Today you’re in for a real treat because I’m taking you through lessons learned from Masters Live! If you’re not already familiar with Masters, it is the continuation program from Weight Loss For Doctors Only that offers additional support to those who want to continue on their coaching journey and expand their knowledge even further. Masters is awesome for the community component, accountability groups, and live events that happen quarterly – one of which is what I’m pulling back the curtain on today!

Get comfortable and listen in as I share some of the key takeaways from a Masters Live event that took place before COVID even hit, where everyone was able to share what was most impactful to them after the day-long coaching sessions. Some of the breakthroughs include learning to embrace the challenges in life, how our thoughts ultimately create our results, and why self-worth is often a core issue for so many who struggle with weight (even if they don’t realize it!).


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In Today’s Episode, You’ll Learn:

  • Why the most difficult people are often our greatest teachers
  • Why we learn the most when we are challenged
  • How our thoughts create our results
  • How we often sabotage ourselves subconsciously
  • Why you should give yourself space to mess up
  • Why all roads lead back to your opinion of yourself

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Read the Transcript Below:

Katrina Ubell: Welcome, welcome back my friend. Or if you're here for the first time, I'm  so glad you're here too. Thank you so much for joining me today. I have a  really fun episode for you. I'll tell you the whole story in just a minute. I'm  really excited about it. 

But couple things I want to tell you. So, as you listen to this episode, my book is now live. It's available for purchase. You should check it out if you haven't already, so exciting. It's called, How to Lose Weight for the Last  Time: Brain-Based Solutions for Permanent Weight Loss

Now, I have to tell you a little secret; I'm recording this before the book is  actually out. So, if you're like, “Why did she sound like she's not totally… her heart’s not a hundred percent in it?” It's because for me, as I'm  recording this, it's not actually out yet because there is a little bit of a lead time for these episodes. And so, it's not out yet.

But when you listen to this episode, it will be out. It will have been out for a  whole week. And I'm sure there's so many exciting things to come. I  actually was inspired with today's topic when I started getting ready for the Guarantee your Weight Loss Success Workshop that I'm offering. Now, by the time you listen to this, that workshop will have already passed. 

But the good news is, when you pre-order the book – well, not pre order, no, because pre-ordering is done. When you order the book or  purchase the book at a store, save your receipt. And then you can go to my  website, enter the order number or the receipt number, and you can get the video playback, like the replay of the Guarantee your Weight Loss Success  workshop for free. So, you can totally get that still available. 

But anyway, the point is that I needed to get my flip chart, like the stand  that holds the flip chart up here to my attic. And so, my attic is an attic, which means that the walls are slanted. And so, the reason I haven't had  this flip chart up here is because it doesn't really fit to be honest because  it's kind of tall, it doesn't really work, but I want to use it for the workshop.  And so, I brought it up here and I'll tell you the rest of the story on the topic  for today. It's so, so fun. 

Final thing, I just want to tell you, of course, like check out the book if you  haven't yourself. Please, if you're part of any kind of Facebook groups or  other groups, online or in person, and you think people could benefit, I sure would appreciate you sharing about the book. I would really love for you to leave an Amazon review if possible or Goodreads review. 

Amazon reviews really seem to kind of do the most to help the book, but I'll  take whatever you're willing to give me. If you're willing to help the book in  another way, I think that's great too. 

Actually, someone today, I just did a live stream in our book ambassador's group, the circle group that we have. And this one woman was saying, “I can't wait to have a copy of this book in all of my exam rooms.” And I was  like, “Oh, that's such a smart idea.” 

So, there's so many different ways that you can help to get this book into  the hands of the people who need it most. And that might be you, and that might be someone else that you know, or that you care for. So, of course, check that out.

So, today, we're going to be talking about lessons learned from Masters  Live. So, you might be like, “Well, what is Masters Live?” Well, first of all, let me back up even from there — Masters is the continuation program from my Weight Loss for Doctors Only program. 

So, Weight Loss for Doctors Only is my flagship program. That's what I've  been offering now for many years. And so, that's a six-month long program.  And after that, some people want some additional support. They want to  continue their journey, they want to continue with coaching. They want to  be able to expand their knowledge.

And what's even more awesome about Masters, is there's a  community component. So, we offer accountability groups, and we offer  live events, and those live events are called Masters Live. So, the Masters program is six months long and we offer these live events  every quarter. So, every time someone signs up, they are invited to come  to two of these events. 

