Man in the Arena with Craig Spear

A System for Setting Boundaries with Dr. Shideh Shafie

• Craig Spear

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Do you ever feel like you're constantly giving in to others at the expense of your own well-being? 

Say goodbye to that stress, because this episode, I'm joined by Dr. Shideh Shafie, who lays out a blueprint for establishing boundaries that affirm and maintain personal well-being, ensuring you can manage both family time and career demands with strength.

In this episode, we cover:

  1. Why it's important to set boundaries
  2. The definition of a boundary
  3. A System for Setting Boundaries
  4. Setting and Enforcing Personal Boundaries
  5. Examples of Setting Boundaries
  6. Setting Boundaries for Self-Preservation

I am so grateful to Dr. Shafie for sharing her knowledge and expertise on today's show.  Here's how you can get in touch with her:

Website: https://www.shidehshafie.com/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/shideh.shafie/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/DrShidehShafiePerformanceCoach/

Did you find this episode helpful insightful or motivating? If so, let's connect! You can find me on....

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The Spear Method Website

Craig Spear:

Welcome to man in the Arena. This podcast is for men over 40 who want to master their health and weight loss goals once and for all, With innovative strategies, practical tools and insightful interviews. My goal is to help you overcome your limiting beliefs and achieve your optimal health. It's time to look good, feel good and do better. Hello and welcome to man in the Arena.

Craig Spear:

On today's episode, we're continuing the system series. Only this time we're focusing on setting better boundaries, and I have an absolute rock star of a guest guiding us today. I'm thrilled to introduce a remarkable individual, Dr Shida Shafi. Dr Shafi is a wonderful example of how one can excel in multiple areas of life, blending a successful career in medicine with thriving coaching and real estate businesses. I wanted to have Shida on as a guest because she's on a mission to empower others to find balance and success in their lives, and I know you listen to man in the Arena because you're searching for this as well. So, without further hesitation, please welcome Dr Shida Shafi. Thank you so much for being here. Welcome to the arena. I'm so excited to talk today about boundaries and a system for setting better boundaries. And let's just jump in. You're a fellow coach. Why should we set boundaries?

Dr. Shideh Shafie:

I mean, I think boundaries. The first thing is boundaries are an act of love, and I work with a lot of people about setting boundaries. And a lot of people think boundaries are about keeping people out. Right, they're using their arms and hands to push everybody out, and I first want to tell you that's a waste of your energy. Don't try to keep people out, but think of boundaries as a way to preserve yourself. And they are an act of love because they create resentment-free relationships. And that is why I love boundaries so much, because boundaries are about what you need to be whole, to feel well and to be able to function your best in your life, whatever that looks like and we all have natural boundaries, right, like you know.

Dr. Shideh Shafie:

Think about, like brushing your teeth. Most of us feel like we have to brush our teeth before we go to bed. If we get interrupted from brushing our teeth, it's really unsettling. We feel stuff in our teeth at night, we feel gross and in the morning we want to brush our teeth, so our mouth smells dead. And if we feel rushed, then we can't do that. We don't feel like ourselves and we don't think of it as it's like a boundary, but we sort of like set that as the standard for ourselves or what we need. And we have other places in our life where we need boundaries, like what are the things we need to do well in our lives?

Craig Spear:

I love that. I love that. You know it's about that whole being complete right and that act of love, that's act of self-love that you describe. So have you come across, or maybe you have one of your own, like a definition of a boundary, like an actual definition you've kind of mentioned, like preserving yourself?

Dr. Shideh Shafie:

Yeah, I mean one of the easiest ones that comes to mind. So I'm an emergency room doctor by training and I'm an academic emergency room physician, so I worked in academic ERs for greater than a decade. My husband is a lawyer, so he's super busy also, and an emergency medicine. We have shifting schedules, so sometimes we're working seven to four, seven to three, something like that, like in the morning, sometimes we're working three to 11. And sometimes you're working overnight 11 pm to 8 am or 5 pm to 1 am, whatever some variation of that, and so our schedules change all the time. And then there's also these academic abilities to engage in academia, which are lovely, like things like journal clubs and social activities that are geared towards either creating community amongst our work group and our colleagues, or like increasing your education through journal clubs and whatnot, and those are often done with dinners, and sometimes they're done in the morning too, but often at the dinner time.

