MGMA Insights: Aligning Your Mind For Effective Healthcare Leadership
Download MP3Well, hi, everyone. I'm Daniel Williams, senior editor at MGMA, host of the MGMA Podcast Network. We are back with another MGMA Insights podcast, and we have Britt Frank joining us joining us for a second time this year. Britt, spoke as a keynote speaker at one of our events earlier this year and now has a new book. Let me get this title right, Britt.
Daniel Williams:Align your mind, tame your inner critic, and make peace with your shadow using the power of parts work. That is I love that subtitle. That's a lot there. First of all, welcome, and we'll talk a lot about the book. Welcome, Britt.
Britt Frank:Thanks for having you back on. And, yes, that is the most epicly long subtitle of all time.
Daniel Williams:Yeah. I love that. I started saying it, then I just kept going, and I kept going. And maybe that's the whole point here. So, first of all, welcome back.
Daniel Williams:We talked to you before you spoke at the MGMA event. Just fill us in. How did that go?
Britt Frank:Oh, it was such a blast. I so I love conferences. I I have this weird thing where I think conference people are the best people. We've all left our normal day to day lives, and we're gathered for the same purpose, and we speak the same language. And I had such a blast being conference.
Britt Frank:So thank you everybody who came and who was there and who made me feel so warmly welcomed. And and book book is launching. The book is about to be birthed a week from today.
Daniel Williams:That is so good. Yeah. By the time y'all hear this, the book will be out. We'll have a direct link. I mean, there are links out there right now because I have it bookmarked on Amazon.
Daniel Williams:You can preorder there, but also lots of other places you can get it. And, Britt, you can share that information with us. Like, right now, where would people go? They go to the Amazon, and then are there other book places where you're directing people as well, your website?
Britt Frank:I mean, I I would always start with local booksellers. Yeah. Or local, but you can get it on Amazon, Target, you know, Barnes and Noble, wherever wherever you buy books, it is available.
Daniel Williams:That's right. And, Britt, I will share with you. I also am in a waiting line, on a couple of, library apps. I'm on Libby and Hoopla and oh gosh. There's one more I just joined this week, everybody.
Daniel Williams:I will share that with y'all as well. So I have been out there bookmarking it to place it on hold at all these library apps as well. So that is really Yeah. So let's talk about it. We'll just stay with the main title.
Daniel Williams:We won't, you know, do the full title every time. Align your mind. Talk about the origin of this, where your thinking was coming to to focus on this, and tell us a little bit about the writing and research process.
Britt Frank:So I called the book a mind because as a practicing psychotherapist, I think the emphasis, especially these days, is very much on what's wrong. What's wrong with my mind? How do I fix my mind? How do I change my mind? And there's not enough inherently spoken about what's right about our minds.
Britt Frank:And we're all taught till most of us are taught to think that our brains are this evil entity that sets out to destroy our plans and interrupt our goals and plague us with bad habits. But I called the book Align Your Minds because much like tires on a car or your spine, when the when the things are aligned, meaning they're in right relationship to each other, life along smoothly. And parts of ourselves that we think we like, like the inner critic and the saboteur and the procrastinator and the perfectionist. What if all of those parts could have a seat, the giant conference table inside our heads. And the book goes into the the hows, the practical tactic.
Britt Frank:Here's how you train your brain to be on your team instead of feeling to it all the time.
Daniel Williams:Okay. Is there any psychic connection here? Because my tire light flickered on as I drove here. And, also, my back is a little tweaked, and I started stretching when you said spine and and aligning your tires. But I'm guessing nothing on the psychic side here.
Daniel Williams:Right?
Britt Frank:That's so funny. Well, it's a common dilemma. Right? And with tire alignment, if your tire light goes on, you don't go, oh, no. Now it must destroy my car, and I'm a terrible driver.
Britt Frank:But with things like anxiety or the inner critic, if you don't know that that's just the brain's check engine light saying we need to make a shift, you're gonna think the problem is inside you instead of an alignment problem. And it's a lot easier to align your mind than to erase it. You can't get rid of your parts, but you can train them. The book is sort of like a giant HR experiment taken inward. Here's how you can't riff your mind.
Britt Frank:You can't, you know, send them away. You can't put them on furlough. You're sort of stuck with your brain, so we might well develop a relationship with it that creates an optimal life.
Daniel Williams:Right. I love that. So talk about the writing process a little bit. How long when you from first idea to getting it published here in May of twenty twenty five, what how long was that, and what's the research and the writing process like for you?
