Dr. Leo Damasco and Phoebe Gutierrez welcome Dr. Krystal Sodaitis, as she shares her journey of overcoming limiting mindsets, the transformative power of coaching, and practical strategies for physicians to escape negative self-talk and pursue their dreams.
In this episode of Telemedicine Talks, Dr. Krystal Sodaitis joins hosts Dr. Leo Damasco and Phoebe Gutierrez to discuss her remarkable career evolution from academic pediatrician to health plan leadership and certified life/leadership coach. Dr. Saditis reveals how her love for luxury cruising and personal growth led her to launch the Luxury Cruising podcast on the Doctors Podcast Network.
The conversation dives deep into the mindset challenges many physicians face, especially negative self-talk ingrained during medical training, and how coaching helps reframe it. Dr. Saditis shares actionable advice on allowing yourself to dream, the benefits of positive inner dialogue, finding the right coach, and creating luxurious experiences even on a budget. She also highlights must-do cruises, including Antarctica and Alaska/Norwegian fjords.
Telemedicine Talks explores the evolving world of digital health, helping physicians navigate new opportunities, regulatory challenges, and career transitions in telemedicine.
Dr. Krystal Sodaitis is a board-certified pediatrician who transitioned from academic medicine to health plan leadership in 2013. She is a certified life and leadership coach with advanced certifications in physician coaching. Her coaching practice focuses on physicians with neurodevelopmental diagnoses such as ADHD, autism, or dyslexia. She is also the host of the Luxury Cruising podcast on the Doctors Podcast Network.
Podcast: Luxury Cruising
Website: https://luxurycruising.net
About the Hosts:
, [00:00:00] welcome back everybody, to Telemedicine Talks. As always, we have our host, Phoebe Gutierrez, and myself, Dr. Leo Damasco. And today I'm super excited to have our, our guest here. She is a host of our sister podcast, on the Doctor Podcast Network, and it's, the podcast called Luxury Cruising.
Check it out. But we have Dr. Crystal Saditis, right? And, she is a board-certified pediatrician, that transitioned from academic medicine to health plan leadership in 2013. She's also a certified life and leadership coach with advanced certifications in physician coaching, leadership coaching, and deep dive coaching, with a practice focused on physicians who have a neurodev- developmental diagnosis such as ADHD, autism, or dyslexia.
So thank you for joining us, and it's awesome to have another person from our sister podcast here, so it's always a great conversation. Welcome. Welcome to the show. Thank you so much for having me. This is [00:01:00] a real thrill for me to be on the podcast. Thanks. Now, what we wanna talk about today is really how you got to the podcast from where you were as a board-certified pediatrician to where you are now and how it got you there.
a lot of, telemedicine is transition, right? And really breaking down kind of the mindset that we have built over time over our careers that really is holding us back to making the leap of faith, right? Yeah. And this transitions to other things, too. So yeah. So how did you find yourself doing this podcast?
Yeah,it's actually a story I absolutely love to tell, so thanks for asking. And so,we can really start the story around 2015, which is when I went on my first cruise. And actually it was my first cruise, but it was the cruise that sort of started it all. It started my absolute love [00:02:00] of cruising.
And around the same time was when I discovered podcasts, and I started listening to lots of podcasts about cruising, and I just love luxury. I mean, like, don't we all? that's why- ... like Keeping Up with the Kardashians is is so popular, and why everyone loves their favorite, housewives of, you know, X, Y, Z.
I'm Generation X, like I grew up with Robin Leach and Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous. Right. I remember that. Like, we love that stuff. And so I was looking for that podcast, and I could never find it. Never even thinking that I would start a podcast myself, but my love of cruising just, it just continued, and it escalated, and I could talk cruising, I could talk cruising with anybody at any time.
if you are going on a cruise, if you've been on a cruise, "Ooh, what ship? Where'd you go? What was it like?" I love talking about it. then I didn't become a certified coach until 2019, and I started to learn- Yeah ... about [00:03:00] mindsets. And, anyone who's been through, growth and, it could be coaching, it could be anything else, self-development, you start to dream.
Yeah. And one of the things that I discovered is that- often as physicians, but as people, in general , when we think of a dream, the first things that come into our mind are why that's not gonna work, why that's not successful. And what I learned, first through a book, I had this idea in my mind to write a book about the sandwich generation.