Dr. Shideh Shafie:

I also have two young children and so very early on when I had my kid and my husband, who's also super busy and has a lot of things going on, I would look at my schedule and I made a little rule If I had spending two or three dinners at the hospital, then the hospital doesn't and my job no longer gets ending more of my evenings. So, for example, if I have two shifts that are three to 11, then that third night, even if there's a journal club because we call it, still compelled to go to be a good citizen, like I actually needed to be home with my family to feel whole, preserved and like that my family is on the right function. And that was a boundary about me. It had nothing, because what can happen and when I saw it happen with a lot of I've seen I coach a lot of ER physicians still and I still see that with my colleagues as I think it was simple like oh my God, they expect me to go to the NACC and I work three shifts in a row and this and that, and it's like, well, okay, that's an expectation, it's an offering and it's not. Can you come to journal club? Can you come to this meeting? And you get to choose.

Dr. Shideh Shafie:

And so for me, a hard boundary was that if I had spent more than really two nights by the end, it would initially start with three, but I realized I needed more than that with my kid because I wanted to see them at dinner time. If I spent more than two nights in the hospital, like during dinner time, then the rest of those nights of the week belong to my family or to whatever else I wanted to be doing, to my friends, whatever it is that I chose. And that was just a boundary. And then it made me not resentful, like I could say no. But if I had morning shifts, sure I'd go to a journal club. I'd love to, because I'd already had enough dinners with my family. That's what I needed, to feel good.

Craig Spear:

Yeah, it sounds like there's an element of ownership here. It's like taking personal responsibility for your own self, for your space, and then honoring that right and not over-scheduling or committing to something that you genuinely don't want to do. So, you know, one of the things that comes up a lot in my podcast and my coaching right is I coach men to improve their health, to optimize their health Right, and one of the things that comes up is, when we don't set proper boundaries, we will then sacrifice parts of ourselves, including our health.

Craig Spear:

Right, we won't be able to do that workout, or we'll you know? We'll you know we won't follow the protocol that we set for ourselves, whatever it is. So can you help us walk through a bit of a system, right? So how do I set boundaries, how do I follow through on those, and then how can I kind of systematize this in a way that I can replicate pretty frequently and ultimately create more awareness so that I am honoring those boundaries in the long run? Sure, yeah.

Dr. Shideh Shafie:

First thing is understanding what the need is here and what the benefit of that need is. That's the first part of it and actually the working out one is a great example.

Dr. Shideh Shafie:

This is one that, like my husband and I have worked through together, when we had five twins and they were little and on the weekends, like you couldn't just like leave them to go work out, and we both like to work out, and we had to become really strategic about like, okay, everyone needs an hour to work out each day of the weekend. How can we give that to each other and set boundaries around that?

Dr. Shideh Shafie:

The first is like understanding the need and understanding why the need is important, because you know I actually have coached a lot of Penn about the importance of working out so that they can fuel their big dreams right.

Dr. Shideh Shafie:

Like you know, a lot of the men I coach are super powerful, they're big tech and finance and these fields, and they have to do a lot of stressful work in the world. Stress and stress. You know I love stress. I'll call myself the stress coach, like all about stress. Like, take on the stress, because stress is a pointer to doing meaningful work. So they do meaningful work in the world and to be able to do that meaningful work, they have to do it, they have to have space for that stress and one of those things is exercise.

Dr. Shideh Shafie:

So, first, understanding what does this boundary give you a gift of? And with this sense of exercise, it gives me the gift of energy. It gives me the gift of like being able to hit the big goals. It gives me the like ability to be like nice. I used to work out all the time right after I got home from a shift because I realized it would make me much nicer to my family, because otherwise I'm taking all this like trauma of the ER directly home. So, first of all, why do you need this boundary? What does it give you? And then, committing to the boundaries from understanding that I am setting this boundary not to control anybody, not to do anything, but to preserve myself so I can show up as my highest best self in this world, in this journey and then recognizing sometimes you're going to violate your own boundary. That's okay. Learn from that. You don't need to get upset about it. You don't need to, and it's not anybody else's job to enforce your battery because that's what's going to happen.

