Finding Work Happiness: Dr. Sandra Chiu's Journey to a Small Ontario Town

Ever wonder if there's more to optometry than grinding through back-to-back patients? Dr. Sandra Chiu certainly did. After years of working grueling schedules in Toronto's busiest practices, the pandemic gave her an unexpected gift: time to think about what she actually wanted.

In this raw and inspiring conversation, Sandra shares how she went from Toronto valedictorian to burned-out associate to thriving small-town practice owner—all while rediscovering her love for optometry along the way. She talks candidly about recognizing burnout, taking the leap into ownership, navigating decision fatigue, and why she now refuses to work weekends (spoiler: no patient emergency is that urgent).

If you've ever felt stuck in your career, wondered about practice ownership, or questioned whether optometry is still the right fit, this episode is for you.

Transcript

0:00

Welcome to another episode of 20 Happy Careers with doctors Fred and Riyad, real conversations about the imperfect path to a happy career. My name is Dr. Fred Cho, a travel optometrist, and I'm here with my co-host, Dr. Riyad Chemist, a sports and neuro optometrist. I.

Fred H. Cho 0:16

today we're diving into journey of Dr. Sandra Chu. She is originally from Toronto and completed her Bachelor of Medical Science at Western and graduated from Neco in 2014 as valedictorian. After graduating, she returned to Toronto and worked as an associate at various offices in the GTA in March of 2021. Dr. TR purchased Kerry Optical and moved with her husband and dogs to Port Elgin, Ontario. Kerry Optical has since rebranded as Lakeview's Eyecare and operates in a newly renovated space as a full scope private practice. She also rebranded the old carry optical space and relaunched it as a peach side optical in April of this year. Sandra and I actually used to work together for a number of years, so it's really good to reconnect. Welcome to the show, Sandra.

Sandra Chiu 1:02

Hi. Thank you so much for having me.

Riyad Khamis 1:04

Sandra, I am from King Cardin. Actually, I grew up in King Carden. Really? Yeah. So Port Algin was our, I was telling Fred this, that when I was reading the bio is, uh, port Algin used to be our rival. So King Cardin and Al always had that little rival. It's like our, uh.

Sandra Chiu 1:19

Shelbyville.

Riyad Khamis 1:21

Yeah, exactly. So then I remember even in hockey and stuff, like whenever there was fights, it would always be between King Harden and Port Algon. So I've always considered King Harden Beach better, but people from Port Algon will tell you, port Algon beach is better. So.

Sandra Chiu 1:36

That's so funny. So you know where I am. That's great.

Riyad Khamis 1:39

Yes. It's been a while, but I used to go to Al games at Hampton quite often there, like especially, for any, any extracurricular activities there as well. In terms of my Monday feel this time, growing up wasn't, we weren't huge like Christmas decorations, people but over the last few years we've really kind of gotten into like decorating the tree and anytime we travel on vacation. We always grab, a ornament from wherever we go or if it's not just some sort of like, key chain and then put it as an ornament so that, uh, like let's say we are, if we are traveling Europe or Paris, we'll get like a. The Eiffel Tower one yeah. And then we'll turn it into ornaments. It's kind of cool 'cause it reminds you of all the places you've been and just like little random memories of everything there as well. So yeah, it was cool to kinda get that all going and put that up there.

Fred H. Cho 2:22

How many of those do you have?

Riyad Khamis 2:24

We have quite a few, we've been only doing it for the last like, maybe handful of years, but even if we go to an event, like we went to the Stanley Cup, so we got like a Stanley Cup little, pendant when we went to Florida Edmonton. And, and just like little memories of everything there as well.

Fred H. Cho 2:38

Yeah. What about you, Sandra?

Sandra Chiu 2:40

My Monday fuel, well, so it snowed quite a bit here from like Thursday through the weekend. So we've got maybe, I don't know, like two feet of snow. Over that time already. I'm very bad estimating snow, but like, it, it, I think, yeah, about two feet, maybe more over

Riyad Khamis 2:56

like

Sandra Chiu 2:57

four days. R you know

Riyad Khamis 2:59

that Yeah. That lake affects snow. It gets you. Yeah. It's

Sandra Chiu 3:02

bad. And so I could kind of take or leave that amount of snow, but my dogs. Love it. Mm-hmm. And so one of my favorite things to do is to like go out while it's snowing quite heavily, like to the dog park and just watch them go absolutely nuts in the snow. And so we did that Saturday and Sunday and I'm very happy for them.

