EP123: Overcoming the Fear of Failure: A Conversation with Dr. Yemi Sokumbi

In this episode of SEE HEAR FEEL, we continue our insightful conversation with Dr. Olayemi 'Yemi' Sokumbi, MD, a dermatologist and dermatopathologist at Mayo Clinic. Dr. Sokumbi discusses her struggles with the fear of failure, especially as an immigrant and a Black woman in a high-stakes profession. She highlights the concept of stereotype threat and its implications on her performance and mental well-being. Dr. Sokumbi shares her journey towards self-compassion, the importance of separating one's identity from professional achievements, and the need to talk openly about failures. This candid discussion offers practical advice for overcoming stereotype threat and emphasizes the significance of vulnerability and humanizing one another in professional settings.

00:00 Introduction and Guest Bio

00:42 Personal Background and Immigrant Experience

01:28 Fear of Failure and Stereotype Threat

03:59 Self-Compassion and Overcoming Challenges

08:28 Mentorship and Vulnerability

10:30 Final Thoughts and Call to Action

Dr. Olayemi (Yemi) Sokumbi, MD is a dermatologist and dermatopathologist who is currently working at Mayo Clinic in Jacksonville, Florida where she also serves as Medical Director for Business Development. Additionally, she is involved with medical student and resident education in addition to her clinical work. She completed dermatopathology fellowship in 2014 at UT Southwestern Medical Center and was chief resident in dermatology at the Mayo Clinic College of Medicine. She has won numerous awards, including a 2022 Dean’s Recognition Diversity & Inclusion Award from the Mayo Clinic Alix School of Medicine, a 2018 Outsanding Medical Student Teacher Award from the Medical College of Wisconsin, and the 2013 Richard K. Winkelmann Excellence in Research Award. 

Transcript

Christine Ko: [00:00:00] Welcome back to SEE HEAR FEEL. Today is Part Two of my conversation with Dr. Olayemi, who goes by Yemi, Sokumbi, MD. If you didn't have a chance to listen to the first part of our conversation, a little bio here. Dr Yemi Sokumbi, MD is a dermatologist and dermatopathologist currently at Mayo Clinic in Jacksonville, Florida. She is Medical Director for Business Development and also teaches numerous medical students, residents, and mentors many of them as well. She did her dermatopathology fellowship at UT Southwestern and was chief resident in dermatology at the Mayo Clinic College of Medicine. She's won numerous awards and is highly successful. I emphasize that because I hold her in high esteem and today we're going to talk about failure. We'll jump right into it now.

Yemi Sokumbi: I'm an immigrant. My family's originally from Nigeria. I moved in my teen years, and my parents made tremendous sacrifice for me to have this life. And I was struck with the fact that I've carried this, and this wasn't by no fault of my parents, but this significant [00:01:00] fear of, I couldn't mess this up. I couldn't fail. I couldn't disappoint. They've made so much of a sacrifice. I have to be worthy of their sacrifice. And then you add the fact that I had chosen a profession, to be in health care, a profession that, as we all know, does not tolerate failure. So you combine my background, how I grew up, you combine the fields that I've chosen, and you can imagine that both combined together really just led me down a spiral. 

Christine Ko: Yeah. You mentioned being afraid to fail. You said you had a fear of failure, but you've learned to lean into it. Can you talk about that a little bit?

Yemi Sokumbi: Yes. My fear of failure. Sharing from my background, I should also mention, if it wasn't implied when I said I moved from Nigeria, that I'm a Black woman. The stereotype threat of that was huge in my failure journey. For those who are not familiar, stereotype threat is the concept by which you risk [00:02:00] feeling that a negative stereotype about who you are, whatever an identity is for you, will truly come to pass. And that leads to significant stress, can lead to anxiety, it can affect performance, and it does actually affect performance. And so for me, because I was working so hard, Christine, I didn't want to fulfill whatever stereotype folks might have for my demographic. I didn't want it to be reflected in an outcome. So I overcompensated by working so hard. I used to joke and say I can outwork anyone because I was just so keen of all of the stereotypes. One simple one that doesn't even affect academic performance. You might have heard of the "angry black woman" stereotype. And that couldn't be further from my personality, but I actually started questioning that. I'm like, is my personality so skewed to make sure that I don't fulfill a stereotype? It might sound very basic, but these are the kinds of things that come that you [00:03:00] think about. 

So my fear of failure was like, I can't fail. One, because remember I had the background with my parents and the sacrifices they made. So that's an immigrant challenge. But then I have this other one here is saying, you know, at the Mayo Clinic, they don't have too many residents who look like me. So I have to be a model resident. So I cannot fail. I have to be so good. I have to be the best. So that burden does not give you permission to recover. You feel it's the end, and that the failure will define you. It was key that I separate my identity from the work. That separation enabled me to tolerate failure. 

Christine Ko: Yeah. And when you fail, sometimes the burden, especially when you're feeling stereotype threat, is not only that it reflects on you, but it reflects on that whole group of whatever you're representing. 

Yemi Sokumbi: The entire demographic. You feel like you're carrying the burden on your shoulders and you have to put your foot forward so that maybe others like you can find space, can also thrive. And at [00:04:00] the root of being fearful of failure, you have to understand that one of the things is that, that means I didn't really have compassion for myself.

So it requires that you have self compassion. It requires that you have grace for yourself, that you don't shame. You don't live in shame. Those are the things that you have to grapple with when you're dealing with failure.

For me, I give people so much grace, Christine. I'm kind to folks. It's actually a core value of mine. I have compassion. And so it struck me that I wouldn't offer myself the same. 

