EP122: Dr. Yemi Sokumbi on Finding Joy and Purpose Beyond Professional Success

In this episode of SEE HEAR FEEL, host Christine sits down with Dr. Olayemi 'Yemi' Sokumbi, a dermatologist and dermatopathologist at Mayo Clinic in Jacksonville, Florida. Dr. Sokumbi, also the Medical Director for Business Development, shares her personal journey towards finding joy and purpose beyond her career achievements. Through personal anecdotes, she discusses the challenges of separating worthiness from professional success, the importance of self-reflection, and how she navigates her identity. The conversation highlights the pivotal role of self-awareness, community support, and the value of gratitude in overcoming burnout and finding alignment in one’s work and life.

00:00 Introduction and Guest Background

00:55 Personal Anecdote and Journey of Self-Discovery

01:56 Realizations and Shifting Perspectives

03:21 Challenges and Support Systems

05:24 Burnout and Finding Joy in Work

06:20 Embracing the Journey and Overcoming Perfectionism

07:38 Teenage Dreams and Impact of Medicine

09:18 Identity and Contribution in Medicine

11:57 Role in Innovation and Business Development

13:29 Wellness Tips and Reflection Practices

15:35 Conclusion and Teaser for Part Two

 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, I'm very happy to be with Dr. Olayemi, who goes by Yemi, Sokumbi, MD. She's a dermatologist and dermatopathologist who is currently working at Mayo Clinic in Jacksonville, Florida. She also serves as Medical Director for Business Development. Additionally, she's 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 and Inclusion Award from the Mayo Clinic Alix School of Medicine, a 2018 Outstanding Medical Student Teacher Award from the Medical College of Wisconsin and the 2013 Richard K. Winklemann Excellence in Research Award. 

Welcome to Yemi.

Yemi Sokumbi: Thank you for having me, Christine. I've been looking forward to this conversation. 

Christine Ko: Me too. Could you first share a personal anecdote?

Yemi Sokumbi: A few years back, I was [00:01:00] exhausted. Mentally, mentally exhausted. I think mentally and physically exhausted, but the mental resonated with me. And what I realized at that point is, for me, my work had completely defined me. It was intricately intertwined with who I was, who I looked at, when I looked at myself in the mirror. I couldn't get a glimpse of the teenager me who had moved to the U. S. with really big dreams. And so I decided to go back and it has truly been a reflective journey to start up to see how did I get here and how do I get myself out of here. I've struggled with finding my own identity. And I will say that I'm still on the journey, but what I've learned along the way has been truly eye opening and has changed my life. It's changed my perspective and it's changed how I interact with the world. 

Christine Ko: I love it. I want to hear all about this. I have to ask about some of the stuff that you just said. So, you said you're still on the journey to find your identity, [00:02:00] but what have you figured out so far? 

Yemi Sokumbi: That's a good one. The journey has taught me that if I stopped in this very moment and did nothing, I am just enough as I am, just enough as I am. Because thinking about my background, I had tied success, the journey of success, the journey of accomplishment, to worthiness. And so separating the two, especially for someone whereby that's been intricately linked for so long was challenging, is still challenging, by the way. So I shouldn't say was, is still challenging, but the other side of it, where I find myself now, has led to extraordinary joy. Because what it has helped me do is to realize that my purpose has nothing to do with the things that I accomplish as long as I'm in line with my purpose. Accomplishing the goals or accomplishing those things were just the things that I thought I needed to check boxes. But instead, it has led me to an unbelievable pivot that I can truly see that I am existing in my purpose. So when I do things, even though I'm not working less, Christine, I'm working just as much, [00:03:00] but in an aligned, purposeful way. And that is tremendous joy versus my other mindset, which was, I just have to do more. That's how I demonstrate that I'm worthy. Instead, I'm saying, it's okay to do more as long as it's aligned with my purpose, it's aligned with my values. And that has brought me tremendous joy.

Christine Ko: That makes sense. So did you have any coaching? How did you come to this sort of realization about separating your feeling of worthiness from success?

Yemi Sokumbi: Incredibly hard. So that's why throughout our conversation, you hear me referring to the journey because I'm definitely not a finished product. So it's ongoing work for me, didn't have any coaching. In fact, in my leadership role at Mayo, I now have an executive coach, but my executive coach spends time, as most executive coaches do, really on my professional life, not the things that we're talking about now. He doesn't have these [00:04:00] conversations with me. In all transparency, I went about it in a roundabout way. First step was the realization. And for me, that was truly the gift. I have gotten a chance to interact with many in our profession, many in my world who don't even have the awareness. So that's my first gift that I was able to pause and be like, There is more that I'm missing and I'm not really living in the fullness of myself, and I'm truly just checking boxes because those boxes I've equated to worth in it. So that's the first gift, that realization. And then once I realized that, I have a wonderful village, my husband's a huge part of that village who he's on this journey himself, but he was able to shed light. And he would say things like, I see you going from point A to B to C to D; and you're not even enjoying the journey at all. You get to these destinations, and you move on to the next one. He says, you don't take time to just [00:05:00] reflect and go, How did I get here? How? And he said that cannot be a healthy way of living life And he was exactly right. And so it was too many podcasts to count, too many books to count, groups of women who are on a similar journey that will have conversations that have truly led me on this path.

