NASA Flight Surgeon, peak performance coach, and "Productivity MD" Dr. Ann Tsung explains how delegation makes financial sense and why efficiency means automating, delegating, and eliminating, talks about working within your "zone of genius", using an Eisenhower matrix, hiring a virtual assistant, obtaining the "5 Freedoms", and learning English from Full House, and shares her super relatable hobby as an Olympic weightlifter, as well as a few travel tips....if you’re headed to Antarctica.

Well, good morning, comm check. Sorry, just habit.

So Dr. Ann, tell us a little bit about you and your background.

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.

Wow, it sounds like a real loser. Your parents must be super disappointed.

Yeah, it's been, I mean, my mom has been telling me to be a doctor, since I was very

young.

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.

You look amazing. You look amazing.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Absolutely. You talk about prioritizing tasks through the Eisenhower matrix.

Tell me a little bit about that.

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.

Absolutely. Thank you for walking me through that.

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.

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?

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.

What do you do for fun?

Regularly? I do Olympic weightlifting.

Yea that sounds super fun.

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.

Who is somebody you've always wanted to meet, but haven't yet.

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.

What book are you reading right now are listening to.

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.

So do you think you'll spend your entire career as a traditional doctor?

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.

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.

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.

Wow, that had to be difficult.

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.

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?

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.

Okay, so go in the summer, okay.

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.

Okay, noted. Thank you. All right. Anything else as we head to the end of our time

together?

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.

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.

Yeah, thank you so much, Stephanie for having me on The Action Catalyst. I love our