About Taylor Riall

Taylor Riall is a professional leadership and life coach as well as a practicing academic surgeon. She works with surgeons, physicians, and leaders from all walks of life to:

• Consciously improve and integrate the many facets of their lives
• Identify and address their personal and professional challenges
• Gain clarity and focus around their goals
• Take meaningful action to accelerate their personal and professional growth
• Develop clear and achievable plans for making their goals a reality
• Maximize their leadership ability
• Raise self-awareness and emotional intelligence
• See opportunities and solutions instead of challenges and problems
• Tap into their full potential
• Lead a happier, well-balanced life

My Story

Anyone looking in would think I had it all. I was a successful academic surgeon. I had a busy pancreatic and general surgery practice. I trained residents. I directed an outstanding health services and comparative effectiveness research group. I had outstanding mentors throughout my surgical career. I was checking off all the correct boxes…member of all the correct surgical societies, grants, papers, chapters, etc. I had an amazing husband.

I was once on fire…I was passionate about what I did. I woke up every day and loved going to work. But I felt unfulfilled and exhausted, both emotionally and physically. Instead of enjoying the “success” I achieved, I felt like a failure – I felt like I was a bad surgeon, investigator, mentor, teacher, wife, triathlete – not only because I didn’t have time to do any of those things well, but because I didn’t want to do it anymore. I was dangerously burned out. Coming to work was an effort. I was angry every time my phone rang and short with those around me. We all go into medicine to help people. But instead of wanting to help people, I had withdrawn from people. I lost that fire and I had nothing left to give.

I felt hopeless and trapped. I had invested many years of training and felt like I had no other marketable skills. I was slave to the income and lifestyle that medicine provided.  I felt like I had no choices. And I also felt like there was no safe place to say how I really felt without being judged.

Through coaching and the Energy Leadership™ process I was able markedly changed my perspective and my ability to respond to my environment in a way that promotes my own wellbeing. Coaching gave me permission to have my own dreams and goals, to care for myself, to treat myself the same way I treat others, and to love myself again. Coaching made me believe that I could define my own success and create the life I wanted. I realized that, in every moment, I have a choice – I get to choose what I think, how I communicate, how I show up, and the results I generate. Investing in my own wellbeing is an investment in my patients, my colleagues, my organization, my family, and my friends. One of the great gifts of working with a coach is having the opportunity to authentically share the good, the bad, and the ugly – without fear of being judged. Every situation is simply viewed as an opportunity to learn something.

When I started my coach training, my initial plan was to leave medicine and work with physicians who experienced the same kind of burnout I had. As I learned more and more about the process, I gained clarity around my vision and purpose. I had a real opportunity to use my skills as a surgeon, my leadership positions in academic surgery, and my coaching skills to change the way we train residents and develop faculty. As a surgeon and Division Chief, I work to create an environment where high performance is achieved through wellbeing instead of the traditional model of running faster on the hamster wheel until major collateral damage ensues.  As a coach, I work with physicians and surgeons to define their own success and create the life they want.

Hear Taylor Riall

Qualifications/Certifications

• Board Certified General Surgeon | American Board of Surgery
  Certified in February, 2005
  Re-certified in December, 2013

• Certified Professional Coach
  Institute for Professional Excellence in Coaching
  Certified in November, 2015

• Master Practitioner | ELI-MP
  Energy Leadership Index
  Certified in October, 2015

• Administrator/Facilitator
  CORE Multidimensional Awareness Profile (CORE MAP)
  Certified in August, 2015