We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Santina Wheat a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Santina, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Before we talk about all of your success, let’s start with a story of failure. Can you open up about a time when you’ve failed?

Early on in my career, I applied for a job that I didn’t get. At the time, it felt like a horrible kick in the gut. I thought that I had to follow a specific path and be successful at every turn to truly be successful I thought that I was well qualified and thought it could help me on my journey. But, someone else was given the job and it was hard to see past that. I was frustrated and felt like a failure for a while. I applied for some additional experiences outside of my employer – and was able to gain some great experiences. Later, when I was able to look on this with some distance, it reminded me of an important life lesson. The path to success is not a straight one. I may have not had the other experiences without this failure. Now, I look on my stumbles as growth opportunities on my pathway to achieve my purpose.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

I am a family physician whose main job it is to train other family physicians. I love this job. It is deeply meaningful to me and I have been fortunate to train many and interact on a national level for my specialty. Like many in healthcare though, I have unfortunately experienced burnout. As I was trying to find ways to recover, I found that the recommendations of many was to leave healthcare altogether. While this was the right choice for some – it didn’t feel like the right choice for me. I had worked too hard for too long to just leave medicine all together. Ultimately, I found physician coaching and found that it was a way to pull myself out of burnout. Additionally, by becoming a coach myself, it allowed me to support others in finding their purpose and increase their joy while staying in healthcare. I focus on bringing the chaos to calm. The techniques and strategies I use are not just helpful for those in healthcare though – they are helpful for many busy professionals. So I focus on helping others rediscover their purpose so that they can find better balance and joy both at home and at work.

What’s a lesson you had to unlearn and what’s the backstory?

I had to unlearn modesty. Particularly as a woman, I was taught that you shouldn’t boast. I was taught that I needed to keep my head down, work hard, and others would see me for that. Ultimately – this isn’t truly helpful when trying to advance and when trying to build clientele. While I do not think I will ever be comfortable with boasting, I have had learned to share my successes with my teams and share the benefits that others have had with me so that others can benefit.

Have you ever had to pivot?

As I became a coach – this was a time of a life pivot for me. It was when I realized that my initial life plan was not the only path forward. I thought that I could really only achieve my goals with one type of employer -but when I sat down and evaluated my own purpose, I realized this wasn’t true. It allowed me to prioritize my own goals, those of my family, and enabled me to broaden my opportunities. This realization led me to accept a job I may have not accepted previously and start my coaching business.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.santinawheat.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/drtinawheat/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61557910542106&mibextid=LQQJ4d
• Linkedin: http://www.linkedin.com/in/tinawheat
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@SantinaWheatLLC