Shiny Epi People

Penny Gordon-Larsen, PhD on mentoring, boundaries, and farmers markets

August 15, 2020 Lisa Bodnar Season 1 Episode 2
Shiny Epi People
Penny Gordon-Larsen, PhD on mentoring, boundaries, and farmers markets
Show Notes Transcript

Penny Gordon-Larsen, PhD, obesity epidemiologist and Associate Dean for Research Fancy Pants, talks boundaries, big-picture goals, competitive approach to farmers' market shopping 1970s tv show characters.

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Lisa Bodnar:

Are you going to get a glass of wine and drink a glass of wine with me?

Penny Gordon-Larsen:

Oh, you know I am. It's up here in my cooler because you were late. Cheers.

Lisa Bodnar:

Cheers.

Lisa Bodnar:

Hi, everyone. Welcome to Shiny Epi People. I'm Lisa Bodnar and I'm an epidemiologist at the University of Pittsburgh. This is a podcast where epidemiologists well known for their work talk with me about everything except their well-known work. First, I just wanted to tell you that I am overwhelmed by the positive response that you had to the first episode. To be honest, I had been avoiding starting up this podcast for about a year because I thought it was going to be awful and I was going to make an ass of myself. I mean, I was also avoiding it because I was trying to secure my salary, but you know, that's part.

Lisa Bodnar:

I decided though to finally launch it because we're in this awful quarantine and it's something new and different, and there is nothing new and different in my world nowadays and so that is why I decided to do it. When I did, I thought maybe three people would listen, me, the guest, and my best friend, Kara, and she would only endure that because it's part of the contractual obligation between best friends. But as I started, I realized how happy this was making me and how much I was looking forward to recording the episodes and planning them and even editing them. The editing is such a fucking nightmare, but even that is exciting to me now.

Lisa Bodnar:

I think it's because it's a way of connecting with people. I am just starving for connection. I was thinking that perhaps some of the reason that there was such a positive response to the first episode was because others are also yearning for some type of connection and this is a very, very small way of having that need met. It's bringing me a lot of joy and I hope that it's also bringing a little lightness into your life too.

Lisa Bodnar:

These first couple of episodes are with women who I'm close friends with because I wanted to get comfortable in this role, but I want to assure you that there will be much more diversity coming up. I'll be chatting with a lot of people who I've never met in real life before, so we're going to see how that goes.

Lisa Bodnar:

Today, I'm talking with Penny Gordon-Larsen. Penny is a professor and a vice dean of research, very fancy, clearly. She's at UNC Chapel Hill Gillings School of Public Health. Penny's a nutritional epidemiologist, her work centers on obesity over the life cycle. Penny has helped me navigate some really tough decisions that I've had to make, they were regarding times when I was pressured to take on a role that I didn't want to take and to leave a role that I was ready to be done with. She's going to talk today about setting boundaries, about mentorship, motherhood, and other reflections on her very distinguished career. I hope you enjoy our chat.

Lisa Bodnar:

Penny, welcome to Shiny Epi People.

Penny Gordon-Larsen:

Why thank you. I'm so happy to be here. I'm so happy you're doing this, I think it's amazing. It's the perfect thing for you to do.

Lisa Bodnar:

I couldn't get to episode three without including you. Penny, you're at this really advanced stage of your career and you're very young. Recently you were nominated for a lifetime career award, which I know has led you to really take some time to think about where you are and how you got here. Can you tell us a little bit about that?

Penny Gordon-Larsen:

It just has made me reflect a lot on all of the people who took chances on me and recommended me. I am very lucky and I do have to acknowledge my privilege and my experience, just as a white person navigating all of this, that there were things that were much easier for me than for others. I think that's an important thing to recognize, and I think that that's changing now. I feel like there's a much greater commitment to work on this and I'm hoping that that changes and gets better.

Lisa Bodnar:

How did you find those mentors?

Penny Gordon-Larsen:

I have so many people I go to for advice, my peers, I have people, I ask you for advice, I ask my kids for advice. I have some go-to people that I always think of, people who have mentored me actually through my entire career, like Steve Zeisel, who was my department chair, and Barry Popkin, who I came to work with as a postdoc, I'll go to them. But then there are newer leaders that I really respect, my current department chair and the dean, just people who have played important roles in my life. Then just people that I respect their thoughts and strategies.

