Chief Change Officer
#322 Adaira Landry MD: From Mentorship to Micro Skills—Tools for Thriving at Work — Part Two
Fri, 25 Apr 2025
In Part 2, Adaira shares how she and Resa shaped Micro Skills into a fast-impact, high-utility guide for early career professionals—and why it intentionally skips fluff in favor of action. She opens up about saying yes too often, burning out from “non-potable work,” and how she finally embraced what she calls JOMO—the joy of missing out. We also hear how they trimmed the book’s original title (“Chisel”) and why ambition without discernment leads to a flat career, not a rising one.Key Highlights of Our Interview:How the Title Came to Be“We almost called the book Chisel—but MicroSkills came from a medical lecture I never forgot.”The Real Goal“We wanted people to finish the book Friday and be better at work Monday. No degrees, no fluff.”The Myth of Saying Yes“I believed the mantra: say yes to everything. I ended up burned out, doing too much that didn’t scale.”From FOMO to JOMO“The joy of missing out means you choose what matters. You don’t chase everything.”Horizontal vs. Vertical Growth“I wasn’t climbing—I was just adding. A real career needs strategy, not just more.”_____________________Connect with us:Host: Vince Chan | Guest: Adaira Landry MD --Chief Change Officer--Change Ambitiously. Outgrow Yourself.Open a World of Expansive Human Intelligencefor Transformation Gurus, Black Sheep,Unsung Visionaries & Bold Hearts.14 Million+ All-Time Downloads.Reaching 80+ Countries Daily.Global Top 3% Podcast.Top 10 US Business.Top 1 US Careers.>>>140,000+ are outgrowing. Act Today.<<<
Chapter 1: Who are the hosts and guest of this episode?
Hi, everyone. Welcome to our show, Chief Change Officer. I'm Vince Chen, your ambitious human host.
Chapter 2: How did Vince Chan and Dr. Adaira Landry connect?
Our show is a modernist humility for change progressives in organizational and human transformation from around the world. Dr. Adara Landry and I almost crossed paths years ago. While she was earning her master's in education at Harvard, I was seriously considering joining that same program, driven by my passion for learning and education technology.
I didn't end up pursuing it, but I'm glad that they brought us together through our shared interest in upskilling, learning, and the book Microskills, which she co-authored with Dr. Risa Lewis, who joined me previously on the show. Dr. Landry is now a Harvard emergency medicine physician, educator, and co-author of Microskills. Madison was always in the picture.
Her mother believed she had the hands for it. But it was two real-life emergencies that confirmed her path. In this two-part series, we talk about mentorship that actually works, why waiting to feel ready can backfire, and what it means to take ownership of your time and energy. Dr. Landry doesn't just talk about communication. She models it. Let's get into it.
Let's look at your book, Micro Skills. Reason mentioned is partly a collection of articles you both wrote over time. But it's also a pretty substantial book, not a short one by any means. So I'm curious, who came up with the title? What was the thought process behind it? I imagine it ties into the kind of impact you hope to make with the book.
But I'd love to hear your perspective on how the title came to be.
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Chapter 3: What was the original title of the book Micro Skills and why was it changed?
We had initially actually picked the name Chiseled. That was what the book was going to be called, Chiseled. I love that word. But we got some feedback that it was a little too vague, perhaps a little too, it might be construed as too masculine of a term. Is it like someone who's like buff or it just wasn't used well in the workplace. It didn't transfer over, I think, as a workplace word.
And we got some feedback that probably is not going to be the final word. And so I think we started thinking about what is it that we want to for the reader to get out of the book. And I think this idea of micro skills comes actually from a term that I heard when I was training to be a doctor. So what happens often in medicine is you have to do this large procedure.
Chapter 4: What inspired the title 'Micro Skills' for the book?
Let's say we have to put a catheter in someone's neck, right? But that's like a 40 step, 50 step process. And so for each of those steps, you can really learn how to hold your fingers, how to hold the tubing, how to position the patient. You can optimize each of those things. And a lecture I heard when I was a resident was actually titled micro skills for placing this catheter.
It was that's what it was called. And I loved that title. And so when I was thinking about. what word we could use. I went back to that lecture and I thought to myself, I remember that in that lecture, they weren't teaching the grand scheme of everything, but they were going into the minutia. These are the things you had never considered about this particular procedure.
So I think we wanted that idea when it comes to the workplace. Many of us want to be better at communication. Many of us want to be better at navigating conflict. But if you don't get into the weeds of it, then you can totally miss some really important skill sets.
And so we really wanted to dive really deep into those critical actions and key aspects of developing these larger goals that many of us set.
Chapter 5: Why does the book Micro Skills cover a broad range of topics instead of focusing on one niche?
I say micro skills is surely more business friendly as a title. In today's world, especially in the business training and learning space, everyone's talking about skill-based learning. Some even argue degrees aren't as important anymore. So calling it micro skills really lends It's like saying, small actions, big impact, and people get it right away.
Now, when I first read the manuscript, and I told Reza this too, my first reaction was ambitious. Most business folks focus on one big idea and drill deep into it across eight or 10 chapters. That's the usual advice. Pick a niche, feel around it, But your book is broad. It covers networking, communication, mindset, and more. Honestly, I can already see 8 or 10 spin-off books from this one.
So I'm curious, why did you choose this all-in-one approach instead of zooming in on just one area?
