t adding value and how might you begin to subtract them from your life? 

  5. Doc G testified he’s not nearly as good at doing the things now as he was at being a doctor. But today he can pursue these things he enjoys even if he’s not amazingly successful at them.  This allowed him to pivot away from what he thought he was supposed to be doing and towards the things he wants to be doing. There’s no real pressure to succeed above and beyond enjoying the process. 

  6. Deep connection is what happens when your purpose, identity and relationships all start to align. The need to explain yourself disappears. Connection naturally flows from identifying what your purpose is and embracing your true identity.

  7. Every day is a Monday or a Saturday or a Sunday or a Tuesday. He finds himself looking forward to Mondays, and sometimes on a Saturday afternoon he’s doing what other people would call work. It's a very free lifestyle without the constraints and borders felt from the traditional work week. 

  8. If you can't say hell yes, you better start saying no.

  9. Some people mistake financial independence as once they have enough money they'll never work again.  That's not it. It's that you only do the work you choose to do, work that adds value to your life. The real power of having control of your finances is being able to say no to the work you don’t want to do.  

  10. Instead of looking towards goals, look towards processes that bring happiness and joy, regardless of the end point or a goal that they lead to. If the goal is becoming such a hassle or fearful to the point where you're not enjoying the process, that's a sign to pull back or change.

Call to Action
I agreed to do a giveaway drawing the rest of March for listeners who left a Written Review and Subscribed to the email list.  The giveaway is for a pint of our homemade maple syrup. You can watch the sap to syrup process @OrdinarySherpa on Instagram.

If you would like to be entered into the giveaway drawing you can leave a review by going to ordinarysherpa.com/review for a tutorial on how to leave a review 

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ordinarysherp.com/subscribe to join our email list and get adventure goodies delivered to your inbox.