Our Story
Inner Leverage Point is a new offering from the Colorado Longevity Institute, P.C., founded in 1994 by David Paul, M.D., Ph.D. After healing from a head-on automobile accident which disabled him from his 22-year career as an emergency physician, David Paul, M.D., Ph.D. engaged in a healing journey, both physically and psychologically. He retrained as a psychologist, and started working with his wife, Bonnie Paul, Ph.D., a professional psychologist. For the past 20 years they have been honing their approach as consultants, executive coaches, curriculum designers, executive coach team leaders and trainers, graduate psychology faculty and leading non-profit service work in prisoner rehabilitation. (Read David’s story.)
Our Unique Approach
Healing Burnout and Creating Resilience
Executive Coaching | Training | Advanced Coach Training
Inner Leverage Point’s mission is to assist leaders, healthcare professionals and other individuals in high-stress careers to heal burnout, build resilience, and rediscover fulfilling careers and lives. Our vision is to heal the healthcare system from the inside out—bringing joy, freedom, and connection back into the practice of medicine.
Research shows that among U.S. physicians and healthcare professionals, one third are fully burned out, and over 75% have some symptoms of burnout. This epidemic of burnout has been amplified by the Covid-19 pandemic. Research indicates the cost of burnout to a healthcare system is over $7,600 annually per employed physician.
How can you help change the system if you’re burned out?
The American Medical Association recognizes that there are both internal and external causes of burnout. Most approaches focus on relieving the symptoms of burnout or making systemic changes. But the prescription for relief is found in the definition: burnout is an emotional condition.
We address the internal causes of burnout. What we’ve created is a simple-to-learn skill set that assists each client in discovering their own inner leverage points, and healing burnout from the inside out. This facilitates our clients in restoring their ingenuity, enthusiasm and collaboration so they can bring their best selves to the table to solve challenging systemic issues.
Virtually everyone working in healthcare can benefit from learning resilience skills to better respond to increased stress and heal or prevent burnout. Emotions are contagious, so individuals who are burned out have a negative impact on the entire organizational culture. Additionally, studies are clear that burnout negatively impacts patient care outcomes. When burnout affects managers and leaders, their negative impact on the entire system is magnified.
What is needed right now: Leaders who are resilient, adaptable, and can express genuine care and excellence in their work to create a thriving culture for everyone, especially our patients.
Why the Inner Leverage Point Burnout Solution Creates Lasting Change
Knowledge alone is not enough to produce change. Learning is enhanced when there is a blend of didactic and experiential modalities employed. Here’s a simple example: Most people have learned to ride a bike at some point in their lives. As we all know, you can read everything under the sun about how to ride a bike, watch videos of people riding, etc., but the only way to learn is to get on the bike and practice. To support this, we provide knowledge-based education, along with executive/resilience coaching or group classes for implementation practice. Our clients are smart people and once they learn to apply the skills in their own lives, lasting change is realized.
We value quality, so our approach has been rigorously “road-tested” in some of the toughest circumstances, including coaching Covid-19 Incident Command Team members. Our approach leverages recent research findings in the fields of emotional intelligence and leadership.