Becoming Virtuosa with Dr. Susan Crockett | Stop to Think & Think to Stop with Michele Hoskins

Episode #111:

Stop to Think & Think to Stop with Michele Hoskins

Have you ever felt like life’s challenges are causing you to shrink up like bacon in a hot skillet? How can we build resilience to stop ourselves shrinking during tough times? Joining me for this episode is special guest Michele Hoskins, author of the book Unshrunk Bacon, to explore practical strategies for becoming more resilient, including what she calls stop to think and think to stop.

Michelle is a talented author, mentor, teacher, cancer survivor, and serial entrepreneur. She brings a wealth of wisdom and experience to the topic of resilience. Through her book and teachings, Michelle helps people realize they have options when it comes to dealing with stress and becoming more resilient.

In our conversation, we dive into the key themes and lessons from Michele’s book Unshrunk Bacon. Michele shares personal stories of resilience from her own battles with cancer and other challenges. We discuss the importance of self-care, building supportive relationships, and maintaining an authentic, transparent approach to inner resilience.

WHAT YOU’LL DISCOVER

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How the metaphor of unshrunk bacon applies to resilience in life.

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What it means to stop to think and think to stop.

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How to recognize symptoms of compassion fatigue.

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The importance of replenishing yourself while taking care of others.

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Strategies to communicate graciously even when feeling salty or shrunken.

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How to leverage relationships and support systems to boost resilience.

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Why authenticity and transparency are key to connecting with others.

FEATURED ON THE SHOW

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Come find us on YouTube for the Dr. Crockett Show and subscribe today.

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Michele Hoskins: Website | Instagram

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Unshrunk Bacon: Mastering Strategies to Resist Shrinkage in Thought, Action, and Being by Michele Hoskins

TRANSCRIPT

Michele Hoskins: That's how I came up with the title because I thought about how we as individuals, as human beings, how we become shrunk when we have to deal with tough situations in life. And I've had several tough situations that I talk about in the book that I've had to deal with in life. And it's because I decided to be a little more resilient and practice some of the things that I talk about in the book that I did not become shrunk like bacon.

Welcome to Becoming Virtuosa, the podcast that encourages you to become your best virtuosa self. Each week Dr. Susan Crockett goes where the scalpel can't reach, exploring conversations about how to be, heal, love, give, grow, pray, and attune. For the first time ever, she's bringing the personal one on one teaching that she shares with individual patients to you on this broader platform. A weekly source of inspiration and encouragement designed to empower you.

By evolving ourselves as individuals. We influence and transform the world around us. Please help me welcome board certified OB-GYN specializing in minimally invasive GYN surgery, internationally in the top 1% of all GYN robotic surgeons, a certified life coach, and US News top doctor, your host Susan A. Crockett, MD.

Dr. Crockett: Hi, welcome back to the Dr. Crockett Show. I'm your host, Dr. Susan Crockett. I'm a board certified OBGYN in San Antonio, Texas. And we are not talking about OBGYN or my specialty, which is robotic surgery today. We are actually going where the scalpel doesn't reach with a very special guest. I want you all to welcome Michele Hoskins to our platform today. Welcome, Michele.

Michele: Thank you.

Dr. Crockett: Michele is a very talented author and mentor and teacher, and we brought her on today to talk about her book that's currently available on Amazon. It's called Unshrunk Bacon. And this is funny because we're mostly whole food plant-based, both of us. This is really great. So we're going to talk a little bit about this metaphor.

Michele, tell us a little bit about yourself and your background because you have quite a resume there.

Michele: Okay, thank you. First of all, thank you for having me. I'm really excited about this opportunity. I am Michele Hoskins, as you said. Of course, you know I am a woman. That's number one, most importantly. I am a wife, a mom. I'm a servant leader. I'm an author. I'm an entrepreneur.

And I could go on and on for days, but the biggest thing is that I am here, number one, to tell people, and I wanna continue to tell people and mentor people to let them know that they have options in terms of dealing with stress and becoming more resilient.