Dr. Shideh Shafie:

Right, like, what can happen? Is that like, for example, with the thing about the weekends? When we initially started, one of us work out on Saturday, the other one work out on Sunday and like, let's say, saturday morning was my morning to work out? My husband was like, well, oh, do you think I could like run out and do this? And he's have to say no, remember, this is my time to work out and it doesn't feel great to say no to your husband. I love saying yes to my husband. I think he loves saying yes to me. But sometimes we're saying that no, not from a place of being mean, but like no, remember we had honored this commitment together.

Dr. Shideh Shafie:

I had set this boundary that I really need to work out and this is my time to work out. How about you go later? How about you do whatever it is that you want to do later? And also, it allowed me to be nice to him, right Like after I got worked out. I was like the nice person again. I you know work out is for me is like just like I have a ton of energy and like I need to expend it. Otherwise, I start picking up people and like reorganizing classes, making people do like crazy which they don't want to do, but recognizing that I'm doing this as a favorite tip. And then you know personal life. There's so many boundaries like that too. You know, like thinking about another boundary I have in our household is no house guests for longer than a week. Now I'm of Iranian origin. Like people come in and they think they can stay with you for three months. My husband's of Indian origin, same thing, but what happens is the structure of our household gets all jumbled up.

Dr. Shideh Shafie:

So like one week is a plenty of time where we can enjoy you and not resent you. But, after a week. It's hard for me. I have a friend here who taught me this rule Fish and house guests they smell after three days. Well for us it's a week but yeah whatever.

Craig Spear:

Like for everybody.

Dr. Shideh Shafie:

it's whatever it is and it's really sending that energy to preserve yourself. And when someone makes the ask to violate that boundary or to like not, it's your job to enforce it, not from anger, but be like oh no, I'm sorry, I can't do that. So like when someone invites me to go to Journal Club oh, it would be so fun to have you there. Thank you so much, but I actually can't. And I am otherwise committed. And committed might be having dinner with your family. It might be like reading your own book that night, but you might need that mental space. So for me, I know that I need at least three nights a week at home. Like, I don't like being out of the house every single night a week.

Craig Spear:

So we understand the need, this is the need, this is why I have this boundary. This is, you know, clear understanding. Then we set the boundary this and if it involves another person, right, then we communicate that to them.

Dr. Shideh Shafie:

You don't have to. By the way, you don't have to communicate, you don't. Okay, that's someone that you like. I communicate my boundaries with my husband because he's like on board, on team, but you don't have to tell everyone in the world that I need three nights a week at home. You wouldn't say no, no.

Craig Spear:

But what about? Okay? So for the example, with your family coming to visit, you say guys, one week do you set that clear boundary? Oh yeah.

Dr. Shideh Shafie:

I say oh, we only have house guests for a week. A lot of people don't like it, by the way, just so you know. Lots of tantrums happen and that's okay. They get to do on the other side of the boundary, they get to have whatever reaction they have. We get to have like oh, I'm so sorry, you're frustrated, I'm so sorry, that's not what you were expecting, but this is what I need to be able to be, continue to be nice to you, because if you're in my house for two weeks, I want to murder you by the end of it.

Craig Spear:

Right, and that's probably where most boundaries fail is that element of people pleasing Like I don't want them to be upset for whatever reason, or I don't want them to make the ass.

Dr. Shideh Shafie:

You don't want anyone to push on your boundary, but they're really about. That's okay. That's how we test our boundaries. When people push them, or like even a boundary, that's clearly spoken between my husband and I. Sometimes I'll push it and he says no, I can say no, that's too much for me, Right, Okay. And the same on the other, in the other, in the other. Strange, because I also push boundaries. We're all like and that's okay, it's not. The boundary is not like a rule that you said that everyone then has to follow, but it's more of like this is how I preserve myself, and when someone comes onto it, I can just remind them like oh no, actually I don't do that.

Craig Spear:

So is it important, like, let's say, someone does push the boundary and actually, you know, start to really violate it, so the family's wanting to stay longer, for example, right. Is there a consequence that you communicate Like, hey, like, just so you know, this is the boundary you push, that I need to enforce this. Do you take that I?

Dr. Shideh Shafie:

mean. Luckily no one has pushed me with that particular manner. It's like I'm not going to call the police on them and like have them vacate it out.