I was knee-deep in the sandwich generation, still am, and I I thought about it. I'm like, "I'm just gonna write it one day," and I never really put any pressure on myself to actually write it, ' cause the truth is I don't like writing. And eventually , The opportunity presented itself with a course on writing what's called tiny [00:04:00] books, 'cause it wasn't gonna be a long book, and the idea just came to me that I didn't have to write the whole thing, and it ended up being a collection of essays.
Oh. And there was a lot of mindset work. I tapped into a lot of mindset work around the collection of those essays or writing of those essays. I ended up writing many more than I expected, and I got the book published. I learned a lot After the book was published, I sort of went around my life not thinking anything, and people had been telling me for a long time, "You should start a podcast.
You should start a podcast." And I was like, "No." I love talking to people, but the idea of, like, a single podcast , I generally thought of podcasts, because most of the cruise podcasts I listen to, is just someone talking. And the idea of me talking to myself for 20 to 30 minutes was not appealing at all.
but at some point the tide started to turn and I was like, maybe I'll start a podcast about luxury cruising," 'cause that's what I like to talk about the most, [00:05:00] and it's not out there. And I just let it sit until one day I was like, "You know what? One day I'm gonna start a podcast." And I didn't squelch it, and I didn't start planning it.
I just let it sit. And an email came across my desk, it was a coaching retreat saying, the one thing you've been wanting to do but haven't, this is where you're gonna do it." And that's where I was like, "Yep, that's where I'm gonna go. I'm gonna go to that retreat, and I'm gonna start my podcast."
And within six months I started recording, I had all the stuff. I had no idea how I was gonna produce it or how I was gonna publish it. I'm like, "Eh, I'll figure it out." And within six months DPN was announced, and I was like, "Yep, that's how my podcast is gonna be produced." and a year and a half ago I started my podcast, dropped the first one in March of 2025, and it's not easy, and I still...
I'm always looking for guests and putting that process into my life so that I can [00:06:00] appropriately, do the podcast, market, do all the things that I want to do so that it grows. There's definitely mindset work behind that so that I don't just, stop and say, "Yeah, this was enough. It was a dream and now it's done."
But I don't put pressure on myself, and it's worked out really well. Yeah, no, that's amazing. That's amazing, and it mirrors kinda how we did it too, right? It just, it was do we do it, do we not do it? And I think independently Phoebe and I were kinda mulling around the idea for a while.
And, what was your biggest kind of inhibitor from actually doing it when you were mulling it around? you mentioned that you- you're sitting on it, you're sitting on it, and it took this coaching retreat where n- now you're, accountable for basically this BHAG, right? this big- Yeah
audacious goal, right? But, before that what kinda stopped you from actually thinking or doing it? The logistics. to me, there were so many, and there are. There are... You know, people tell you, like, "Oh, to start a podcast, all [00:07:00] you need is your phone and a podcast platform." Yeah, in theory, but really there is more to it.
And so the logistics,the idea that I wouldn't just be talking to myself for 20 minutes. And I do occasionally do solo episodes. I don't love them- Yeah ... but I do them. And the logistics of doing the podcast every week, where is it gonna get uploaded to? Figuring out all the stuff like a website and the marketing and all of it.
Just there, there seemed to be so many steps that every time I thought about it, I felt pressure. And so I just decided, I'm like, it'll happen." I knew in my heart that it would happen. And the truth is that, and this is really well-studied actually, is that when you have a dream Even the dreaming of that dream, even the planning of it, [00:08:00] even if it never comes true, is beneficial.
So I just allowed myself to say "You know what? One day I'll do a podcast." And I ended up doing it, but if I had never done it, that would've been okay too. I would've, you know... I have lots of dreams like that, mostly around cruising. But I have mostly, lots of dreams like that. I'm like, "Oh, I'm gonna do this cruise.
I'm gonna do that cruise." And maybe I'll do it. I think I'm gonna do them, but if I don't, I've still enjoyed and gotten benefit from just dreaming about it. that- that's an interesting concept, right? Especially with people, you know, in, in our audience, are doctors, professionals, entrepreneurs.
these are people that are used to being successful, right? Mostly Type A, right? Even if you're saying you're not Type A, you're definitely Type A if you're listening to this, right? and the fear of not being successful, failing, what a bad word, right? Failing, in, in this population, in this, cohort, is such a [00:09:00] fear, right?