Dr. Crockett: I think this is incredible. And it is a message that's needed, not just for everybody, but I really need to hear this today. And I didn't share that with you when we were having our nice little vegan meal downstairs beforehand, like we always do, which was really fun. Thank you, by the way, for joining us for the food. That's part of what we do here for the Dr. Crockett Show is we get to know each other and have that relationship where we start to have that bonding over healthy food before we come up here.

So those of you who have been watching for a while know that's what we do. When Michele and I met, the thing that struck me about her writing is how much it correlated with our show and what we teach. So, for those of you who are new to the show, The Dr. Crockett Show, 7 Seeds, the 7 Seeds of the Soul are our curriculum that we teach, and each colored dot up here represents a piece of that curriculum.

And if you want to go back, you can see the prior episodes where I've done an episode on each of them, and it is soon to be put out into a book next year. So they go, Be, which is about self-care that comes first. Heal, which is heal that things are broken. Love is love. Give, Grow, Pray, and Attune.

And so as we go through Michele's book, I wanted to talk just a little bit. I want to start with kind of the overall concept of the unshrunk bacon, because I think it's really brilliant. And then kind of your seven chapters that you have, which don't exactly equal, they don't exactly line up, but there's a lot of overlap in what we're teaching and what I'm really happy to be able to offer to our patients and our audience because I think they need to hear it. So tell us about how you came up with the concept of unshrunk bacon and what that means.

Michele: Okay, first of all, when you think about bacon and you put bacon in a hot skillet, regardless of if you're vegan or not, when you put bacon in a hot skillet, what happens? It tends to shrink. So when you think about when you come under fire, there's a death in the family, there's a divorce, there's something catastrophic that happens. Could be a medical situation, it could be something at school. When things happen to us or we have challenges in life, what do we typically do?

We tend to do the same thing. We tense up and we shrink up. And so the way I came up with this title is I have a son, that's an athlete that loves bacon. So we have meat eaters in our house and that's okay, but the book is not a cookbook. It's not about bacon. It's just the captions are really- It's the metaphor.

Dr. Crockett: It's a metaphor.

Michele: And so the metaphor behind it is, how do we not become shrunk bacon? What do we do to make sure that we're being resilient in tough times and when we're dealing with challenges? And so as I was cooking bacon one morning for my son, I'm watching it just shrink. I'm like, that was a pound of bacon and there's like four strips left and it just shrinking and kept shrinking.

I'm like, five dollars for a package of bacon and you only get like four strips. Needless to say, that's how I came up with the title because I thought about how we as individuals, as human beings, how we become shrunk when we have to deal with tough situations in life. And I've had several tough situations that I talk about in the book that I've had to deal with in life. And it's because I decided to be a little more resilient and practice some of the things that I talk about in the book that I did not become shrunk like bacon.

Dr. Crockett: I was really impressed by some of the stuff you've been through, like you're a cancer survivor.

Michele: I am, indeed. During the heart of COVID, I was diagnosed with breast cancer, her too, as a matter of fact. And I remember going to the doctor and they told me, this was in July during COVID, They told me to come back in December. Doctor didn't want to treat me because everything was shut down the whole nine yards. And I thought to myself, come back in July.

Okay, I'm not gonna do that. I have an appointment, you're gonna see me. And it's so funny because I insisted, talk about being resilient, I insisted on being seen. The radiologist came back and said, we need to take you back from some more tests to do a sonogram and some other stuff. And when she finished, I'm sitting there and I'm watching, she said, we're going to call your doctor.

And at that point, this was on a Tuesday, that next day, that Wednesday, I was seeing an oncologist. That following Friday, I was seeing a surgeon. That Monday, I had a port put in. Two weeks later, I'm having chemotherapy. I listened to myself and I was an advocate for my health, talking about being resilient.

Had I waited to December, you and I would not be having this conversation today. Because the cancer was spreading from one breast. It was like fire and I could just see it on the sonogram. It was just moving from one breast to the other just that fast. And so sometimes we don't know.