Fred H. Cho 3:25

If I remember, you have two dogs, right?

Sandra Chiu 3:28

Yeah, so when we were working together I had two Siberian Huskies. Yeah. Oh wow. Um, my older one passed away last year. He's 15. So very nice. Long life. Yeah. And now I have, I still have two, but I have so that other Husky and an Australian Shepherd.

Riyad Khamis 3:47

Imagine they love the, um, as you said, the snow and the beach and running around. It's probably like heaven for them.

Sandra Chiu 3:54

Yeah. They love it up here. Mm-hmm.

Fred H. Cho 3:56

All right, so we'll just dive right into the questions now. We worked together for a number of years, it feels like, oh, I don't know, at least like six, seven years, what eventually pulled you toward moving to a smaller city? Because I always felt like you're a big city person. Like you have so many interests.

Sandra Chiu 4:13

Yes.

Fred H. Cho 4:14

You have so many friends. So I just thought, wow, wow. I can't believe Sandra's moving out.

Sandra Chiu 4:18

I think I was as shocked as you that I made that decision. I was as shocked as anyone probably who heard that I was moving to a smaller town. 'Cause yes, I'm very much a city person. I'm still a city person in most ways, probably. Um, but it was definitely a COVID decision like I had. Too much or enough time maybe to think about my professional career and think about like, was I really fulfilled? Working as an associate? Was that really what I wanted out of my professional career? And I think the fact that during COVID d. We were only allowed to, you know, go to work and come home. Pretty much. That's all anyone did. 'Cause nothing else was open, just essential services. So I thought, well, I could go to work and come home anywhere. Like it doesn't matter that I'm living in Toronto. There's nothing to do there right now. And so. That really opened up my mindset to think, okay, well, like do you still want to practice optometry? Could it be I was open to anything. I was looking on LinkedIn for even, um, job applications or job postings for stuff in the sciences, but not necessarily optometry. Like I was really, the search was wide and so in within that search was also. Well, maybe there's a practice out there looking to sell. Like where would that be? What would that look like? I wasn't saying no to like any possibility. It wasn't through LinkedIn, but through like a connection in the industry. They knew that the opticians who owned the optical that I ultimately bought, they were. Looking to sell. And they kept getting offers from bigger chains like corporate chains that wanted to buy their optical. And they were really hoping to sell to not a chain and keep it a small business. 'cause you know, it's a small town. And so that's how I ended up in Port Elgin.

Fred H. Cho 6:17

That's amazing. And we'll definitely get into the being an owner side of things 'cause we're curious about that too. How is it living in a small city now? 'cause you've been there for a number of years, like how do you feel about it? Was it any different than what you expected?

Sandra Chiu 6:31

Because there are a number of small towns kind of within 10, 30, 35 minute drive of where I am, and they all have their very specific personalities and, and you know what you might find in each one or. The people in town have varied their own kind of quirks. And when I first moved here, I really couldn't, I couldn't quite distinguish like, what's the difference? You know, living in this town or this town, you're okay 35 minutes away from each other. But coming from such a big city, it seemed like splitting hairs to say that you were from this small town or this small town, when there's just so little. Um, and I've come to really appreciate. The nuance and the difference, like I still think it's very similar, but there are definitely nuances to each little town, and I really love how. Across the board, everyone's very welcoming, very like mm-hmm. I know my neighbors, I know at least half the street that I live on. You know, people, if you're coming home late, they'll take your garbage bins in without you even asking. Oh wow. To, or if they notice that you're away for the weekend and it snowed a lot, they'll snow blow your driveway for you and you'll just come home and it's done. And like little things like that where, you just do things for each other. Even though it was like new to the street, that's really, really nice and I don't feel, yeah, like I think it's pretty special to have that. So I really love that. But I do miss a lot of the, culture and variety and services and all the things that you can do in a bigger city. Mm-hmm. I definitely miss that

Fred H. Cho 8:07

yeah. Yeah. It's always like you want something you don't have, right? Like the grass always greener. Like when you don't have it, you want it again. But I was gonna say like if, if you snow blow, like. A neighbor's driveway here you're gonna get cops called on. You be like, what are you doing? Who is this person?