Now, we used to do them all live in person, then of course, with COVID, we  went to virtual and now we've been kind of doing a combination of both. So,  this is coming from a Masters Live that we did before COVID even hit. So, this is pretty old. 

So, I told you that I needed to get the flip chart, like a holder thing from my  basement up here to the attic. And so, my husband got it up here for me  yesterday, and it still had a pad of paper on it that had the last sheet of  paper that we used at this Masters Live. 

And what it is, is a list of key takeaways. So, at that event, we did a whole bunch of coaching all day long, and then we spent a little time passing the  mic going like, “Okay, what are you taking away from today? What was  most impactful for you? What made the biggest difference for you?” 

And so, people would say things, then I would write them on this flip chart. Well, I still have this paper. It's actually kind of funny because the black ink  is kind of faded. It's almost like a grayish-green kind of color. Like that's how old it is, several years old. 

But these key takeaways are so good. It would've been just as easy for me  to rip this off, rip off the paper, and just throw these in the recycle bin. And  instead, I was like, “Oh no, I need to share this stuff. It's really good.” 

So, I'm going to share with you what's on just the first page. I actually could  do more, but there's just not time on this episode, but there's some really  good ones here and I can't wait to talk to you a little bit more about them. 

So, you might even want to jot some of these down. Or if I say something  that you're like, “Ooh, that's so good.” Like pause it, put it in the Notes app  on your phone, like make sure that you're taking this really in and really  understanding it.

And so, just recognize that these are lessons learned from people who've  been at this for a while already. So, you're learning from people who have  been really doing this work and these are their key takeaways, their big  breakthroughs, their minds being blown on certain subjects, and you might  be like, “Ooh, that's good. I needed to hear that too.” I needed to hear all of  them. They're so good. It's always so good to repeat them. 

So, here we go.  Number one, the first one: “That difficult person can be our greatest teacher.” So, who's that difficult  person in your life? I actually was just coaching in The Weight Loss for  Doctors Only Program yesterday and coached a client on her sister. And  those difficult people, man, they stretch us. They really, really stretch us.  And it's some of the best work that we can do. 

Not because we can change that person, but because we learn so much  ourselves. How is that difficult person our teacher? Well, we have things to  learn, there are opportunities to grow, opportunities for us to recognize, and  understand what we truly, really want for ourselves, what our needs are,  how we can advocate for ourselves. 

I can even tell you, I spent like a whole year in coaching. I think it was in  2019 with this one coach, basically, trying to get up the guts to actually say  what I really believed or felt or like pushing back on someone in my life who  was a very dominant presence, very dominant personality, and it was very  much that person's way or the highway, it was so, so hard for me to  actually say no to that person, to push back, to say, “No, I actually don't  want it that way. I want to do this instead.” 

The point is that you can be like a very strong and accomplished person  and still struggle in a lot of ways. And these people that push back on us,  that are a challenge for us, that's like such a great opportunity for us to  learn. 

Now, what I know for a fact is that when we are confronted with a difficult  person, we have the opportunity … or like we're being invited to change, to  grow, to learn from that experience. And we don't take that invitation, we  decline the invitation — that same thing keeps showing back up in our  lives.

Maybe it's not with that person, but then there's something, it gets like  variations on a theme. Like the next person or another person enters into  our life and we are being invited to learn the same lesson again. 

And so, I feel like I've seen that so many times now for myself that when  I'm really confronted with something, I'm like, “Okay, well, I can learn it now  or I can learn it later. How about I try to just learn it now, and try to go in a  little bit more head first, like run toward it instead of trying to avoid it.” 

So, who is that difficult person in your life? What are they there to teach  you? You might be a very reluctant student. You're like, “I don't want to  learn that lesson, I don't want to have to figure that out.” 

Okay, they'll be waiting. Can tell you how many of our clients have been  with us for a while. And then finally, they're like, “You know what, I've  changed my whole life. Everything is so much better. There's just this one  person that I've been avoiding doing this work on, and I know I have to do  it.” 

And it really, really changes us for the better, even when it's super hard.  So, that difficult person can be our greatest teacher. 

The next takeaway, “Thoughts create results.” So, let's just talk about  again, we talk about the thinking cycle, which is cognitive behavioral  therapy. Aaron Beck is the psychiatrist who first defined that. 