That we don't want to do that. But, it's interesting s- that the concept of even if you don't do it, just dreaming of it, is beneficial. it improves you, right? And- Yeah. Yeah. I just think it feels so much better to allow yourself the possibility rather than every time you think, "I'm gonna start a podcast.
Well..." or, "It would nice to be... It would be nice to have a podcast. but who's gonna record it, and how are you gonna do it, and how are you gonna find guests?" And da... And all of the negatives come up. you know, this may be a completely different tangent, but I saw a quote recently from Simon Sinek, and he said...
I don't know if this is actually true. This is a quote from him. He said, "One of the differences between the top 5% of tennis players in the world and everybody [00:10:00] else is that the top 5%, whether they get a point or they miss a point, they basically talk to themselves better. They're encouraging."
So it creates peace and, a little bit of comfort that tiny bit of energy, it's almost like they're not negative energy, right? the not having the negative- saves them so that at the end of the match, they're just maybe 1%, 2% happier, more content than the other player, whether they won or lost, because of the way that they talk to each other, they talk to themselves.
We should do that all the time Talk to ourselves kindly and with compassion, and allow ourselves to just dream. h- how do we do that, especially in the physician community, right? How do we do that, right? And like- Not just the physician community. that's, that's- it's funny 'cause as you're speaking, I'm actually [00:11:00] opposite.
So I'm the opposite side where I get all these ideas, and I was like, no, we can... I know for a fact we can do all these things. I wish I could clone myself-" "... and do that." and then it, you get into that, what do they call it? the hole where you realize the complexity of what you've gotten yourself into, and now you, you have, you have to kind of make it come true.
But it al- it always ends up working out. which is the funny side of it, of like even in the... I always joke, the moments where I feel the most anxious or the most uncomfortable is usually when I'm like right there on that breakthrough. today's gonna be like the worst, and then like tomorrow should be better because it can't get worse than today.
And then it, somehow does, right? I'm able to figure out that thing that I've been, stressed out about for the last week, or, we're able to, get an answer we didn't have, the day before. to your point, it's this very interesting kind of, mindset, but half the time it's really hard to stay positive all the time when you're doing all these things.
and I think [00:12:00] that's a thing, too, is, we're so conditioned, right? Especially during training. I was like, I don't know, maybe my training was negative I loved my- No, everybody ... my attendings and whatnot. But, the training is,it was, if I had an inner voice, it was like, "Oh, I'm messing up.
I'm, I'm-" Yeah "... doing this wrong." "I need to do better." you know, if you go up to an attending, how can I be better in this rotation? Read more, study more, do more, right? It was never good enough, right? Yeah. that is intrinsic to medical education, and it's not only us.
we all like- Yeah ... you see the water, you only see the water you s- you swim in. But I, I know from coaching a lot of women and being in a lot of spaces that sort of negative self-talk is pervasive. There is this idea culturally, and maybe it's just in the US, maybe it's all over the world, that you can sort of browbeat yourself into improvement.
Yeah. And that's not the case. That doesn't mean you're not honest with yourself. wow, that was not... We didn't show up the best today, right? Like- [00:13:00] That, that was a mistake. But there's a difference between, you really could have phrased that text or that email better, and you're an idiot, how could you have put that in an email for anybody to see?
And, and commonly too, it's the latter, right? Yeah. Yeah. And so if we're stuck in kinda that vortex, right? it's self-depreciating, right? how do we get out of it? for you, it was finding that community, finding that coaching community and telling yourself, "Hey, this is what I'm gonna do here."
And I'm sure during the coaching community, you had people, very positive people, cheering you on in doing it. So, for those that are stuck in kind of the whirlpool of this negativity, what's the best way to get out of it? Yeah, first is, drinking my own Kool-Aid is, especially for physicians, every physician should have some kind of coaching because, and ideally, again, [00:14:00] my own Kool-Aid, like ideally from another physician.
Because we know what training has done to our brains, and not just medical training, but everything that was required of us going into medical training. but it can be very hard. But the first step is really awareness and recognizing that voice when you hear it. And pulling yourself out. it could be, 15 minutes down the line before you realize, "Wait a minute," "I think I can speak to myself better about this."
"I've just been beating myself up about," I don't know, "the fact that I was five minutes late to pickup." " Can I just treat myself A little bit better about this?" or even not even asking the question,Y- you know, realizing, that's a lot of negative self-talk. Because the other thing too is you don't wanna then just impose judgment on top of yourself, "Ugh, you're always talking to yourself badly.