Britt Frank:Yeah. So my first book was five years of research and careful plotting and planning and pitching and getting rejected a thousand times. And after the first book came out, I continued to pitch my publisher with ideas. And as anyone who's in the writing world knows, it's a lot of no. No.
Britt Frank:No. This is terrible. No. Thanks. But no.
Britt Frank:No. And then I had a middle of the night idea, and it it wasn't even a fully formed idea. I I didn't even have a proposal. I just shot off an email. Hey.
Britt Frank:How about I do a book about this? And then within a week, I had a deal. And then it was, hey. Can you give this to us in six months? Fortunately, the topic is based on a model of therapy that I've been trained in for many, many years.
Britt Frank:So the research had already been front loaded, but it was, okay. You have a book deal. Go. And then it was six months of up at, you know, five in the morning to ten, I write. Ten to five, I practice.
Britt Frank:Five to ten, I admin, and then I go to sleep and start it again the next day.
Daniel Williams:Well, good. I'm glad you made it out on the other side. What did you do when you, sent off that draft and could exhale for a moment? Did you go on a vacation? Did you just get right back to the grind?
Daniel Williams:What happened?
Britt Frank:It's so funny. And then every month, I went away for a week because really can't well, I couldn't put together a book without taking a step away so every so often. The last chapter was so anticlimactic. It was, you know, I've been wrestling with I think the intro and the conclusion of a book are particularly important to get the tone right, and I did not use AI to write the intro or the conclusion. And so I'm wrestling and I'm wrestling.
Britt Frank:And then all of a sudden, it was like, oh, this is how the book ends. And it was like, okay. I guess I'll go eat lunch now. I guess I'll go take a walk with my dog. It was very just like, oh, I guess the storm is over.
Britt Frank:It's sort of you don't think it'll end, and then the sun comes back out. And it's, oh, I guess it's nice. I guess I don't have to get it before in the morning every day anymore. Yeah.
Daniel Williams:That is so good. I love that. So you introduce a term. It's in the additional title we hear that we read earlier, parts work. And I'm not even sure if I'm pronouncing putting the emphasis on which part there.
Daniel Williams:So tell us about parts work. What is that? What goes into it?
Britt Frank:It's so funny because parts work is so trendy now for Gen Z and, you know, their contemporaries. But it's been around forever, and my generation never heard of it. And most people that I work with have also heard of it unless they're in my industry. And it's so simple. And parts work is this.
Britt Frank:Parts work is the idea that your mind, just like your body, just like your car, just like any complex item, is not the singular thing, but it's made of parts. More simply put, everyone knows the feeling of, okay, it's Sunday afternoon and part of me knows I should get up and get some housework done, but this other part of me just really is invested in watching White Lotus for another episode and another episode and another episode. And I have these parts of me that want to do things and parts of me don't want to do things. Parts of me who love my family and parts of me who need a break from these people or else I'm going to scream. Parts work takes that notion and puts it into action.
Britt Frank:Yes. Your mind, like your body is made of parts. You would not treat a sore throat the same way you would a fractured knee. So why do we think our mind can be approached in a singular unified way? Kind of glibly put, we all have multiple personalities
Daniel Williams:Right.
Britt Frank:And they all need to get along better. And this book is the how for that problem.
Daniel Williams:Okay. Well, let's talk about navigating parts work then. I'm looking through some notes here I made about it. So let us understand that a little bit more. What does it look like in practice?
Daniel Williams:You gave some examples of how you might love the family, but hey, I need some me time as well. Let's talk about it from a health care perspective. Practice administrators, you got to meet a lot of them at our conference, how they balance their lives, how they put these parts to work and make everything work for them.
Britt Frank:So I think anyone who's in a health care arena in any capacity innately is a giver and cares about humanity. You tend to not end up in this industry otherwise. Well, I suppose some do. But generally speaking, if you're listening to this podcast, you are probably someone who cares about making humanity better. But most of us have a voice that says you're not doing enough.
Britt Frank:You're not showing up enough. You're not working hard enough. And we call that the inner critic. And that part of us were told, just ignore it. Just get rid of Just tell it to take eye.
Daniel Williams:Right.
Britt Frank:But that doesn't work. And if that worked, it would have. So parts work is this idea that, well, what if you could actually talk to that voice? Many of us think our thoughts are there and they're universally true and whatever we think we must believe, and that's just not how minds work. Mhmm.
Britt Frank:So my solution for healthcare people is when you hear that voice say, you're not working hard enough, instead of fighting with it, instead of arguing with it or trying to get rid of it, what if you validated it? What if you said, you're right. You know what? There's not enough work I could do to solve the problems facing the health care industry. It doesn't mean that I'm a bad person.