Riyad Khamis 8:21

Yeah. And it depends. I think also I, it is so funny you say that. So whenever we went on walks, sinking car and anytime you pass someone you would say hi. It was just like a thing. Mm-hmm. And then I remember going to Waterloo and then like bigger cities, and then if you say hi to people, a lot of times people just like look down and ignore you. And that's like, oh, maybe I shouldn't be doing this. But it was just something that we always just did. It is just like whenever you pass someone, you make eye contact and say hi. Um, and now you can't make eye contact. That's,

Sandra Chiu 8:48

that's so funny. Yeah, I noticed that too. But you know what, my husband's from a smaller town. He's from Chatham, and so he grew up doing that too.

Fred H. Cho 8:56

Yeah. Yeah. And so.

Sandra Chiu 8:57

Living in Toronto, I had kind of had to like break him up that habit. Like

Riyad Khamis 9:01

yeah, that's, I say hi

Sandra Chiu 9:02

to everyone, like this is impossible. You can't do that in the city. And then now that I've moved up here, I'm like, oh, this is why you do it. That's a lot. And I really like doing that. 'cause then sometimes you just end up talking to a stranger that you've said hi to you on your walk and that's just how it is here. And I've met a number of people doing that. Yeah.

Riyad Khamis 9:23

No, for sure. It's a, it's a definitely a different and, and, and I love the neighborly part too, for sure. That's something that I think resonates with me too, as well.

Fred H. Cho 9:31

And, uh, just, uh, going back to what you said, Sandra I noticed that in a lot of people's, like big life pivot moments, stories, it comes from pandemic somehow. Yeah. We heard that a lot. I think it's really important to slow down. When we are so busy day to day, we don't really think about the big questions. Like, what, what do I really want to do for my career? What does fulfillment look like for me? So, yeah, it's a theme that we keep hearing.

Sandra Chiu 9:56

Definitely I, I went back and listened to Fred your episode about how you ended up doing travel optometry and what resonated with me. It sounded so similar to my experience in that you said you were burnt out, but you didn't really realize you were burnt out. And you kind of described some of the things. And I'm like, that's exactly what happened to me. I think I like a little bit in the back of my mind knew that I was burnt out with practicing as associate the way I was practicing the number of hours, the number of patients. But because I was, that just burnt out enough to be not, to not really have a bandwidth to then do something or think about it too deeply and then being forced. To have a lot of time to think about that and then have the opportunity to, to then reassess everything. Like that's basically what happened.

Fred H. Cho 10:51

Yeah. And I just wanna add some context. Like Sandra and I worked at a really busy office. Like we would have like two, three lanes going all the time. And I just remember right from like graduation. And same for you, Sandra, I think pretty much shortly after, but it was just like nonstop. And then those odd days that we do have a slow day, we would just chat. And that's how we got closer just at the clinic, just talking about and I, I feel like I could talk to Sandra about anything. Like she has so many interests. She has something insightful to say about paleo diet or like some, she's good with baking and like dogs and dog training, so. That was always like one of my better memories.

Sandra Chiu 11:29

Yeah. Yeah. I do, I do remember that. I love that. Like when either one of us was kind of at a loose end, we'd like wander into the other one's exam room and just like chit chat until we got busy again. It was, it was good.

Fred H. Cho 11:39

Yeah. But yeah, it was a

Sandra Chiu 11:41

very busy, yes, it was busy.

Fred H. Cho 11:43

So let's go back to that period of huge changes for you. I'm sure it's like moving to a smaller city, but also now you're stepping into the owner. Choose now what was that transition period like?

Sandra Chiu 11:55

I remember like very steep learning curve because all of a sudden, like you go from just the eye exam part. As an associate is your responsibility, like just you and your patients really to, everything is your responsibility. And so coming from a non dispensing practice into a dispensing practice, like learning everything to do with that side of things there was so much to learn. But when I think about it now, it's like an overwhelming stuff to learn, but I really like, I was thriving because I love a challenge and I love learning new things. It was just the speed at which I had to learn all that stuff was like quite fast. But I, I loved it. I loved being able to like. Call the shots on things that I always wanted or had like strong opinions about, like operationally and like with everything be like controlling my schedule and hours and things like that.