Dr. Shideh Shafie:

But I might not invite them back the next time or whatnot. But the place where the boundaries like that really come in, where people really push them, I think, are about discussions that you don't necessarily want to have. Like I haven't really had a hard time with like physical boundaries like that, but like sometimes I don't really want to talk about this. And you know, and I've had that actually maybe a few months ago I had this like discussion where someone really wanted me to talk about something. I was like I don't want to talk about this with you at this time and they like really couldn't respect that. I was like you know, I'm actually thank you so much. This has been like so nice and I'm actually going to go and let you just get up and leave, and it's a little awkward, it doesn't feel that, but like it's not okay for everyone to feel like they can talk to you about anything or make you do anything you want to do.

Dr. Shideh Shafie:

But I think the more the issue where most people suffer with these boundaries is in their own brain, like all the drama of their own brain, because most people are not going to like if you say no, actually I'm not one that comes up a lot for emergency from doctors like coach a ton of them is that, for example, the boss will text them and say, hey, so-and-so called out, can you come in tonight, can you work?

Dr. Shideh Shafie:

And they've already had three nights in the hospital. This is like one of their only nights at home. Out of the five weeknights, that's, three of them are already been in the hospital, two left and one of them are being asked and they get mad because in their head they have this boundary of I want two nights a week at home or I want three nights a week at home and they someone's pushing up against it and they get and they either say yes or no. If they say yes, like they sort of just like deflate, or they say no, but then they get angry. Why did they ask? Why did they ask? And that's where I think a lot of the power of boundaries remembering that like it's okay for people to ask and you can say no.

Dr. Shideh Shafie:

You get to disappoint because we don't want them to be disappointed, we don't want to have to enforce the boundary. But the work of boundaries is not setting the rules. Setting the rules is easy. Anyone can set any kind of rule. It's the enforcement. And that's also like really thinking about how would I enforce the boundary if it were to be violated. And you know, with the one that you brought up with houseguests, I haven't really had to enforce that. It would be really hard if someone decided to overstay Like I don't know. I mean, I might just leave my thoughts, right.

Craig Spear:

But I agree with you the consequence ultimately is like we just don't invite that person back for a while or whatever it might be right, like that's the consequence. You know, obviously you're not going to, like you said, like call the police and get them escorted out, but there is a definitive consequence there ultimately.

Dr. Shideh Shafie:

Yeah, and we also have boundaries in our life that we don't speak right. We have like the boundary of violence. If, like, someone comes and like hits me, I am going to call the police. That's like a boundary, that's sort of like made aware, right?

Dr. Shideh Shafie:

Like we don't even have to think about it. So we have boundaries and we don't have to talk about them. We know how to enforce them if they happen right, like they just happen. But these little subtle boundaries that we are hoping that just by saying them, no one will violate them.

Dr. Shideh Shafie:

But, that's not how the world works, right? I get a lot of like people emailing me on my time off. Oh, that's another one People emailing me on my time off. Like I can't believe they emailed me on my time off, why are you checking or?

Dr. Shideh Shafie:

email work, email when it's your time off, right, like people. Or you cannot control when people email you, right, people email all the time. But what you can control is how often you check your email and like. So if the boundary is, I don't check my emails between One of my time is off for between 6 pm and 10 pm, whatever that boundary is for you. I have 6 pm Until the next day after six I don't check it. Then that's on you to not check it. It's not on everybody else to not send you emailed after 6 pm. That is on you say I'm not going to check it and then and like it's not like email can come and strangle you. It's like can't come out of the email. They like get your attention but so many people get so react. People get very.

Craig Spear:

I spent a lot of reactive and they feel, like they, that someone else is violating their boundary when they're not taking ownership of the situation right and checking their email or or responding even, which then by virtue, kind of Communicates. I don't have a boundary, you can email me whenever you want right correct.

Craig Spear:

I have a client and and he was talking about the situation at work where he has a colleague they're both the same level, they're both the same role, just in different regions and this, this colleague of his, likes to call him and sort of complain about the company, about situations, whatever it is, and so there's a boundary there. Right, it's like how do you set that boundary of that person who's calling to try to? And this is a very specific situation. But how do you know setting the boundary? Is it his responsibility to communicate to that Person? Hey, I don't want to engage in any kind of complaining. That's not who I am, that's not what I, what I want to do, or does he just not answer the phone? Like, in your opinion, what's the boundary that gets set there?