Britt Frank:It just means I'm telling that little voice, and here's here's what you say. Not, oh my gosh. You're right. I'm terrible. You say this.
Britt Frank:You know what? That's a little bit true. Because any critical thought when it's met with, yeah, that's a little true deactivates its charge, And then you're less likely to have the cortisol spike and all the stress hormones, which then amplify all the things that we're suffering with to begin with. And so the sort of radical approach from parts work is what if you started with validation? Oh my gosh.
Britt Frank:You're a terrible parent. Well, yeah, that's probably a little bit true. A little bit of truth is sort of microdosing the little nugget of truth because no one's perfect. So if something is a little bit true, that leaves room for nuance, which leaves space for choice and lots of other things. So the phrase, yeah, that's a little bit true, does a lot of job comes to the inner critic.
Daniel Williams:I love that. That's so cool. Let's talk about the inner critic just a little bit more and building that relationship with it. Anybody who's listened to this podcast, we've had several episodes where we talk about mindfulness, about, you know, either having that active formal meditation of sitting, closing the eyes, or lowering the gaze, and following the breath. But there are other ways to do that as well.
Daniel Williams:But when you do that particular action I was just talking about, anybody that's done that, suddenly they have what we call the monkey mind, and they're they're the monkey mind may may not be criticizing, but it's that inner inner dialogue. You know? There's something, a story going on. Again, how do you work with that? How do you work with that in a positive way or even simply a neutral way?
Daniel Williams:If if the mind and the stress is going in a certain direction, maybe we can't get it in a happy place, so to speak. You know? Maybe that's a misnomer that if we meditate, we're suddenly happy. We may not be happy, but we may be present with what is in that present moment. So I gave you a lot to think about there, but I see you nodding.
Daniel Williams:So please just share your thoughts on this about how we work with that, if we wanna call it an inner critic or a monkey mind or what's going on and can take us into story time when we need to be right here right now.
Britt Frank:So it's interesting because meditation, the kind most people think of is the calm the mind, center the mind, clear the mind, and that's a beautiful type. And it's not the only kind. Right. And sometimes it's impossible to do that. And so we do want a a solution to, well, is meditation just off the table for me if I can't quiet the monkey mind?
Britt Frank:And parts would suggest, well, if you have a monkey mind, why don't we go to the circus? Because the stories are only problematic if we feel there's no structure to them. And so what Parks' work would do with all those monkey mind thoughts is, well, let's turn all of those thoughts into imagine they're people with an opinion. And what if we could sit on the I'm changing metaphors here. So now take all the monkey minds.
Britt Frank:Imagine they're just a bunch of people yelling at you. What if we were to all sit around the campfire and share those stories? I'm listening to the storyteller parts of me, and I'm not the storyteller, and the storyteller is not me. And any type of mindfulness creates the observer and the thing being observed. And when you can be sort of the inner CEO, as I like to call it, but if you're sitting around the campfire with all of your storytelling parts, you can listen to them, don't have to be driven by them.
Britt Frank:And you can say to all of them, that's probably a little bit true. Thank you for that. And even the most critical parts of ourselves, if you were I call this the coffee cup solution. Sit down at a table with two cups of coffee. Put one in front of you and one across from you.
Britt Frank:Imagine that that voice that's yelling at you is sitting there. What would it actually you to know? Because when parts of ourselves are listened to, they don't yell, and they don't scream, and they don't abuse us with critical thoughts. So it's really about treat your mind with the same consideration you would a friend or even an employee.
Daniel Williams:Yeah. I'm hearing you say that, and I'm thinking to my other self over there, are you gonna finish that coffee? Because I think I may take it and finish it if you're not going to. This is fun. I enjoy talking to you about this because it's what I'm interested in.
Daniel Williams:Let me give you a scenario, and I want you to just help us understand because I think our listeners, we've all been in this kind of situation before. So over the weekend, my family and I had found a little day long meditation retreat, mindful retreat up in the mountains here in Colorado. We drove up there, and there were five or six other cars there. And we quickly ascertained from the other people that it had been canceled. And when we hear that kind of news, when we've built something up for a week or whatever it has been, we have an expectation.
Daniel Williams:I know for myself, in the past, I've allowed it to kind of ruin my day. I've taken this little thing because I had an expectation built up, but what we found was, well, the facility is open. There are mats here. We can put the cushions and the mats down, have a meditation. Then there was beautiful gardens up in the Colorado Mountains, and we walked around the mountains and enjoyed a little hike there, and then had a really nice lunch beside a creek and just were very peaceful.