Riyad Khamis 12:56

I'm sure like the business side of things has been a big transition. So as a business owner, obviously now having to wear lots of hats what aspects of ownership are you enjoying the most, would you say?

Sandra Chiu 13:10

I really enjoy that because I have to wear so many hats. My days are very different. Yes, there's a lot of patient care, but beyond patient care, I get to do so many other things, and that keeps me much more engaged than doing the same thing day in, day out. So, you know, thinking about social media or like how, like the operational stuff or how I want to promote my business or just. How do I connect to more of the community?

Riyad Khamis 13:38

Yeah. I think you were saying before too, is it is just an overwhelming amount of things, but sometimes you just gotta jump in and do it and mm-hmm. Uh, 'cause you can like overanalyze things so much on all the stuff that goes into it, but sometimes just jumping in and kind of going for it, which is sounds pretty inspiring about your story, what would you say the challenges are,

Sandra Chiu 13:58

so what comes with, having. All this power as the owner is it can be a little bit exhausting or draining. Uh, when. All the kind of questions end at you. So like if your team is always asking you questions or they come to you as like the primary source to, for all their problems and they're looking to you for solutions, it can be like, oh, if I don't think I can take another person asking me a question, but I try really hard to train my team to think independently and know that they can kind of make mistakes safely. Right. That's kind of one of the primary things that I try to. Instill in them is that like I want them to exhaust all other resources before coming to me for a question. I should be the last resource that you try. Unless they, and when they really can't figure it out, they can come to me. Or if they think they know, but they're not super confident. Sometimes I say like, if they give me like their plan, like, okay, this is the problem. This is what I think the solution should be, even if I know that might not be the best solution or it's, or there's an error in it, if I decide that the business can handle that error, then I kind of let them make that mistake and then see how they, but it's hard even reminding myself not to answer reflexively and let them go through that process. So that can be, it's draining for me. It's probably draining for them, for me to like ask them, like for them to come to me with questions and I ask them more questions in return in this kind of cycle. But. That's a little bit draining. And I would say like, I don't love finance, accounting, bookkeeping, that stuff, right? Yes. That type of business stuff. That stuff doesn't fill my cup at all.

Fred H. Cho 15:38

And so, just to relate to that note as a business owner, how. Could you build a sustainable career then? Because you're talking about some challenges like decision fatigue and some aspects like finances you don't love, like how do you sustain that? And I'd love to get your thoughts as well, rhi. 'cause I know you're obviously, you're also a practice owner, but Sandra, first I'd like to get your thoughts.

Sandra Chiu 15:59

So I work with, a practice management company where I pay them to take on certain aspects of practice management that I don't want to, and so, because I'm lucky enough, the, the, the business that I purchased was like already profitable. So for the things that I don't love doing, I am, fortunate enough to have help with that. Mm-hmm. But in terms of like decision fatigue or that type of thing, like that just comes with being an owner. So you can't really outsource that.

Riyad Khamis 16:29

Yeah, and I would echo that. There won't be every time period isn't gonna be like rosy in an amazing way. Mm-hmm. There's gonna be time periods where things are tricky, staff issues, all of that stuff that comes along with ownership, but then it balances out with the freedom and being able to kind of. Build your thing too as well. And I think the one important thing that you had mentioned, and something I've probably realized in the last few years too, as you said, is the delegation piece of it because I, as an owner, and I don't know if you feel the same way, but there's a lot of stuff you could probably do and probably make it run more efficiently, or I could do this and do that, but then. At a certain point, then you exhaust yourself. So if you can get good enough to delegate and exactly what you said is it may not be the most efficient way of dealing with it, or they might, but at least they're doing it. And then it'll learn from it, and then they'll do it better next. Time. So I think delegation becomes super important. I think that's the way to a sustainable part of it.

Sandra Chiu 17:21

I would definitely agree. You have to kind of learn what is worth your time and it's also like empowering the people who are helping you to do the best that they can, right? Mm-hmm. For sure.