So, thoughts, we have thoughts. This is our brain cells, our neurons  connecting together, chemically having connections through our synopsis.  And we have thoughts. Our thoughts create our feelings. They create our  emotions. Chemical cascade that goes into our bodies, that's what we feel.  How we feel drives our actions and what we do and don't do, our actions,  create our results. 

Therefore, our thoughts create our results. Literally every time, whether  we're getting results we want or results that we don't want. So, if you're like,  “Oh yeah, I could apply that to my life.” No, it's already happening in your  life all the time. Every result you have that you like it's because of thoughts  that serve you, every result you have in your life that you don't like, it's  because of thoughts that don't serve you.

This is so, so, so important because we need to be reminded of this. It's the  way we think that creates our results. We are often very flippant with our  thinking. We don't really value it in the way that it deserves to be valued. 

If it's true that our thoughts create our results, which it is true. Then  wouldn't it make sense for us to spend some time on those thoughts and  really to make sure that they're good ones that are driving us toward the  results that we want, what often happens is we get results we don't want.  And then we sit around complaining about it and being sad. 

The most empowering thing to do is to recognize that, “Hmm, I think I  inadvertently created this for myself, because I wasn't monitoring my mind  as I was creating it.” And certainly, I'm not saying that this is like a blame  issue or anything like that, but the more we can take ownership and  responsibility for our own inner life, the more results that we want to show  up in our lives, this is just how it is. 

So, our thoughts create our results. Let's try to not forget that. And then  we'll forget it. And then we'll remember again. 

Next one; “Self-worth is where it's at.” And I love this one. It's so fun. I think  that — and I know this because I know it for myself and I know it for so  many of the clients that I've worked with; we are like, “My self-worth is  good. I think I'm pretty good.” Some people are like, “Yeah, my self-worth is  in the toilet. That's not so good.” 

Okay. So, we know that we got to work on that, but there are a lot of very  accomplished women physicians in particular who are like, “I don't really  have a problem with that,” until we start really actually digging in. And what  I would argue is that if you're really struggling with your food still, there's  going to be some element of a lack of self-worth somewhere in there. 

Like there's something to be found. There's an area that is raw, that is  unhealed. It's like a little tendril of something that's still there. There's something more to be addressed. 

And so, when we're like, “Why am I eating all this food? How is that even  connected to self-worth? How does that even make any sense?” 

As you do this work and follow the path it often, very often ends back up  with self-worth. Self-worth is how worthwhile do you think you are. Like the word worthy, for some reason, like never resonates with me. I don't know  what it is about that word. But like worthless, I understand. 

So, like worthy just means with worth, worthful, worthy. That's worthy. But  anyway, that word always seems kind of weird to me. But like you are filled  with worth, you are a perfectly imperfect human being, extremely valuable,  exactly as you are. 

That is so important for us to really absorb into our bones. Not to just  understand it on a cognitive level, but to take it in, to live our lives and treat  ourselves from that place of wholeness, of worth. And when we're like,  “Well, I don't even know where to begin,” that would be a great place to  begin. 

What would be a great place to start with is if you have resistance to  thinking that you are worthy person, finding out more about that resistance.  Why do you believe you are worthless or lack worth? Let's find out more  about that. It'd be so, so interesting to work through that. 

The next one, “It is okay to have an amazing life and want more.” Ah, this is  so good. Well, first of all, let's just say so many people do not have an  amazing life, and they should want more. And for sure. 

But the people that I was talking to in this space were all women physicians  who are in clinical practice and arguably most, if not all of them look around  and go, “I got a good life. This is a good, amazing life that I've got.” 

And when we are thinking about that, it is not uncommon for us to start  going, “I feel guilty that I want more,” or we end up self-sabotaging  ourselves, subconsciously, inadvertently, because we believe that we can't  have even more amazingness in our life. We can't have this great, amazing  life and not struggle with our weight and food, that would be asking for too  much. 

Now, typically, this isn't a belief that's top of mind, often we have to build  some awareness around this, but that's why I want to bring it up, to offer  some awareness because there's going to be someone listening going, “Oh  my God, that is it. That is what I struggle with, that right there.”

Believing that we don't deserve to have more, that we don't deserve to  have peace and freedom around food because we've already got so many  great things. 

Now, of course, the thing to recognize is you having peace and freedom  around food does not take away or detract from anybody else. You having  a more amazing life does not take away some amazingness from  somebody else. If anything, the more amazing we feel, particularly as  accomplished women, the more we are able to do in this world in terms of  impacting it positively and really making a difference. 