Dr. Shideh Shafie:

It's so funny because this is like actual client that I've had not. It's not too bad, it's a man and a woman.

Craig Spear:

Yeah.

Dr. Shideh Shafie:

The woman would cough, didn't call and they would be like first thing in the morning, so like your brain is fresh, ready to work, and would want to have like an hour-long complain, fast, yeah, and this person felt like they had to court, they had to have like me, like they need to maintain a friendship, friendly relationship, but it like could not pick up their whole morning life listening to this person complain, and so it ended up being like never in the morning but like would like hold like 15 minutes in the middle of the day, like when they would go for a walk that they would call them with their pods and and like Like what's going on checking and let her vent about her complaints and then be done with it.

Dr. Shideh Shafie:

Okay, I got to go now, like with very set parameters and and not like so it depends on the situation, like do you, if Does it? Is that relationship something that they need to foster, and that that's like one way that this person Communicates with you and you're open to that. But how much of your time and when in your time and where in your day? It's also okay to really cut people off, like I mean, I there, this is, like you know, everybody has family and family, you know, do all kinds of things and like there's moments where you know there are pimmers in my family who like really like to knit pick, and so I first talked them like lovely, and then they start knit pipping and like going on these things, and I'm like, oh, you know what, I'm so sorry, I got to run, I got to go do something.

Dr. Shideh Shafie:

You get off the phone like Not everyone needs to know your why or how come right right, you know, taylor foundation, or move it forward to where you want it to go right, Right, right yeah so so it is.

Craig Spear:

It is a matter of, like, situational awareness but ultimately owning that and Not just blaming that other person like, oh, you're violating my boundary, which they might not even know exists, right yeah. And then having that impact you, or having that impact your day, and continue to impact the other things that are important to you in your life, right yeah. How?

Dr. Shideh Shafie:

you allow people to treat you you, they don't have to know all the rules. Only you really have to know all the rules, right? Like, like you know, I do was all kinds of annoying people all the time. Right, I work with large groups of people at many different spaces as a physician and, like you know, somebody is like being rude or annoying, like I just walk away for a little bit, come back until they're like back to being a normal person. It's no big deal. But I'd like I don't have to sit there and be a punching bag for receiving that either you know right.

Craig Spear:

Well, one of the things you said earlier which really struck me was, like you know, one of the challenges people face when setting boundaries or Enforcer or having boundaries, is enforcing them there. Any other challenges or obstacles that you see that come up when people, when they're trying to Create and set boundaries for themselves?

Dr. Shideh Shafie:

Yes, I think one of the top things with boundaries is that in the beginning, when they're setting a boundary, often we are very unsure of our boundary. Right Like, we're a little like timid about like, is this okay to have this? Boundaries? It okay to say I don't want anyone in my house for more than a week? Is that? And then depends on like and being from my particular cultural background. That doesn't feel great like initially and when we have Uncertainty in our own faith in that boundary, sometimes to bolster our strength and ability to hold on to it, we like big emotions behind it.

Dr. Shideh Shafie:

So anger, anger, the common like this person's a super annoying. That's why I have to keep them out for a week. Right Like, we have to create this story to create enough strength, enough evidence to keep that personnel. That doesn't feel great. Now, that might be what you initially have to do, because you need that to like, give you the strength. But what feels a lot better is like oh, I don't like anyone. It doesn't really matter who it is, I just really liked our family afford to be together after a week of having someone in the house she's just like sort of disrupts our flow and that doesn't feel good for me that those two feel really different.

Dr. Shideh Shafie:

Mm-hmm to have a certain degree of confidence in your boundary to get to that space. So if you are getting angry in the beginning of when you are setting a boundary, that's okay, allow for that, that's just normal. But Start moving your thoughts and your feelings a little bit about like, okay, how can I make this more about me unless about this evidence that I have to find to make the other person that I have to Anger to be able to enforce this boundary? I'm afraid, like the work one is a lot, one like that guy's a jerk and that's why he always asked me to do extra work.