Penny Gordon-Larsen:

I have this great thing at Carolina called the Academic Leadership Program. It was this leadership program that put us into cohorts, it's basically a two-year program. I have these seven colleagues from around campus who are all doing very different things, like Asian studies and Southern studies and medicine and all different things, but we all are coming up as leaders through the university and so we just get to ask the stupidest questions and bat things off of each other. We read each other's cover letters and talk about the best options for doing things. We just have each other's backs in a way that's really, really great and I love it.

Lisa Bodnar:

Can you give me an example or two about how mentors have helped to rise into this position?

Penny Gordon-Larsen:

It was right when I got my tenure track position, Steve, my department chair, asked me to chair the Bachelor's of Science Degree Committee. It was not something I was particularly interested in doing. I didn't know much about the program and I was just trying to buckle down and get my career going. I knew that there was maybe some way that I wanted to be a leader possibly sometime in the future, and so I talked to him about it. He kind of talked me into it, probably because he needed me to do it more than he had faith in me, but he did go to bat for me and did convince me to do it. It was rewarding and it was good. I think it is good, sometimes early in your career you've got to do things that you might not necessarily really feel invested in, but if you feel like you'll learn from it and do a good job at it, then it can be worth it.

Lisa Bodnar:

When I reached out to you recently and said there's this role that I don't want to take on and I'm feeling pressured to take it on, your advice was so clear, like, "No, you're not doing that." How is it different from the example that you just explained, that you felt like, "I don't really want to do this, but I should probably do it."

Penny Gordon-Larsen:

That's a tough question. I think it matters where you are in your career. There's never one right answer for any of these things and it depends where you are, what you have going, how big of a role it is, and if you can actually follow through and do a good enough job. In your case, you were just not at a juncture where that was intellectually interesting at all for you. It just didn't seem like it was going to benefit you, that you were only doing it to do it as a good citizen.

Penny Gordon-Larsen:

I think there's a big role for being a good citizen, which is what I did in my case, it wasn't a very time-intensive role and at that point in my career, I had been a postdoc at Carolina, and so stepping into a role where I could be perceived as an independent leader was actually important at that point in time for not that much investment. I think you have to contextualize it and think about being a citizen, what it means to you, and what it could help you in terms of any kind of transitions that you're trying to go through.

Lisa Bodnar:

Did you turn to other people when Steve asked you to do this, to get their input, or did you just talk to Steve? I think this is something that people often do, where they just talk to the person who asked them to do this and said, "What's going to be involved? Will this be good for me or not?"

Penny Gordon-Larsen:

I mean, you can't say yes to anything ever right on the spot. I mean, you certainly can, but I just do not recommend that ever. I think you should always say, "I'll think about it," and walk out the door and really spend time thinking about it and asking people about it. I asked Barry, I'm sure, and I'm sure he actually told me that it was something that I should do. I don't know who else I asked, but I am sure I asked other people.

Lisa Bodnar:

Can you give us that other example of later in your career, the type of mentoring you've gotten?

Penny Gordon-Larsen:

I think a big one was the society president. I did not apply or put in a nomination, I didn't self-nominate to be society president and-

Lisa Bodnar:

This is for the Obesity Society.

Penny Gordon-Larsen:

For the Obesity Society, and they came to me. That's another thing that's actually important about when somebody's asking you something. I think we have the tendency to think when somebody is coming to ask us something, we have to say yes because they want us to do it. I think most of the time somebody is coming to ask you to do something, they're actually ready for you to say no. If you put that in your head it makes it easier, because they are really anticipating that there's no way you're going to do it.

Penny Gordon-Larsen:

The past president who called me and asked me laid it all out and told me how much time it would take. I asked him a bunch of questions and then I told him I would think about it. I also tend to research things a lot. I called every past president I knew, every single one of them that I knew well enough to call. I called like 10 past presidents and just had these conversations with them. I called people who were not presidents of ... I just called people who had done something like it. Each of them told me basically to do it, none of them told me not to do it, but all of them basically said, "You are going to put your career on hold for that year. You just have to anticipate that it is going to be far bigger of a responsibility than you expect." So I had to think really hard about it and I had to think about what to get rid of, because you can't say yes to something that big and not give other things up.