So, often “We're like, well, I always was taught, like, don't be greedy. Don't  take more than your share.” That doesn't make sense in this paradigm, in  this framework, it's not even a useful way of thinking about things. And if  anything, it holds you back from creating the impact on the world that  you're capable of. So, no matter what, it is okay to have an amazing life and still want more. 

And the next one, “Run your own race.” I love this. We cannot help  ourselves with the comparison. “So and so did this and they lost weight at  this rate. So and so did that. So and so looks like this.” We just cannot even  help ourselves. 

I always think of it as like that young version of me was just trying to figure  out like, “Am I okay or not? Let me look around and see.” And that's all  that's happening when we're comparing, “How do I stand up to other  people? Is this okay or is it not?” 

And when we're not aware and we're not really on top of our thinking, we  will start thinking that everybody else has it better than we do. And then we  start feeling bad about ourselves. A lot of self-pity, a lot of compensatory  eating, potentially not a good thing. So, we need to run our own race. 

We can appreciate what other people do, we can be avid supporters of  them. We can be their cheerleaders, but we need to run our own race. We  are not all in the same race. We're not even playing the same game. We're  doing our own thing. 

And the more we can focus on what we're trying to do, the better the  results are. The more time we spend focusing on what other people are doing and comparing that to us, it only slows us down. It's like putting on  one of those parachutes that they put on those really fast cars to slow them  down. 

The next one, “When you give yourself space to mess up, you'll try new  things. When you give yourself space to mess up, you'll try new things.” I  cannot tell you how many of my clients are deathly afraid of what they call  failure. Not doing it perfectly the first time, not getting the A plus every  second of every day, not getting the gold star. 

But I cannot say it enough, you will not figure this out when you give  yourself such narrow parameters to define success. It is a total success for  you to mess up and try something different, and figure it out so that you  don't mess that up again. But you have to be willing to try new things. 

You give yourself space to mess up. If you aren't sure that something will  work and you're definitely afraid of failure, then you won't try the new thing  because you're waiting for the certainty that it will work first. Well, sorry to  tell you that is not really how life works usually. 

So, we have to know that when we try new things, we will have our backs  no matter what. “I made this decision from a good place, it made sense that  at the time, it didn't work. And these are the reasons why, what I've learned  about this is this. And moving forward, I will make this change.” 

There's no room in there for beating ourselves up, telling ourselves we  knew it wasn't possible. “Why did we even bother to try this? It's such a  waste, a waste of time, a waste of money, a waste of everything.” 

That narrative has got to stop. When you give yourself space to mess up,  you will try new things. You have to be willing to try new things to create  something new that you haven't created before, such as permanent weight  loss, peace and freedom around food. You have to give yourself space to  mess up. 

I will also tell you as a side note, this is excellent advice when you're raising  kids, you have to give them some space to mess up. You have to let them  try new things and have it not work out, so important. 

The final message today, final takeaway, because I don't want to take up  hours and hours of your time. I appreciate you listening this far. This is so 

good, “All roads lead back to your opinion of yourself.” So, kind of along the  same lines as the self-worth conversation we were just having, but your  opinion of yourself, these are your thoughts of yourself. What do you think  about yourself? 

Like I said before, probably, your first answer to this question is, “I don't  know, I think I’m pretty awesome, I don't think there's really a problem  there.” And then we just want to sit with that. Is that really what we think  about ourselves? What is your opinion of yourself as it relates to how you  eat and how you take care of yourself, and how you approach your body  and what your thoughts are about your body? 

All those things are your opinion of yourself. Your opinion of yourself is very  reflected in your self-talk. What is that inner narrative that you have as  you're going about your day? When you have a positive opinion of yourself,  that narrative is supportive, it is loving, it might be fun and entertaining  even. 

I've told you about my friend who, oh God, I love her so much. My friend,  Brittany, she's like, “I just love being with myself. I'm a good time.” And she  is, she's just such a fun person. 

That's what you get when you have a positive opinion of yourself. If you  find that being with you, just in silence is a miserable experience, that's not  a very positive opinion of yourself. Because we know this because you  don't like being with you. If you don't like being with you, that's hard  because you're with you until the end. So, that might be a good place to  look. 

Now, here's the other reason this is important, when you don't like being  with you; what I mean by this, is like drive in the car without turning the  radio or a podcast on, drive in silence, do something in silence. 