There's medical things that we don't know. But one thing that I do know is that we can be in charge of our bodies, and we can have some say-so. And so that's just one of the things that had happened. But it was just a myriad of things that had happened that made me know that I had to remain unshrunk bacon so that I could tell other people not only about my story, but also provide some strategies so that they could make sure that they're resilient in tough times as well.

Dr. Crockett: Yep. So I appreciate that you took the time to write this down into a book format. I just want to go through the chapters because one of the things I really liked about your book is about the practicality of it and you mix spiritual wisdom and scripture in that too, which is, this is not a proselytizing show, but I like that you mix in those scriptures and the wisdom to it.

So, the seven chapters that you have are just describing the essence of what that means, the unshrunk bacon. And then, but then you talk about tails from the skillet, and I love how you use the skillet as a metaphor for our bodies. And, and we're going to talk a little bit more about that.

And then you talk about bacon unshaken, that's so cute, building resilient foundations. And then chapter four is bacon unshrunk, unleashing the strategic sizzle, which I want to know a little bit more about because I need some of that right now.
And then number five is unshrunk bacon powering up. Chapter six is unshrunk bacon, a cut above instead of part. And chapter seven, unshrunk and sizzling what's next. So carrying on.

So this is a very easy to read book. And the fun things about it, like I'm gonna show you guys real quick, are like at the end of- The reflection pages and the strategies. And then a prayer and a scripture and the strategies. So yeah, sizzle strategy number one. So there's a strategy for each one. And I think having not just a book to read, but also those strategies is pretty cool.

So talk to me a little bit about the tales from the skillet and the skillet metaphor, because that was a little hard for me to read when you were talking about the skillet and boundaries on our bodies and stuff like that. You know what I'm talking about?

Michele: Right, I do. Well, there's a couple of things when we talk about skills, tales from the skillet. Thank God I don't cook like my grandmother used to cook with the skillet and the bacon grease and the whole nine yards. We can't do that to our bodies anymore.

But when we think about things that happen, skillets get hot. I have a cast iron skillet and I don't know how many people know that you're not supposed to put a cast iron skillet in water.

Dr. Crockett: Yeah, you're not.

Michele: My husband did and we almost got divorced because of that. It wasn't pretty, that's all I can tell you. It's the only time that I ever got upset with him because my mom brought, when I was in college, that was the only coveted thing I didn't take with me to college. How are you gonna put a skillet in a suitcase when you go to college, right?

So she brought the skillet to me when I was in Arizona, and I just loved that skillet. I still have it to this day. And so he thought he was being helpful. He didn't know that you're supposed to put salt, kosher salt in the skillet and stir it around and just wipe it out because, you know, cast iron skillets serve a purpose. They have iron in them, so they're good for cooking.

Well, he took it and he put, we won't name the dish detergent, but he put dish detergent in it, put it in the sink and he washed it. And so the next morning when I got up and I saw it on the stove, I was like, what happened to my skillet? And he was like, oh, I washed it. I was trying to clean the kitchen. I was like, you don't put a cast iron skillet in. He didn't know. People don't know what they don't know.

So when you think about the tales from the skillet, there were so many things that my grandmother and my mother had imparted to me from being a child. I learned to cook from my grandmother when I was four years old. But there's so many things, so many conversations that took place over that skillet that I still hold on to today. I've changed some of them just a little bit to fit the times, but at the same time, there's things that are in there and things that we have in there, I call them ancient wisdom that we need to reinvent, not necessarily reinvent, but that we need to relook at because they're so important to where we're going, especially with everything that's happening in the world today.

Dr. Crockett: And that's a lot of what you put in this book is that ancient wisdom passed down through you generation to generation. So this is a really fun book. Like for instance, if you had a small group, you wanted to do a book study or something like that, this is a real easy, like seven chapter, seven weeks of curriculum basically laid out for learning resilience. I teach a lot about resilience on my show. Also, it's one of the tools that we teach our patients and the show is mostly about the conversations that I have with patients that have nothing to do with the surgery part that I'm doing.