Christine Ko: I like it. That's great. Did you come to the realization because, as you mentioned in the beginning, that you were sort of feeling burnout? 

Yemi Sokumbi: Yes, I didn't have the word burnout for it. And, even when I reflect, I don't think that I got to the point where some of the true purpose was taken away of it. The true joy. When you think about burnout, sometimes I like to think of it as a spectrum. Probably if I kept on that path, I would have ended up on the end of that spectrum. But I can tell you that I'm grateful that I was keenly aware, that I had the self awareness, that I was going on that [00:06:00] path. Now I can truly enjoy my career. And I think that most people who know me, that's usually what they reflect on, because I seem like I'm having a good time doing the work, and that's because I am having a good time doing the work.

Christine Ko: That's good. And how do you figure out what you're really going to enjoy? 

Yemi Sokumbi: That's the fun part. That's the journey. It doesn't have to come prescriptive. And so that's the fun part because I didn't know, and I still am discovering, but if you lean into it, understanding that, what's the worst that could happen? It gives you the freedom to enter spaces with the true humility to want to learn and the realization that not all things are for you, right? So it is okay to enter a space hoping that that will be the thing. And it's okay to exit the space and realize that it is not the thing. And so that freedom, that liberation, because I also had the, I have to get it right [00:07:00] all the time, that's the perfectionist in me, in our culture. And so at that point, that question was everything. In fact, it was like a burden over me that I have to know exactly what I wanted to do. And I had to get it right. But if I were to look back, the same would have been, well, maybe I did a dermatopathology fellowship. Maybe I thought I enjoyed dermpath as a resident. But maybe I did a fellowship and I didn't enjoy it. That would have been okay. I would have still been extraordinarily fortunate to practice general dermatology. So there is no loss on the journey. That's why it's the journey. 

Christine Ko: Absolutely. And another question going back to what you said. You mentioned the teenage you who had big dreams. Do you remember what those dreams were? 

Yemi Sokumbi: I have to say that when I think about the teenage me who moved from Nigeria, some of my dreams were, I thought they were big, but they were quite survival focused in hindsight. The dream was financial [00:08:00] independence. The dream was all of my family in a country where resources were available, where we could really be anything if we chose to be anything. The dream was impact. I've always been not knowing what kind of impact, but I've always wanted to make a difference in some shape or form. So I've always been a person whose goals and purpose has been aligned to doing a greater good in whatever fashion that that might be. I thought that along those lines that one of the greatest ways to make significant impact is medicine. So that was part of my big dreams. But in that package of dreams, there was always joy in the dreams. It was like, when I accomplished these things, there would be tremendous joy along with it. So when I started the journey, you can imagine how you go; the dreams were accomplished, but where is the fullness of living in it, enjoying it, thriving in it, feeling that you're in purpose?

Christine Ko: I think this happens to many of us, maybe all of us, especially in something like medicine, even [00:09:00] dermatology. I think even in dermatology, we do lose sight of ourselves. Like you mentioned, we kind of forget what it is that we really want, who we really are. So many people think that they're only worthy because of what they do.

Yemi Sokumbi: Completely. It's deep. 

Christine Ko: It's deep. 

Yemi Sokumbi: It's deep. If you think about what we can contribute to this world and what we have to give, you actually realize that we all do, whether you're trying to contribute to your institution, to the work, to the specialty. We all do it a disservice because we're not truly showing up with what we can truly contribute, because we don't feel safe enough and worthy enough to contribute what we truly have to contribute, if that makes any sense.

Christine Ko: Oh, it totally makes sense. I'll point the finger at myself. I do this even in spaces where I should supposedly feel safe, like faculty meeting, or something, where I'm sort of like, this isn't really a big deal. Do I really have to say [00:10:00] this? I don't know if it's harder to speak up with the big things or if it's sort of like that "choose your battle" thing. Like it's easier to say something when it really matters because you didn't nitpick on a bunch of small things.

Yemi Sokumbi: So along those lines, you know, anyone who has been married, "choose your battle" is real. You have to pick the fights carefully. You can't fight every battle. But the way I started looking at that is, big or small, I start to say, well, if someone pulled someone in the hallway. So Christine, you know, Christine, you've never met Yemi. If they said, what do you think she stands for? If it was something that was a true core value of mine, a true core, those to me are worthy of sharing my thoughts, because you can't, like you said, you can't be the disruptor in every place, you can't have a question when the meeting should be two, five minutes, you know. But, what I would argue is that a lot of us don't even know what that is. 