Christine Ko: It's interesting that you say that. I believe you that you would, even then, you would extend a lot of compassion to others. I spoke to a couple of psychologists who research compassion and self compassion. One of them studied other compassion. So compassion directed at others. Her graduate student wanted to study self compassion. Through working with the graduate student, she realized that if you don't have self compassion, you actually cannot really direct compassion to others.

Yemi Sokumbi: Really? Really? Well, there you have it. That's helpful. [00:05:00] 

Christine Ko: Yeah. Because you truly did have compassion for others, you were able to extend it to... 

Yemi Sokumbi: Directed my way? 

Christine Ko: Yeah. 

Yemi Sokumbi: And maybe that's one of the reasons. That's a key point to note, because maybe that's one of the reasons why this journey was also apparent to me, or the need for the journey was apparent. My awareness of it probably came from a place of compassion towards myself. Like an attempt to save myself.

Christine Ko: Yes. I do also think that the people that I think are sort of the meanest, you know, they're really mean to themselves if you see them at a moment where they're not happy with themselves, they're pretty mean to themselves, too.

Yemi Sokumbi: That's a good point. Like, I've never seen a person who was like, mean to the world, be like warm and fuzzy to themselves. 

Christine Ko: Right. Do you have any recommendation on how to overcome stereotype threat? 

Yemi Sokumbi: That's a deep one. First, especially if you're [00:06:00] not from a majority demographic, you probably spend time being aware of what the threats are for your demographic. For my demographic, you know, I talked about the anger thing, being a female and being Black. My racial demographic, there's of course always questions about intelligence and capabilities. And think about if I were to say, well, how do you solve for that? It's a challenging one because the onus cannot be on the individual. Most people will respond to it by overcompensating. I definitely wouldn't recommend that because that has an untold mental burden that cannot even be shared. That's not an out. I have trainees that are my demographic, and I have many mentees across the board that I mentor. And I could say, just be you, and do you, and authentically be you, and don't listen to the noise. That's another advice I could give. But I will say that particularly from the lens of our specialty, dermatology, we know our [00:07:00] specialty. We are filled with high achieving individuals. We have people who have board scores that you didn't even know the scores went to that high of a level. And so, telling someone to feel relaxed, and that all will be well; it's also actually an unfortunate falsehood because I cannot promise the outcome of that. I truly can't. And so I have to say that I actually do have folks that I mentor that I tell this, this threat exists, because you're performing at this level. It behooves you to work on it a little bit more because you need to, because now it's very different than actually even medical school, because now you've selected for the smartest of the smartest, and they're all with you, and that people will compare you, and you already have this extra baggage you carry with you. But then there are some individuals who do need to be told to give themselves grace because you can see the mental burden of trying to overcompensate and that cannot be sustained. 

Christine Ko: Yeah. I think it's hard when you're trying to [00:08:00] give advice or mentor someone who feels 

inadequate, like they're not measuring up, whether due to stereotype threat or an actual test score or evaluations they get that suggest that they're not performing well. How to try to make someone feel better about that when it's making them feel bad and making them not want to work hard. I think that's a really difficult thing. 

Yemi Sokumbi: I agree with you, but I think we can do a little bit more with our ability to be vulnerable, because I think that what can be validated for a mentee such as that is for you or for us to be deliberate in acknowledging our own common struggles and deliberate in acknowledging our own failures. We actually don't do a good job of that. We put a lid on our failures, and we do a wonderful job of sharing and highlighting our successes. When you give a talk, no one spends time talking about what you [00:09:00] failed at. Your bio is all the things you glow at. We're very good promoters of success. But we don't discuss failure. It's not in our norm. We hide it. It's why M and M conferences are not popular. No one wants to go to an M and M conference because it's a discussion of failure. But everybody likes a talk that allows someone to shine, that allows them to get rewards. So we're a reward oriented culture. So that influences if someone fails. How can you relate to my failure? There is a need for us to humanize ourselves a little bit more with the people we mentor so that we can be more relatable, approachable, particularly around the struggles.

Christine Ko: Yeah. I love it. It's so fun to talk to you.

Yemi Sokumbi: I've been looking forward to this. 

Christine Ko: What do you wish you had known earlier?

Yemi Sokumbi: Yeah. The need to not strive for perfection. There's nothing to be gained by it. Just additional psychological burden. Really, that's the key because it started for [00:10:00] me way too early. I've gotten so I'm in such a different phase that how easy it is to share what I'm not good at, what I failed at, it's a different journey for me. I wish I had the freedom to do it earlier because it is so liberating. 

Christine Ko: Yeah. 

Yemi Sokumbi: It allows me to show up in my trueness. And when I make connections, like I made connection with you, it's with me. How liberating is that because you're meeting me.

Christine Ko: Yeah, it's awesome. 

Do 

you have any final thoughts?

Yemi Sokumbi: Yes. Let's talk about our struggles a little bit more. That would be my challenge to the audience and to us, to our specialties, our subspecialties. Let's talk a little bit more about it. Let's be intentional. Let's humanize one another. So that we can be more appreciative of one another. I think that it will allow us all, I alluded to this earlier, but it allows all to lean into our purpose, in full awareness of our worthiness, [00:11:00] fully aware that we're worthy. We'll lean into our purpose, and then when we show up for the hard work we know we all do day to day, in our care of our patients, in moving our institutions forward, in moving our society forward, all of the things that I know we're all tasked with, that we all enjoy doing. It will allow us to contribute in those spaces from a true position of strength. 

Christine Ko: Thank you so much for spending the time to do this with me. I really, really appreciate it. 

Yemi Sokumbi: You're welcome. You're welcome. It was lovely to be in conversation with you.