So the part I wanted to talk about where I am right now and why I said this was really important for me today is I got told yesterday in the operating room that I'd been salty lately. Salty. That I was being salty and you know what they were very politely telling me I'd been like really cranky and without using the B word which I really appreciated. But my staff was like what has been up with you this week?

And I've had this really great, but very stressful week. So we've launched our new office and our new surgery center recently. I got a new robot this week. I got the new dual console teaching scope I wanted this week. We did our first case observation for doctors that came up from the valley this week. There were all of these really great things happening.

We teach a lot about growing our capacity to be able to handle big things and little things. But in stretching from where I used to be to where I'm going and with all of this building right now, I've lost the ability to use my really gracious, kind words to make things easier for people, and I've gotten very short and I'm just like out, I'm just like, I'm shrunk.

So I was thinking about it, as I was thinking about this interview, like this week, I just got to the end of the week and I had almost nothing left of me other than to barely get the words out, which came across to the people around me as being abrupt. And usually my OR is like the fun place to be and everybody wants to be hanging out. But this week they were like, no you're getting salty. So I thought you know what I've been shrunk and it's not from tragedy or something bad it's just body battery low.

So talk a little bit about how I can use some of the tools in your book, or our viewers can use some of the tools in your book when they get that feeling of like, there's not anything left for me to have my kind gracious.

Michele: Right. Well, I think the first step is acknowledging, you know, and when sometimes when people bring things to you, it's for a reason, It can either hurt you or it can help you. First of all, you're dealing with compassion fatigue. You have so much passion and so much compassion for wanting to make healthcare better for the patients that you serve and for our community. And a lot of times you don't realize that you're dealing with compassion fatigue because you don't know how to identify the symptoms. Everything that you just talked about is a symptom of compassion fatigue.

Dr. Crockett: I wouldn't have used that word.

Michele: Well, that's why I'm here, right? So, but when you think about compassion fatigue, it gets to the heart of us and who we are. Remember, initially I said we have to, maybe you weren't part of that conversation, but I said we have to own who we are. We have to be who we are. And you have a lot on your plate right now, but I don't believe in wasting major time with minor people.

And what people have to understand, don't waste major time with minor people. What they have to understand is that God has given you a big mantle. You have a big mantle, you know, a new office and the robotics and the whole nine yards. First of all, I don't know very many women that do robotics, especially in surgery. So that in itself is very taxing.

And you did it for a reason, because you wanted to be able to make a difference. But at what cost? It costs. And people don't really understand what it costs or what you're putting into what you're doing to make life better for others. And so it's not necessarily that you're being salty.

I don't think, and I feel like a therapist right now, but it's okay. It's okay. No, that wasn't the intent, but for people that are listening, what they have to understand is that to whom much is given, much is required, and that's in the Bible, regardless of what Bible you read. To whom much is given, much is required. And so you're in that requirement stage right now where your time, your resources, your talent is being required to get to where you're desiring to go.

And so with your staff, I think one of the things that you can do with your staff is you know, acknowledge, okay, well, thank you for sharing that with me, but please be patient because where we're going right now, this is not the end result. It's going to be bigger, it's going to be greater, but if we're going to do it together, we have to do it as a team. Grant me some grace.

Dr. Crockett: I talked with them about that. I shared with them what had been happening with me this week and like where we're going in that these growth transition periods. I mean, I'm a serial entrepreneur. I love that you say you're a serial entrepreneur too. When we go through these expansion phases with our lives or with business, it is a different speed, a different pace and a different texting to get to where everything is built.

And I told him that I said, look, by January, February, this is going to look smooth and easier and we will have gotten to the next level. But right now I'm just running out of energy.

Michele: But that's why the book is so important because you have to be able to replenish you. You did all that to build your team up and you can go back to your team and say, okay, today is going to be a little stressful. This week, this month is going to be stressful, but you're going to thank me. But you got to make sure that you're thanking yourself as well and you're taking care of yourself because if not, then you become unshrunk. Because think about this for one second, if you're broke down and you are a Torah, what good could you be to other people? You cannot.