Riyad Khamis 17:32

So the clinical work got your leadership and then the admin, everything in between. How are you handling it?

Sandra Chiu 17:39

Up until relatively recent, so earlier this year, I was seeing one patient per hour, just 'cause I could. Right.

Fred H. Cho 17:47

Right.

Sandra Chiu 17:47

Um, and that, that's like, what a luxury. And so often, you know, it doesn't actually take me a full hour with a patient. Right. But I could take that full hour if I wanted to. Um, but if I don't, then I would fit in as much of that other stuff.

Fred H. Cho 18:00

In

Sandra Chiu 18:00

the time in between patients and so I really try to like, respect my weekends. So that's another thing about working up here is there are no optometry practices that are open on the weekends here.

Fred H. Cho 18:12

Right? Yeah.

Sandra Chiu 18:13

And at first, when I was looking at purchasing the optical, I saw that like as such an opportunity, I was like, wow, no one's available on weekends here. Their evenings are, their quote unquote, late evenings are like six 30. That kind of thing. I saw that as an opportunity and now I see that as like, oh, no, no, no, no, no, I'm not opening on the weekend. That is off time. Nothing is that urgent my attitude has very much changed and so I try to protect my weekends as much as possible from work stuff, even ownership stuff. And then I try to fit in on the weekdays in between patients or a little bit before and after work. I try to fit that in in between.

Fred H. Cho 18:52

When Sandra and I used to work together, we would work till, oh my god, like 8:00 PM or something. Mm-hmm. Then you gotta get home and eat dinner and we would work, remember like Saturday, Sunday, like every weekend.

Sandra Chiu 19:05

Yep.

Fred H. Cho 19:06

We did that for years. So I don't know how we did it. I think it's like part of the rite of passage in the beginning. You just like work really hard, but then eventually you realize it's not sustainable.

Sandra Chiu 19:15

Yeah. Well I think I, you just assume that Yeah, everyone has like a six day, seven day week, out of optometry school, especially in Toronto is just so normalized that we're like, yeah, everyone has to work at least one Sunday a month, or, yeah, two Sundays a month.

Riyad Khamis 19:31

Growing up in a small town, I remember seeing the optometrists in the town I grew up with, and they never worked. Fridays, it would be Monday to Thursday, they would just work till five. They would take a lunch hour and I'd see them at the gym or whatever. And that's actually one of the, when I was deciding professions, I assumed Optometry was similar to that and I was like, that's a career I wanna go into. But if you grew up in Toronto, you're like expected. See people working hard and kind of working the six, seven days a week. So yeah, it's definitely interesting to hear that as well.

Fred H. Cho 19:58

But I wanna add also that 'cause Riyad has a lot of stuff going on. He has a lot of offices and. Very like one of the most successful optometrists I know for sure. Love that. So yeah, no, really like, but when you do a lot of good work, you invite more work, right? That's just how, yeah. Remember Brianna said that, and I really resonate with it, and you R like you could easily open up like seven days and find all sorts of work. But one thing that I admire about you is that you're really good at protecting your time. I remember you even said like my lunch hour is like really important that I get that breather. And yeah, so having, and then your Sunday is like really important for you as well, just for the Sunday night football reset. To me the, it's, really important to come back stronger, right? Like it ultimately helps you do better work. So I think that's something that we can all do as well.

Riyad Khamis 20:48

Yeah, and I think it's constantly finding that balance, right? You work hard to get busy and then you get busy and you're like, oh man, and this is too much now. Like I miss those days where it wasn't as busy and it's trying to constantly rebalancing things as well,

Fred H. Cho 21:02

for sure. Yeah.

Sandra Chiu 21:02

Yeah. It's so true. I find that like, you know, you want to be busy. As an owner, if the phone's not ringing, your schedule's not full, like you get stressed out because you gotta pay people and all that stuff. But at the same time I also notice if I'm too busy and then I don't feel super inspired, to like, I don't have as many ideas or I don't have as much, I'm not coming to work with the same kind of energy. And so, the time off or going to conferences or just doing something else like time away from being in the office. I always come back more excited to be in the office and to try something new

Fred H. Cho 21:40

that is so true. I think we all need that time off away. RTA and I was at, the Waterloo Eye Institute conference that was really good. We learned a lot of things and even if the topic is not directly related to what we do, it's just great to get some new ideas so I think the time away is really important. Last section, is some reflective questions for you, Sandra. So this kind of brings me back to our chats when things are a bit slow at the office and we just talk about all these things. But, uh, yeah. At your current stage in your career now, what does work happiness look like to you?