You heard on that podcast you're not supposed to do that." that's just compounding everything. Yeah. It's just, "Oh," like, [00:15:00] this was an example of how I made a mistake, and I didn't really treat myself well because of it." I'm gonna mirror that. or really exclamation point your point about the coaching.
I was... Before... It's funny, you talked to me a decade ago, and you would, if you told me, "Hey, I think all physicians need coaching," I would've just kinda giggled and "Who really needs coaching? I've gone through medical school. I've done here, residencies," blah, blah, blah.
"What other coaching do I need?" "What are other people gonna tell me?" But then I got into a group, a coaching group, and a community where, yeah, the positive aspects of that were huge, and really just kinda led to where I am now, doing what I'm doing, and just breaking the mold.
if it honestly wasn't for that, influence, I'd still be working 15 shifts a month in the ER, nocturnist work, being a zombie, five days a week. [00:16:00] that's... how do people... How do you go find about a coach? you're a coach. they could, you know- Yeah
contact you. But what do you look for? What would you look for, you know- Yeah ... in a coach? Yeah. I would absolutely say yes, if you, if part of your struggle, relates to having a nerve- neurodevelopmental diagnosis like ADHD, autism, even, social anxiety disorder, I would love to talk to you.
But how do you find anything really? You, can ask people. You can do an internet search. You... I definitely recommend, Actually, if you work for a large health system, they may have coaching available even within the health system. And I have a different job now, but I used to work within a health system, and I was a coach for them, for physicians and for other leadership.
I almost took a job as sort of chief of wellness of physicians and APPs, and a lot of that was gonna be around coaching. So look in your own [00:17:00] institution to see what's available. And then talk to coaches. I don't think you have to have one-on-one. Sounds like you were in a group.
I've done both one-on-one coaching and group coaching. Both have their value. and you want to ideally have an opportunity to have some exposure to that coach. Many coaches have podcasts or, newsletters. they might have a free introductory session where you can have, anywhere from 20 to 45 minutes to talk to the coach.
I strongly recommend that if someone is giving you a hard sell, like you need to make a decision before you hang up the call, like that turns me off. I've had calls like that, and I've been like, "No, thank you." just 'cause that's turns me off. I don't like to make that kind of decision under pressure.
So lots of different ways. The same way that you would find,someone to... Hopefully, you would interview a few people if you were doing, a major reconstruction of your house, right? The same way you would find a [00:18:00] coach. Yeah. No, it's- And a good travel advisor. Absolutely. No,I definitely promote the coaching part.
I was a strict critic of it in the past. I think I agree. Ev- everybody needs to have a coach. oh, amazing. It's just having... I think the value of a coach is you have a nonjudgmental external observer of your own thoughts that can mirror them back to you. Sometimes even just speaking the things that are going on in our brains out loud gives us so much clarity and so much insight.
It's wow, I didn't even know that was in there. And a good coach can really bring that out . Yeah, no, absolutely. and looking back into kind of the coaching that I've gotten, it wasn't all, cheering and hurrahs, right? It was a very deep introspective look into how I thought, how I worked, and really [00:19:00] kept me accountable, and said, "Hey, you had these goals.
Now do them this is what you needed to do," so forth and so on. So no, absolutely. Definitely brought out both the worst and best and, made me create actionable plans for it. So no, absolutely. Yeah. now, one... I know we're kinda, kinda wrapping up. This was a great talk, but one question that's killing me, You've done a lot of cruising, obviously. What is the one cruise that you'd wanna tell people, "Hey, this is the one cruise that you absolutely have to do"? Oh, the one cruise you absolutely have to do. Yeah. for me, I'm gonna start with, my dream, and then I'll go to what I would recommend anybody do.
so my dream is to do a world cruise. All right. But that, not everybody wants to spend 180, 200 days on a ship. But I would love to circumnavigate the globe on a high-end cruise ship. I think that would be [00:20:00] amazing. but the one cruise that I think everyone should do is-
It's gonna be a tie . So
Doing Antarctica on a small enough ship- Oh, I wanted to say that, yeah ... that you can get off, that you can get off and actually step on the continent. You don't have to be in, superb shape. They're really accommodating for people who have mobility issues, and even if you just wanna, like, get into the Zodiac and float around and look at whales, that's totally okay, but I would highly encourage you to get out of the Zodiac and put your feet on Antarctica.