Dr. Crockett: That's where the first seed is being, like self-care, take care of yourself. There's nothing else if you don't have that self-awareness of who you are and where you are and defining that.

Michele: Right. And I usually wear bumblebees on my, I don't have on a sports jacket today, but I usually wear bumblebees as a reminder. I love bumblebees because it's a reminder for me to be the best that I can be. It's a reminder for me just to be.

Dr. Crockett: That's so cool.

Michele: Yeah. And sometimes we forget, you know, just in being, being like a bee, what do you think bees do? You know, there's four different classifications of bees, honey bees, et cetera. But when you think about a worker bee, we as women, we are worker bees. We make things happen and that's what you're doing. You're making things happen, but you have to make sure that you're making things happen for yourself as well.

And even if it's through reading a book, you know, taking time for you and just realizing, you know, sometimes it's not what we say is how we say what we say, but when we get so focused, and I'm the same way, when I get focused, you know what I tend to do is lash out at the people that are closest to me. And what happens when you lash out to the people that are closest to you? They call you all types of names, but that's okay.

Dr. Crockett: They call you salty.

Michele: Yeah, they call you salty. Well, they don't call me salty, but I'll take salty, that's a promotion. But anyway, when people bring that to your attention, sometimes we do need to take a step back and say, could I have said that a little different? And because we're so focused on getting that end result, sometimes we don't realize that our words matter.

And I know you know that your words matter, but like I said, it's not what we say, it's how we say what we say. And you know, my husband always says to me, you know, you can cut somebody with a knife and dare him to bleed with your words. And I'm like, when he said that to me, I was like, wow, I need to stop and think to stop. Because if I don't, then you know what? What if I'm on the receiving end of that conversation? How am I gonna make that person feel?

Do I really wanna make that person feel like a piece of like nothing? I don't, because I don't want anybody making me feel that way. So then I try to be a little more cognizant of not only what I say, but how I say it, because words do matter.

Dr. Crockett: So you bring up this important point about the stopping to think, like the ability to have the self-awareness that you're getting into a shrunken state or you're getting into a salty state and the ability to stop it, that's a skill set and we teach that in life coaching too, I'm a certified life coach too. So this fits well in with a lot of what I like to teach my patients also.

So talk a little bit more about the process that happens between becoming aware that you're in a shrunken state or saying something to actually putting that stop down. And then what happens after that when you say think to stop? Talk a little bit more about that.

Michele: I'm going to give you an analogy of something that happened to me. And I have to laugh even to today, because most people, when they hear something tragic like the C word, they fall apart. And I remember when I went in to talk to the oncologist, she had two white pieces of paper and she was writing out everything that she was gonna be doing. And I was like, why does she have two pieces of paper? Is it that much to go through cancer treatment? And it was a lot, it was real.

And she said, you know, I just need to let you know this is gonna be very aggressive. It's gonna be debilitating. I was like, oh, I'm tough, I can handle it. No big deal, I've been through worse. I had not been through worse. I didn't know, I had no idea. But I remember her writing all this stuff out on a piece of paper. And I'm just like looking at her like, okay, so that's it. And she's like, I don't think you understand what I just told you. This is going to be really hard on your body. I'm like, piece of cake. It was not a piece of cake.

But at the same time in my mind, I'm thinking, okay. So I went to talk to the surgeon and they did what they needed to do. And when I went back to see her, I would always dress up. I would always make sure that I look like I was going on a cruise. I had these beautiful hats or beautiful color. I always make sure that I have color. Number one, when I walk into the room, because I want people to notice me. And I learned that from Queen Elizabeth.

If you notice, Queen Elizabeth always had nice hats that were colorful with a matching jacket. And she said, you want people when you walk into the room to say, who is that? And you want them to say when you leave the room, who was that? So we are the who is and the who was. And so when you think about being resilient and some of the strategies that I talk about in the book, even if people don't remember your name, they'll remember what you look like, right?