Sandra Chiu 22:14

Work happiness. Is being excited to go to work every day, um, having, lots of ideas that I want to try at work with my team, like social media, making funny videos, things like that. And seeing, like taking on new challenges like my optical that I just rebranded, like tackling new things like that. That's work. And the freedom to take on as much or as little of that as I want. Like that's work happiness for me. It's like flexibility,

Fred H. Cho 22:48

balance. Autonomy, balance, yeah. But also growth, you're saying?

Sandra Chiu 22:53

Yes. Yes. That's a good summary I would say.

Riyad Khamis 22:56

And I think the, what you said about the meaningful part, it depends too, like where the modality of practice sometimes, right? It's harder to get the meaningfulness if you're grinding away of patients and you're maybe more corporate and selling glasses but it is, even if you are, and that's perfect, but you gotta remember sometimes, yeah, we are helping people I know you mentioned earlier you were like maybe looking to get out of optometry or looking at LinkedIn at different things. Do you feel like this has reinvigorated that passion for optometry?

Sandra Chiu 23:25

Yes, definitely. What I always liked about optometry the most, was the kind of personal connections that I would make with my patients and kind of seeing them year after year, learning about a different person and, you know, like that I always, optometry was the problem. It was like, it was just the volume. That I was working was the issue. And so, the kind of meaningful impact that I can see that I'm making, not just with individual patients, but in the community as well, like being able to employ people. Like that's, I find that very meaningful. Actually, that

Fred H. Cho 24:04

reminds me of how, like so many of your patients, Andrea, they, they really loved you. Like even from when we worked together, because you would remember all these like details about them, and I, and I remember asking you like, how do you remember these things? Like you saw them once, like two years ago. Then you're asking them about their family or their job. Like, I don't know how you did it, but I think that. Yeah, for sure. I can see why you love connecting with patients in that way. 'cause even back then you were always like that

Riyad Khamis 24:30

and, and I'm sure that this resonates with a ton of people who are at that point is sometimes when they think they're burnt outta their career and they're like, this career isn't for me and you're such like a great example or aspiring example. Maybe it's just okay, maybe taking a step back and you chose optometry for a reason. Maybe it's just the modality or a how you practice context. Yeah that's such an important example.

Fred H. Cho 24:52

Yeah. Awesome. And so going back to you, Sandra, like if you were to do it all over again right from graduation, would you do anything differently? And if so, how? Hmm,

Sandra Chiu 25:03

I think yes, but not so differently I think. So one thing that comes from. The modality of practice that you and I were in Fred where it's very high volume, long hours, things like that. You learn a lot from that too. Like the skills to be super efficient with your time, time management, like leapfrogging patients, things like that, and still managing to do a very high quality eye exam and where patients connect with you. All of that is a skill that we learned really quickly in that context, and so I wouldn't necessarily take that away from my history because I'm certainly using those skills now.

Fred H. Cho 25:40

Yeah, yeah.

Sandra Chiu 25:41

But I do kinda wish that I had a broader view or maybe better exposure to other modalities of practice earlier on. I thought I. I think it's a little bit of imposter syndrome that I, I didn't think that I was maybe good enough to practice at a dispensing practice, a private practice. I thought that maybe you had to know the owner, have a relationship with that office in order to be considered as an associate. Like I had all these stories in my head and why I didn't pursue even being an associate in that kind of context

Fred H. Cho 26:16

out of

Sandra Chiu 26:16

school. And so. I wish that, you know, I could maybe go back and tell like, early graduate, Sandra, like, you just try, just send your resume out there, try different modalities, see, you know, see what happens from that. But ultimately I don't know that I want to change my path too much. 'cause I also think ownership came at a point in my personal professional career where I had enough skills and confidence to, to take on a new challenge.