Dr. Shideh Shafie:

Well, no, that's his job. His job is actually to ask you to extra work because he's just like fill the holes in the schedule and your job is to preserve yourself, and so there's a want mismatch here. He wants to fill up with schedule and you're trying to preserve yourself, and there's nothing wrong with either of you. You're both normal humans doing what they're supposed to be doing. And, yeah, he's gonna get disappointed because you are not the solution to his problem, because you're gonna say no and you don't have to be angry at him for asking. You don't have to be angry at yourself or feel bad about yourself for saying no. You're just saying no to preserve yourself, so that you can have a long longevity in this career. And he has to always make the ask and that's like his currency and like maybe he's gonna use a little guilt to try to get you to say yes, this is all his stuff to work out, has nothing to do with you and you don't have to have all that anger at him to justify your saying now.

Craig Spear:

One thing I've always loved about setting boundaries is there's a level of self-awareness that you need. There's it by virtue. It enhances your own self-awareness, and one of the things that kind of has been Common thread throughout what you've been saying is there doesn't need to be all this drama behind it. It doesn't have to be so strict and rules and it doesn't have to be so Stern and and that sort of thing. I think that's probably my misconception around boundaries, and it can be more for certainly loving, it could certainly be more about self-preservation and it can just have way less drama behind it, right? We don't have to attach all of this Regidity to it, and maybe that's some of the stuff that gets lost in setting boundaries. What do you think about that?

Dr. Shideh Shafie:

Yeah, I think it's, and it just feels a lot better, it's a lot of. So you know, I talk a lot about high energy emotions and low energy emotions and there's nothing. And so I have some high energy emotions feel good in your body, some feel bad in your body, and same with low energy emotions. But high energy emotions are like anger or motivated. Both like motivated feels great in your body, anger feels horrible in your body. Both high energy, but there's also like energy like these low energy feel good in your body emotions are like really like very overlapped. I think we're very familiar with low energy feel bad in your body emotions, sadness, oppression and grief. But there's like contentment, peace, like right, like, I have peace that I need to work out every day To be able to have enough energy to run my business, take care of my children and be a doctor, right Like, and so when I have peace around that, when someone says, hey, do you want to stay out late today and go see a movie, I say no, no, because I know that I really, like, would like to work out in the morning. I mean, oh, I don't really. I don't really.

Dr. Shideh Shafie:

I drink very, very rarely. That is something that is a boundary, that it's not a boundary, it's just like something I don't like to do. That often Any other people drives people nuts, like I go out with like groups of people and I have a non-alcoholic drink. Wait what? You're having a non-alcoholic. Why are you doing that? I was like because I like to play tennis and I like to work out every morning and when I drink I feel very tired and sluggish and you don't sleep well, so I can't do either. Very well. Very rarely if I'm like having an amazing steak, I'll have a glass of red wine or something like that. It makes people go nuts. It's not even a boundary, it's them. It's just like a internal thing for myself and it and sometimes beverage maybe will go crazy because it reflects something in them that makes you go.

Dr. Shideh Shafie:

And really it's serving what it is you need in this life to function well, because I'm here, like I love people, to perform it their best, whatever that is, you know, and and that means taking care of yourself in that way.

Craig Spear:

I love that and that's. That's just a such a gem, right, like People are gonna have their reaction and and that's to be expected when you set a boundary that has nothing to do with you, right, has more to do with them, and so hopefully that gives a lot of guys listening to this more Confidence, more peace, more courage when they do set a boundary that, whenever a response comes back at them, is not about them, right?

Dr. Shideh Shafie:

Yeah, I mean this something that's like I'm gonna get you to drink tonight. I'm like, okay, let that's like what you want to spend your night out doing. Like that's weird to me, like I Mean I can drink. Like I have come in pretty high numbers at Dartmouth, at.

Craig Spear:

I mean that's like a high level of cheap right there. Like.

Dr. Shideh Shafie:

I right, my husband played rugby in college. Like I can drink, I just don't want to because I play tennis. And like slaughter everybody as much as I can on the court, like that's my ball, it's like, it's very funny, but like people get wrapped up in things and they have all these emotions but like, or if I'm making the decision to say no to staying out late because I'd rather sleep while I was working, function better the next day and that makes somebody else uncomfortable, well what does that say? That's for them to figure out not actually for me.

Dr. Shideh Shafie:

I don't own any of that.