And so they'll say to somebody else, "Well, you know, I saw so-and-so, do you know who that person is so that I can get in contact with them?" Because it's something about our inner beauty that attracts people to us. I have always said that relationships are the new currency. That's how we establish relationships. And it's not, you don't have to go out and buy a two million dollar outfit and put it on. I mean, even though we look like a million dollars today. Thank you, St. John. Even though we look fabulous, it's not about the clothes. It's about the heart.

And so if you can appeal to somebody's heart, you can make such a big difference. But how do we do that? How do we get there? The way that we get there is by building those relationships, by being intentional. We have to be very intentional and we have to be authentic. People want authenticity. They want authenticity more than anything. We don't need all the facades and all the colors and all the other kind of stuff that's in the rainbow, but what we need is to see the person's heart and that makes all the difference.

Dr. Crockett: It does, especially now that AI is coming up in the world. Like we're getting so much sharper and smarter as people about identifying the authentic and the real. So I was flipping through YouTube. I love watching YouTube stuff in the morning. And there was Alex Rainwater is the music station that I listen to.

And there was a title there that said something like, "Point of view, you prefer your music made by a live human." And I thought, yes, I do. I can tell the difference when music is real music or live music versus when it's a synthesizer and AI generated music. And our bodies feel the difference in the tones and the energies. I think it's the same when we have a relationship with people, too.

We can tell the authentic, and we as humans gravitate towards the authentic human. And that's why robots have that difference. You know, the technology doesn't have the same authenticity that a human does.

Michele: But the other part is, if you don't mind me saying this, the other part is people want to see transparency. Being transparent is so important because so many times people put on facades, and we were talking earlier about back in the day, we didn't have AI, we didn't have it. And our image, especially for women, the image that we had was the Sports Illustrated models or whatever we saw in Glamour Magazine or whatever. That's not reality.

And so I had this thing, I had this misconception that life had to be perfect to be good. If you came to my house, it looked like something out of a magazine until I had children. So, yeah, exactly. Until the children and adult, we won't even talk about the dog, but until I had children and it's like, there's dust over there in the corner. Nobody saw it except for me. The laundry is stacking up.

And then, you know, one day I had an epiphany and this is after I got sick. I was like, I don't want anybody coming to the house because the house is not picture perfect like it used to be. And then God spoke to me one day and He just said, it doesn't have to be perfect to be good. So if there's no other takeaway, it doesn't have to be perfect to be good. Only thing that He asks of us is to do our best.

And it's the same way with my children. You know, yes, I want them to be honor roll students. I want them to go to college and the whole nine yards, but I want them to do one thing and do it very well. You know, you can't be here, there, and everywhere. Just do one thing and just do it well.

So we have a daughter that's a ballerina, and we have a son that's a track star. So you can imagine what it's like at our house on the weekends. It's very intense. But at the same time, we don't have that competition within the family, because we support each other and we support each other in different ways and at different times.

And so I think, as to your listeners, if you have that support mechanism in place, if you don't have it in place, you need to find it because there are people that are out there that are willing to help. There's resources out there that you can pay for to help you get from point A to point B. But sometimes people don't have a starting point. And that to me is one of the reasons that Unshrunk Bacon is so important.

Dr. Crockett: I agree. I'm going to challenge you guys to go pick up a copy of Unshrunk Bacon on Amazon. And I just want to thank you, Michele, for coming on the show today. It was just awesome having you here. And thank you so much for sharing your wisdom and your lovely personality and relationship with us.

Michele: Thank you. Are you feeling a little unsmoked now?

Dr. Crockett: I'm feeling a little bit expanded.

Michele: Okay, good. Yeah, Bacon don't do that.

Dr. Crockett: Y'all have a great week. We'll see you next week on the Dr. Crockett Show, bye.

Thanks for listening to this episode of Becoming Virtuosa. To learn more, come visit us at DrCrockett.com, or find us on YouTube for the Dr. Crockett Show. If you found this episode helpful or think it might help someone else, please like subscribe, and share. This is how we grow together. Thanks, and I'll see you next week. Love always, Sue.

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