I love this question. You have great questions. I think you're right. If you look at most business shelves or shelves in the business book section of the store, it's like communication, leadership, team management. I think there's a gap, though, for those of us who just want to get better quickly, holistically.
And I think there's actually a lot of people, especially as the millennials and Gen Zers are entering the workspace, where they want fast results. They want that immediate impact. And having them need to read 20 books, 10 books, 15 books before they get there, I think, is not listening to the audience.
And so we really felt like we were understanding the shift to just like quick knowledge, short attention span, cut some of the fat, lessen the data and get straight to the point. And that was really important because that really goes back to our background in education.
If I have to give a lecture and I only have one teaching point, but I'm giving a ton of data, a ton of background, my audience might get lost. Right. And so we really wanted to just trim a lot of that fat out and get straight to the point.
In terms of why we wanted this big comprehensive book is we knew that we could, as we trimmed out a lot of the data, we could cover a lot more ground and it would become this like comprehensive starting place for people who are especially entering the workplace. Yes, you might need additional resources.
So at the end of every chapter, of course, we have more reading and additional things that they can watch and stuff. But we feel like this would be enough where if you just read this book, you would be like light years ahead because there's so much there's so much content that it would at least alert you to, OK, this is how I avoid conflict. This is how I build brand or expertise.
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Chapter 6: Who is the target audience for Micro Skills and what value does it provide?
It varies day by day, truly. Because, and that's how we wanted the book to be, where you could just turn to the table of contents and pick the section that you feel like you are going through right now and read that section. So it doesn't have to be read to cover, but it could be.
I think for me right now, I'm actually really in this space of micro skills for learning how to grab your next opportunity. And one of the things, the specific micro skill within that chapter is pausing before you accept an opportunity. So I was of the mindset of, Growing up, I was like fully subscribing to this mantra of say yes to everything. You probably have heard that before.
At least it's very common in my field of medicine, which is like if someone offers you an opportunity, you say yes. You say yes, especially early on because you never know what you're missing out on. So I fully engaged in this belief and I said yes to everything for many years. And that led me to feeling like the burnout, the overwork, The feeling like you're behind all the time is normal.
Like that should be how it is because we're always saying yes. That means we're not filtering things out. And without that discernment, you just are saying yes to a lot of noise, a lot of what's called non-promotable work, things that don't really help scale your career or even help your reputation grow.
So I think we put this micro skill in there because we want people to know that it's OK to not impulsively say yes and to really inquire and learn what's in front of you and see if it's worth your time. That strategic skill I learned really late. Even when it came to picking my field of emergency medicine, I didn't explore it to a depth that I would if I was picking a specialty now.
Like there weren't questions that I was asking. I was just like, oh, this seems fun. But I wasn't thinking about it in a much deeper level. And so this idea of probing, investigating before you commit to something can really help you understand that. what the return on investment is. I didn't come up with these terms, but there's two terms that I love. FOMO, the fear of missing out.
And then the converse is JOMO, the joy of missing out. And I think a lot of us fear that if we say no, oh boy, we lost our chance. It'll never come again. And that's hardly ever true, especially if you have real ambition, real talent. JOMO is freedom. It's relief. It's space. It's mental health protection.
It's this idea of finding the blue ocean and saying, I really want to go this way because I've thought about what makes sense to me versus just reflexively saying yes to everything. And so that was an important micro skill for me because for many years I packed my plate. All of those things I was saying yes to were just horizontal. It was flat. It was just like all those things were just...
Flat additions, add-ons versus actual vertical climb.
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Chapter 7: Why is practical career education important beyond typical job search advice?
Maybe one or two final takeaways you want every listener or viewer to walk away with, even if they forget everything else.
You asked a wonderful question, so this is not a critique. But I will say that we wanted a book that was fast impact and people could actually detect their change immediately. And the promise of the book is that if you buy this book on a Friday, you'll be better at your job by Monday, assuming you read the book over the weekend.
But the idea is that we don't want people to feel like they have to wait forever. for change. And, you know, we don't ask people in this book to go get a PhD or to go move across the country and start a new job. That's not what we're preaching or asking. We try to find suggestions here that are easily implementable, that are accessible to all, that also normalize that change is hard.
We talk a lot about why the stuff we're recommending for you to do won't be easy and wasn't easy for us as well. So we understand that change is challenging. But the idea is that we don't want you to feel like you have to wait for life to be better.
Thank you so much, Adara. I wish we had more time. But I know you have a class to get to. And I definitely don't want to make you late. I really appreciate you taking the time today. Like I said, I hope we'll get another chance to talk again. Maybe not just about the book, but also about learning, growth, and all the experiences we share.
Even hearing your childhood story today, I realized there are so many parallels to mine, especially that deep craving for learning and family expectation. I'm really glad we finally connected. Thank you again.
Oh, I'm glad I met you too. And thank you so much for this really amazing conversation, Vince.
That's where we'll close this conversation. Adara shows us that ambition without filters isn't ambition. It's noise. When you pause before saying yes, when you focus on what moves you upward, you get closer to a career and life that actually fits. Microskills isn't about massive changes. It's about meaningful ones you can start today. Thank you so much for joining us today.
If you like what you heard, Don't forget, subscribe to our show, leave us top-rated reviews, check out our website, and follow me on social media. I'm Vince Chen, your ambitious human host. Until next time, take care.
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