I have heard that it is otherworldly. Oh, that is one thing on my bucket list. And I heard one of your podcasts, right? You want to find... there's rules, right? Yeah. So you wanna find a cruise line that, what, carries less than 180 people, right? Something [00:21:00] like that- it's something like- ... that allows you to do that?
under, it's, under 200 people because only 100 people at a time can be on the continent. And so while you are, while you're looking, that is definitely a question. if you're going on, a big ship, like Princess, Holland America, 2,000, 3,000 people, I tell you, you're gonna go to Antarctica and wave to the penguins.
' Cause you're gonna sail Right by and no one's getting off the ship. But a smaller cruise ship where they have excursions onto the continent, that's what you wanna do. How many people can say they've been to all the continents, literally? Not a lot. A couple people on my podcast. And when you do Antarctica, they have a, sign.
they give you, a little sign that says seventh continent. Oh, that's cool. cause for most people that's what's... Yeah. but if you can't and don't want to make it to Antarctica, I would say, in Alaska, they're very similar. Alaska and the Norwegian fjords are [00:22:00] very similar. And, one of those two just being able to see the, that kind of beauty, and fjords to me are just also so breathtaking because I don't know if you've ever, sailed through fjords, but it's almost like you're at the top of the mountain, but the water is all the way to the top of the mountain.
Oh, that's so cool . And it's just, it's so breathtaking. Yeah. I would say some kind of either Alaska with glaciers or the Norwegian fjords if you don't wanna go all the way to Antarctica. and do you recommend, now, your podcast is all about luxury cruising, so definitely more the smaller kinda cruise lines, the luxury cruise lines versus kind of the mega cruise lines, I'm assuming.
I think it really depends on what you're looking for. because if you are a family, if you're multi-generational, if the only way that you're gonna get to [00:23:00] Alaska is on an inside stateroom on a contemporary cruise line like MSC, Norwegian, Royal Caribbean, you should still go. And you can create...
And one of the things that, I try and talk about in my podcast is that, 'cause I don't travel in, I don't cruise in luxury most of the time, but I can create small, luxurious experiences for myself. Oh, that's cool. Like, I have two kids. , I'm not practicing in pediatrics anymore, but still, I have two kids.
I can't spend, 20, $30,000 on a cruise three or four times a year. But just being able to have connecting staterooms, that gives us a space and two bathrooms- Yeah ... I'm living. I'm like- Absolutely. It's amazing. And maybe I buy myself a spa package, or maybe, we make sure that they're both with their respective groups one night, and my husband and I can have a date night on the cruise and do specialty dining, just the two of us.
So and some people [00:24:00] don't like the smaller ships because there's not as much entertainment. And, they want the big shows. They want the variety. So I think that you can go, whether you prefer it because of the style of the ship or your budget, you can go, big or small.
Now, the big ships are not gonna get into as many ports, they're not gonna get as close to the glacier, et cetera, but you're still there. Yeah. Amazing . No, thank you so much, Dr. Sedaitis. Thank you for joining us today. my parents love cruising so, Mom, I know you're listening to this, um, go check out her podcast, Luxury Cruising.
And, Phoebe, is there any closing thoughts? Anything that you wanna... I just need to book a cruise. I've never been on a cruise. Oh, I love it. So- They're awesome ... I, yeah, I've had a lot of, I don't know. I'm one of those people where, I like to be able to be mobile, soI'm always, at the end of the day, even if I go somewhere, I'm able to, change my flight and come home earlier.
That's been my hesitation, but you're, like, the 50th person that's really talked up- Yeah ... a [00:25:00] cruise and cruising. So I guess my only action item is I gotta go do some research and go figure out and experience this and stop having weird fear about cruising. Yeah, don't let negative thoughts stop you.
Yeah. Yeah. I need to. I need to ... The thing about, and you know what? Again, you don't have to be, like, you don't have to plan it tomorrow. You can be like, "You know what? One day I might go on a cruise," You could always do a river cruise. Ooh. You can do a river cruise in the US, and,be r- still close to home.
Oh, I didn't even know that was possible. That's actually really cool. Yeah, the only river cruise I know is the one in Disney, and that doesn't go anywhere.
Cool little show, though. Anywho, no, awesome. Thank you for taking your time. please check out her podcast, Luxury Cruising, and, for all those listening, we will check you out next time. Mahalo. Take care.