Daniel Williams:We didn't let it ruin our day. We kind of rolled with the punches, so to speak, rolled with whatever that outcome was, and then just took it from there. And I want you to speak to a little bit about that. What's going on when either the inner critic or that self defeating attitude, this door closed, so I'm closing down now. So tell us a little bit about that.
Daniel Williams:What's going on there in the mind, and then how do we work with that? How do we align our mind to what's actually happening?
Britt Frank:I love that story because it's so true. I remember going to a retreat and being ready to be all zenned out, and then I was so angry. I was just so, like, black. All my love and light went right out the window. So I love that you made the best of that situation.
Britt Frank:So what happens often is what I call being fused. So if you imagine that your mind is made of all different parts, when the parts are all fused together, you're only aware, you're only conscious of one reality. My meditation retreat was canceled. I was looking forward to it. I'm disappointed.
Britt Frank:Therefore, everything is terrible. Therefore, nothing goes my way. Therefore, therefore. And so if you're fused with your parts, then you don't have the ability to see the whole board. You can't see the whole picture.
Britt Frank:And so I call that being diffused from your parts. And you'll be refused when you have no sense of your choices. Your emotions are out of whack. Feels like everything and always and nothing in these very big sweeping statements. Defusing, which is really just being mindful that you are not your parts.
Britt Frank:You are not your thoughts. You are the observer of the thoughts. Once you're defused, then you can say to yourself, well, yeah, this little bit true. It's actually a lot of it true that we're disappointed. And what else is true?
Britt Frank:I call this the making an also true list because you just wanna be swept away by your disappointment, But you also don't want to be like, well, I shouldn't be that upset because it's no big deal. It's not that that you know? No. No. No.
Britt Frank:Yes. This is disappointing. Also true. There are mats and there are mountains and we have each other. And so it's an improv comedy principle, actually.
Britt Frank:It's called the yes and where whatever you're doing with your scene partner, you always just say yes no matter how bonkers what they're suggesting is aliens had taken over the grocery store. In an improv scene, my job is to say, yes. And help is on the or whatever. And so you can learn to say yes to whatever distress uncomfortable thought is coming up. Yes.
Britt Frank:And is how you diffuse from that mushed together sense of I don't have multiple parts. I don't have multiple choices. Everything is one singular thing.
Daniel Williams:Okay. That is so cool. So let's put it into a medical practice setting. It's flu season. Maybe the people at practice are overrun with people there with the flu.
Daniel Williams:But, also, hey. Half the staff has the flu. So now we're understaffed, and we're overwhelmed with all the people coming in. And there's babies crying. There's grown ups crying.
Daniel Williams:Everybody feels terrible, and there's a lot of stress. How do how do our listeners, when they're dealt with this kind of situation, maybe they have to even run from the back of the office to help out in the front of the office, just everybody's little bit of chaos, little bit of things going on. How do they work with that? How do they align the mind again to make this as achievable a day, you know, a goal, whatever it might be? How do how do we get through this?
Daniel Williams:You know?
Britt Frank:So it starts by setting expectations in an appropriate place. In a situation like that, you're not gonna be able to do all the things for all the people. Right. When you're understaffed and overworked and it's flu season and baby adults are crying and people are screaming and you don't have enough health, the it's not actually the chaos that takes us out of alignment. The chaos, if you're in health care, is a Tuesday.
Britt Frank:What takes us out of alignment is the belief that we should be more or do more or have more or be able to give more. And that's the belief we wanna go with, well, yeah, that's a little bit true. Else is true. Mhmm. You know, you're not working hard enough, and you're never gonna be able to get all this work done today.
Britt Frank:Yeah. That's a little bit true. And also true, no one can. And that's where you get to give yourself expectations that match the context. I'm not suggesting settling for mediocrity, but we also wanna be realistic.
Britt Frank:Striving for excellence is going to produce, if not joy, at least a sense of peace. Striving for perfection will always do shame no matter how hard you work or how much you give.
Daniel Williams:Okay. In your book, you talk about the difference between fixing ourselves versus leading our parts. Talk about that. What talk about those two principles and what that looks like in practice.
Britt Frank:So I think there's this trend in the zeitgeist. Now that we talk about feelings, every feeling that I'm feeling needs to be expressed in whatever way I feel like, and my triggers must be avoided, and I must be comfortable no matter what. And I appreciate that we're talking about feelings. I'd rather do that than not. I think it's important to know that our job is to lead our feelings and our parts, not to be led by them.
Britt Frank:I'll give you an So if I were to show up at a meditation class and someone took my spot, this is a real example. And again, my I love humanity is now replaced by that person is sitting in my spot. That's my spot. So I'm having that thought. That's a part of me.