If you can't even be in the shower without having your phone on, why is  that? What is it about being with you and your own thoughts that's so  uncomfortable? When that is the case, that being with ourselves is so  uncomfortable, we are looking for an escape. 

So, that can be constantly having music or podcasts or an audio book in the background, which, you know, if you want to listen to my audio book,  that's okay; How to Lose Weight for the Last Time available now in Audible.

But besides that, what do we do? We do other distraction behavior. We eat,  we watch shows until we can't keep our eyelids open. We drink alcohol to  get that voice to be quiet. 

So, if we want to stop doing those things, we want to go to bed when we're  tired, we want to stop using food in ways that don't serve us, we want to  stop drinking more alcohol than we know is good for us — we have to  figure out a way to be with ourselves, to really be on our own side, to be  that supportive cheerleader that we always wish that we had that positive,  supportive and loving voice. That is your opinion of yourself. 

So, no matter what you struggle with, that's what this message is saying;  no matter what you struggle with, all roads lead back to your opinion of  yourself, they all do. 

And what some of us think, I've talked about this, I think before, but we talk  about it in my programs as well, is we often are like, “Well, I just need to  find that really horrible black rotten core in me and fix it. And then I'll have a  positive opinion of myself.” 

What I want to offer to you is the idea that there is that black rotten core  bad part of you that needs to be fixed, that thought, because yes, it is a  thought not a fact, is the problem. The fact that you believe the thought that  there's a black rotten core inside you that needs to be fixed is the problem,  because it's just not true. It's totally made up. 

You might have been believing it for a long time, but it is not the truth. It's  not the truth about you, it's not the truth about me. It's not the truth about  anybody listening today. 

So, all roads back to your opinion of yourself. You don't know what your  opinion is of yourself. That could be a great starting point. What do I  actually think about me? And you'll probably have those like yeah, “I'm  thinking pretty okay. I’m a good doctor, a good mom.” Sit with it more. What  else do you think about yourself? 

What do you think about yourself in terms of your relationship with that  difficult person in your life? What do you think about yourself in relationship  to the way you show up at work? The way you show up for your patients,  the way you show up for the office staff or other people organizations in  your life.

And I'm not saying that you necessarily have a poor opinion of yourself. I  don't want you to go like, “Well, Katrina said there's something bad there, I  got to go find it.” I'm just saying that if you struggle with your weight, if you  struggle with food, you struggle with alcohol, there's probably something  there. 

And coaching can be really helpful with that, if you're having a hard time  finding out what that is on your own. Or you might be like, “Whoa, I actually  had never paid attention. It's not really very nice up there in my head.  Hmm, interesting.” That might be the place to start. 

 Okay check out that book and leave an Amazon review my friend, please. If  there's somebody that you know, who might benefit from the book, even if  they don't purchase a copy, lend them yours or whatever it is. Like let's just  get this message out. People need to know about it. 

Oh, the other thing is libraries. I found out, this is very interesting, like how  do books end up in libraries? Well, the most important thing is that people, like the patrons of the library, ask for the book. So, particularly, if you take care of patients and you would like your patients  to be able to access the book at the library, in whatever that local area is,  where you live, like reach out to the local library and say, “Hey, I'm going to  be recommending this book a lot. I was wondering if you could have at  least one copy of this book available in your library for people to be able to  check it out.” 

Not everybody's going to have it in their budget to be able to buy a book or  just reading isn't their thing or whatever it is, we want to be able to have  access available for people to find out this information.

And take these key notes. These key takeaways into your heart. Maybe there's one today that you can really take some action  on. 

Just to review them quickly, “That difficult person can be our greatest  teacher. Thoughts always create our results. Self-worth is where it's at. It is  okay to have an amazing life and want more. Run your own race. When  you give yourself space to mess up, you will try new things. And all roads  lead back to your opinion of yourself.” 

So good my friend. I'm so glad that I was able to share this with you, that  these key takeaways could live on and inspire some more people. So good. 

Well, thank you so much in advance for your support of this book. I  seriously appreciate it so much. I have just felt so called to get this  message out and I just am relying on other people. It takes a village to get this book out there. So, really, really appreciate you. Thank you so much  for everything that you've done and even just your kind words and  messages. 

Have a great rest of your day and your week. And I will talk to you next  week. Take care bye-bye.