Christine Ko: Yeah. 

Yemi Sokumbi: So we don't have a true north by which we can actually be anchored to an identity. So we don't even know what we [00:11:00] stand for, who we are. And medicine has cultivated so much because we just move through the system. It's sort of, there's a map for you. So you don't require actually a lot of thinking, you know, medical school, you take this step, you apply to this, you do all of your boards, you get into Derm. So there's a map so you can get to a final destination and not know how you got there and who you are in, at the journey you've arrived. You can truly do that. And I think a lot of us do.

Christine Ko: Oh, yeah. The training, it's very regimented and reinforces that you have no power. You're an adult, but you have no power. You show up now, you show up here, you do this, you do that. You can't really complain about a lot of things. 

Yemi Sokumbi: We don't, we don't. I wear my innovation hat with our business development office. So what I would say is that we don't tolerate disruption. We don't like disruptors, and which is critical to change and creation.

Christine Ko: Yes, yes, exactly. This is really interesting. Can you talk a little bit about innovation? [00:12:00] 

Yemi Sokumbi: Yes. I've been fortunate to wear a hat that, honestly, the Yemi who introduced herself at the beginning of this would not have considered herself worthy of that. So my role there demonstrates the journey, another reflection of my journey. But Mayo Clinic, we have a Department of Business Development. It has two arms, a Mayo Clinic Ventures arm and a Corporate Development arm. I'm our director here in the Mayo Clinic Florida campus, and with the Mayo Clinic Ventures arm, I spend time with colleagues of ours, scientists, physicians, who are looking to disrupt their specialties, their fields, to add value by creating solutions to problems that exist, but problems that not only exist, but problems that have a market value.

So it serves a dual function. It innovates to benefit the patient. But there's also financial reward for the innovation also. And so you can imagine when I took on this role, I've been in the role now three years, when I took on the role, didn't [00:13:00] see many people who look like me. I didn't look like the stereotype person who would be in a senior leadership role or who would be in innovation. I checked all the boxes of why I shouldn't be there, which is why it's important when I reflect on the journey because I know I have significant value to contribute. It's been a great opportunity to learn and to see what our colleagues are doing outside of dermatology, all of the House of Medicine, and to see the process of an idea to being out in the market.

Christine Ko: Do you have any tips for wellness?

Yemi Sokumbi: I can share what has been helping me. I spend planned, scheduled, quiet moments of reflection. Key for me. Sometimes meditation, but the moments of reflection are key. I exercise, but my reflection moments are what I do for my mental wellness. For me, I used to be focused on the next step. Most of us, we're too busy going forward.

I spend a lot of time reflecting back. It allows [00:14:00] me to look how far I've come. Not so much caught up on how much further I could go, but it allows me to just be settled and be grateful in the distance. One of my sayings that I love is, well, if you have joy, you'll be grateful. No, it's the gratitude that brings joy. Because I spend time in reflection, it allows me to live from a place of gratitude, always. And that actually has tremendous joy associated with it. 

Christine Ko: That's great. Can I ask you like granular details? So do you do it once a week or once a day? Like how long? 

Yemi Sokumbi: So I do it once a day. There are two options that I have. Sometimes I'll do it, start of my day. So I start off my day, the alarm goes up. I actually start off with a reflection. My reflection exercise usually will start off, we'll say, the past 24 hours. What happened, past 24 hours. There's always a thing to be grateful for in that day. In my reflection, I name something I'm grateful for. So something [00:15:00] I'm grateful for in the past 24 hours. And then I do a reflection in the past week. What I'm grateful for in the past week that happened to me, what I'm grateful for in the past month, and then what am I just grateful for overall?

So it's like an exercise quick, doesn't take long at all. The exercise itself from start to finish takes me somewhere between 10 to 15 minutes. Because I sit in quiet, and I'm just like in the moment. So usually the start of my day or I end my day with it.

Christine Ko: Okay. Yeah. It's sort of like having a gratitude journal.

Yemi Sokumbi: Yes. And yours, this podcast will be on my reflections tonight.

Christine Ko: I'd love it. I'm going to stop this conversation here as Part One, and next week, we'll be back with Dr. Yemi Sokumbi for Part Two. We're going to talk about failure, which sort of dovetails in with this conversation that was related to stereotype threat, and really learning to be grateful and to have joy derived from that gratitude; not just to keep moving on to what's the next thing, without any reflection. So please join us again next week for a talk about failure, which [00:16:00] I found very helpful. 

Thanks for listening.