Britt Frank:That's a snarky part that wants what she wants. I can observe that thought. I can notice it. I could tell that part of me. Yeah.
Britt Frank:That's a little bit true. It's a bummer that she's sitting in our spot. Also true, we're in class and there's plenty of spots. That is me not trying to change that part. I'm not saying, you should be grateful that we can even be in a class right now.
Britt Frank:I'm just saying, yeah. I hear you thought. I hear part of me. Gotcha. You're probably a little bit right.
Britt Frank:And now I am going to make a decision on behalf of the team of my parts, and not every part gets to have what they want when they want it. Just like a family or a company. A competent CEO will take employees' feelings and thoughts into consideration, but the leader of a large organization knows you can't make everybody happy in every instance every time, and we have to make decisions on behalf of the group. Not everybody gets to have everything they want all the time. That's chaos.
Britt Frank:That's not leadership. That's not efficiency. And we can treat our minds with the same skill that leaders treat companies, or I should say qualified leaders, competent leaders treat companies.
Daniel Williams:Right. I have a question for you, and it's the relationship we have. Maybe you can give us some examples of what you have with technology because you use the term efficiency, and we keep getting these incredible tools, these AI tools, these other platforms that make things just go faster and faster, but then I can't be alone. I suddenly see, but I feel even more overwhelmed, you know, or I feel even more, you know, pressed here or, okay, let's go do that, or I just have additional time to think about, oh my gosh. What should I be doing right now?
Daniel Williams:You know? So what what's your relationship with technology, and then what's some advice you can give us how we can work with all these incredible tools that we have but not make us more overwhelmed with things?
Britt Frank:I'm a fan of AI, and I don't see its its potential for problems and the overwhelming nature of, well, which tool do I use? And which technology do I use? And how do I learn it? And so, again, working in health care is an overwhelming task regardless of what century you're in, what tools are available to you. So I think when it comes to our tech, one a good question to ask is what are my choices?
Britt Frank:Because if you are being mandated to use a particular type of software, you're not gonna have decision fatigue, but you're gonna need to learn how to use it. If you're told use whatever you want, you might get decision fatigue. So if we're gonna answer the question, what do I do? Whether it's about tech or overwhelm or burnout or whatever, we have to start with, can we make a list of three to five choices? They don't have to be good.
Britt Frank:We don't have to like them. But let's start by identifying a menu of options. Just a very active listing choices can deactivate an overwhelmed brain. Of those choices, what are we absolutely not willing to do? That's gonna narrow it down even further.
Britt Frank:And then once you have a choice that's reasonable, then I call this a micro yes. Break that down into as many pieces as it takes to get a tiny little win under your belts. If it's a it's a a micro yes is taking a step so small you feel silly doing it. That's how you know it's a micro yes.
Daniel Williams:Okay. One last question about the book. What's your favorite part about it? What is in it like for somebody who's, oh, this sounds interesting. I might get this.
Daniel Williams:What would be your one pitch to people? This is something that just lights me up when I think about it. Maybe it's a case study. Maybe it's an anecdote. Maybe it's a tool.
Daniel Williams:What's something you wanna share with us about Align Your Mind?
Britt Frank:Oh, I love this question. So what I love about the book is that it puts into just a general nonclinical population this idea that your mind is made of parts. This is not a trendy idea. It's not my idea. It has been around since humans painted on Polaris.
Britt Frank:The idea that part of me wants to do this thing, but part of me wants to do that thing. It's in our language. It's in, you know, every major culture has a version of it. And so I love that align your mind takes something so universal that's been around for so long that no one's ever heard of. Like, parts work is the greatest idea about consciousness that no one's ever heard of.
Britt Frank:And so I love that I got to contribute to the body of work that normalizes that humans are complex and have a multiverse inside us. It doesn't make us crazy. It makes us human.
Daniel Williams:I love that. Alright. Well, Britt Frank, thank you so much for joining us again, and it's been wonderful to have you on here. Britt's new book is Align Your Mind. I've got it here releasing on 05/13/2025.
Daniel Williams:By the time y'all hear this, it will be in your local bookstores. It will also be on those online bookstores. Wherever you get your books, please reach out. Look for it. It's a wonderful book.
Daniel Williams:Britt, thank you for joining us again.
Britt Frank:Thanks for having me. It's so good to see you again.
Daniel Williams:Alright. Everybody, that is gonna do it for this episode of MGMA Insights podcast. I will put direct links to several, local booksellers here to me in the Denver area, but also some of those national sites as well. So, again, thank you all for listening to the MGMA Insights podcast.