Craig Spear:

Right, this has been so amazing, so many great gems in here. What is one last thing you want the guys listening to this to think about? Maybe a word of wisdom, a little golden nugget that they can go on and think about for the rest of their day.

Dr. Shideh Shafie:

I think that boundaries are a gift you give to other people so that you don't hold them responsible for your feelings and how you're moving through the world. So when, for example, you know a lot of these guys might be working and might be mirrored and they know that, like, maybe their boundary is that they have really stressful jobs and so they take 30 extra minutes to come inside the house before they walk in the house. This is a boundary I had for myself, for my family, when I work in the ER high pressure job, high stress situation. You know I had a little extra childcare and so I would take 30 minutes for myself to just like unwind all that. That is that boundary you're setting. Whenever you're setting a boundary to preserve yourself, You're giving a gift to the rest of the world.

Dr. Shideh Shafie:

You're giving your family, your spouse, like everybody in the world, you as your highest and best self, instead of your shitty mood self, right, like that moody self that comes in like I just worked a shift and the rest of the world owes me to make me feel better. If, like I literally would go straight from my shift, do like a 30 to 45 minute like weights workout I would do like tons of slams and ropes and things that just like got out all of my you know energy from having this like high pressure job and I'd go home and I'd be like a nice, normal human. But if I didn't do that, I'd go home and be like I've worked so hard.

Craig Spear:

Why are you guys making the page and blah, blah, blah.

Dr. Shideh Shafie:

And like you owe me because I've done this super hard work in the world and like my kids and my husband are like what's wrong with you and like they don't owe me anything. I should go process all of it. Yeah, I do this super hard job. So now I go home, I set this boundary. I take 45 minutes to myself from 9 30, but it's like a really tight day. I make myself feel better and then I get to come home and that's an act of love.

Dr. Shideh Shafie:

It's not an act of being selfish. And you know men, I think you know I actually do coach the men too and men, I think, also really suffer from this idea of being selfish when it comes to their families and kids. They always have this guilt of like am I being selfish, am I being selfish? You know you're not being selfish when you do something to take care of yourself in a way that can that allows you to be your highest and best self when you're with others.

Craig Spear:

That is brilliant.

Dr. Shideh Shafie:

Down breeze of love.

Craig Spear:

I love that, and you mentioned the word gift. Well, she did. This has been an absolute gift. You are a gift. Thank you so much for being on the podcast, for joining us in the arena. How can guys listening to this find you, if they want to learn more about you, if they want to see what you're up to, what you're doing in your coaching business and your career, but like, what's the best way for them to connect with you?

Dr. Shideh Shafie:

So my website is probably the easiest way. I have a weekly newsletter. My website is my name, wwwshida Shaficom. I'm hoping you put that in the notes show notes, because you don't have to figure that out. And sometimes on Instagram and LinkedIn, but mainly I think I do a lot of one to one things, so that's where they can find me and I gotta say, like the newsletter is fantastic.

Craig Spear:

I read it every week. I'm on your list, so guys definitely jump on that. You will learn a ton from just following that newsletter. I read it every time it comes out. So again, thank you, shida, I really appreciate you.

Dr. Shideh Shafie:

It was so fun, awesome, wonderful.

Craig Spear:

That was really fun. Yeah, you can have any outtakes. No, that was great. I loved it. It's easy to edit. Just send it off and there it is. It's great. Oh good, yeah, thank you so much. I really appreciate it, and if there's anything I could ever do to repay in any way, please let me know.

Dr. Shideh Shafie:

Yeah, I'll eventually. I'll have a podcast someday, but not yet.

Craig Spear:

But the newsletter is great. There's a bunch of guys I follow. There's a guy named Justin Welsh. He's on LinkedIn and he's part of a group and they all have a newsletter. That's their strategy. They're not podcasters, they're like no, that doesn't work. Newsletter is where it's at. So I think you're on the right path.

Dr. Shideh Shafie:

Yeah, everyone does. The newsletter is available to me. Now I got young kids. My family focus is probably higher than anything else, and then the real estate stuff is really kind of growing. So that's another thing. I can't have them. So many things. It's so nice to tag.

Craig Spear:

Likewise. Thank you, I appreciate it. Bye, I'll see you later. Bye, now is the time to take action and change your life. Head on over to the spear methodcom and discover how I can help you get started on your path. Better health and weight loss.