Fred H. Cho 26:48

What I'm hearing is, um, you wouldn't change a whole lot because all those experiences were still helpful to you, to everything that you're doing now. Right. That's interesting because I met this optometrist in Newfoundland, so we're just sitting down over coffee and then he has this theory. He's like, you know, I'm noticing around my friends and myself that around five years in. Monotony starts setting in like, I don't know what it is it, like he had this theory that it just happens around year five and I kept thinking about it. I was like, you know, that's kind of what I felt too in my own career. And I thought it might be because in the first few years outta school, you're learning on the job. So there's so much passion and growth that comes from just getting better every day. 'cause the growth is so fast. Right. Then after like your first 10,000 patients, um, it just, the next 10,000, it's, you don't learn as much. So I think in the beginning it's about fitting in, like how, how do I just become a competent optometrist? And then after that, I think you have to figure out how to fit out. Like how do you stand out? Like one makes you, you like your own passions, your strengths. And so that's where I see a lot of overlap in, uh, people's journeys. Like you'll like just grind, grind, grind, get better, get better, hone your skills. And then people just go off and do different things that they want to do. And that's where I see a lot of people finding work happiness rather than continuing to just like stay and just grind at that same place. Right. Because you've learned all you can there.

Sandra Chiu 28:24

That's, I resonate with that a lot. Yeah. I think I learned as much as I possibly could have in that modality of practice. Yeah, that was about five, six years in that time. And now that I practice complete, like in a different modality, not just as an owner, but you know, private dispensing practice, the amount I've learned and like I'm a much better optometrist for changing modalities and seeing that side of things, being responsible for the dispensing side of things as well. I'm a much better optometrist for that. So I'm thankful for my first five years of honing those skills.

Fred H. Cho 29:04

Yeah.

Riyad Khamis 29:04

I really like the, uh, the fitting in and fitting out thing. That's, I think I resonate that too. I think five years, seven years, whatever, I think it starts to feel like that. So that's a, that's a great great thing, Fred. That was very insightful

Fred H. Cho 29:16

awesome. So the last question now, just to wrap up if your younger self could see you now. What would surprise them the most about your current career?

Sandra Chiu 29:25

Oh, I don't think my younger self would be surprised about my career at all. Now, my younger self would be the most surprised about where I live. My younger is old. A small, like this, small of a town,

Fred H. Cho 29:40

like

Sandra Chiu 29:40

everything else would make sense.

Fred H. Cho 29:42

Yeah. And I was just talking to my wife about this, but uh, we don't often know how our life circumstances wouldn't change and things like that. So I think that's part of the fun part of the journey, right? Like life takes you to all these unexpected places

Riyad Khamis 29:56

I am in London right now, so not no longer in a too small of a town, but I, I always, uh, look back at those days like growing up it was such a great, like small towns, such a great place to grow up, being outside all of that stuff as well.

Fred H. Cho 30:08

Awesome. Just as we wrap up here, anything you wanna share, Sandra,

Riyad Khamis 30:11

you guys are doing good social media stuff. Right? I'd love to kind of hear a little bit about that too, too. Oh

Sandra Chiu 30:16

yeah. So our social media is lake views with an SI care. One of my team Elena, she has real passion for like, making funny tiktoks and videos, and so you'll find just some silly. Stuff on there of our day to day if anyone's interested in seeing what we get up to. That's a good place to find me. Um, she's taught me how to edit videos. Mm-hmm. And, I sound so old now, but she's my link into what the kids are doing

Fred H. Cho 30:47

these days

Sandra Chiu 30:48

and like it's a great method of self-expression, that I didn't, I would never get in front of a camera before. And so this is a real area of, I guess growth and change for me.

Riyad Khamis 31:01

I was actually just looking at it now. There's a lot of interesting content here, so I'm looking at, um, excited to look at it there as well. But yeah, no, thanks for thanks for coming on.

Sandra Chiu 31:09

Thank you so much for having me. It's great catching up.

Speaker 31:12

And thank you for listening to 20 Happy Careers with Dr. Fred and Riyad. If you found this helpful, please subscribe, share, or leave a comment. You can also follow us on Instagram at 20 Happy Pod. Join us next time as we rethink success and what it means to love your work. And remember, we are just chasing workplace happiness. We are creating it step by step.