Penny Gordon-Larsen:

The other thing is you have to be convinced that you can actually do a good job, because when you do some of these things, you really have to deliver. That was tough. The good thing about one of those kinds of society positions is that there were four years of it, so you got to be the fly on the wall as the vice president and then you rotate up and get more and more responsibility, so you really do learn. That's another thing, is that it seems really intimidating to do these things, but everybody who walks in to do them is just as intimidated as you are on the first day that you're doing it and nobody knows what they're doing, unless they've done it for some other very similar society. You're just figuring it out and hopefully getting as prepared as possible.

Penny Gordon-Larsen:

There were a lot of things, a lot of positives and a lot of negatives about it, but overall, I think it was just an amazing experience. I learned a lot and it was important for me to give back to this society. That society, I feel like really grew me as a scientist. They did so much for me and I wanted to give back and do as good of a job as I could. I had some really clear ideas about what I wanted to do. Of course, all of that planning fell to crap because there were emergencies that happened and it was like I was doing things that I was not prepared to actually do when I was doing them.

Lisa Bodnar:

Setting boundaries seems hard for almost everyone. You are so good at setting boundaries, it's one of the things that I admire most about you. Can you share the areas that you feel like having boundaries helps to improve your work-life balance?

Penny Gordon-Larsen:

I think that changes over time. Early on I said yes far more than I said no, and I had a lot of great experiences, but I do feel like I still have this general principle where I am very protective of my time with my family. I only went to one meeting a year when my kids were little, I tried to be home as much as I could for dinners, like regular dinners. I put those boundaries around that. I wanted to be there for my family, and that's still very important to me so that's a boundary.

Penny Gordon-Larsen:

I really only want to do projects I believe in. I don't want somebody to tell me what kind of research to do. I want to do things that I think are important, that are impactful, and that are really core to what I'm trying to achieve. I really am dedicated to making a difference in obesity and in cardiovascular disease, and so that's just always going to guide me and I know I want to do things that are the integration of biology, behavior, environment. I know that's what I want to do. When something comes along that's not that, it's pretty easy to say no because I know that that's what I'm motivated to do. I've always known that. Early on I went off that path a little bit to do a little more on the intervention side. It was an important project for me to do because it separated me from my postdoc mentor, so it was good. Early on that was the only veer that I did.

Penny Gordon-Larsen:

Then the other thing that's super important to me is to work with good people. I have long-time collaborators, who I love dearly and we're really good friends. We text each other on the weekends and at nights and in the morning. We're really good friends. They have my back, I have their back. We have Venn diagrams of teams that overlap. I do not want to work with people that I don't enjoy working with, and I have had very few times in my career where I have had to. I think that helps because it's just so lovely to be able to be super comfortable with the people you work with, to trust them, to know they'll deliver, to know and respect that they are just brilliant people. It's just so fun, it makes what we do worth doing it.

Lisa Bodnar:

How did you find those people?

Penny Gordon-Larsen:

The first of those people is probably Kari North. She and I found each other pretty early on. She arrived at the university at kind of the same time I did. We are both goof balls, but also very serious about our work. We just wrote a proposal together pretty early on and have just continued that work and built other work around it and pulled in new collaborators, and so develop that along the way. That's been just so great, I love that. There's a group of women like that who I work closely with and I love that.

Lisa Bodnar:

I love that too. That makes work really worthwhile, right?

Penny Gordon-Larsen:

Yes.

Lisa Bodnar:

Can you give us an example of how you say no when you feel pressured to say yes? Just a couple of lines, just as an example. I feel like a lot of people don't know how that can be said in a tactful, respectful, self-assured way.

Penny Gordon-Larsen:

Yeah. I mean, I just say I will think about it and then I usually will say something like, "I'm really honored that you have asked me to do this thing and I really appreciate it tremendously. Right now this just does not fit where I am headed. Right now my career goal or aspiration or whatever my plan is that I'm really thinking that I want to do Y and so this would just take me off of that path for this moment in time. So right now, it's just not a great fit for me."

Lisa Bodnar:

One of the things, when I came to you and said I was asked to do this role, you so clearly articulated, "This is not in your plan." It's funny because outside of that decision, I would have been able to articulate my plan. Then they asked me and then it was like my thoughts about my plan just went out the door. Then you were like, "But that's part of your plan." I was like, "Oh my God, you're totally right." It's, I mean, another example of how mentorship is so important and to keep coming back to what those longterm goals are.

Penny Gordon-Larsen:

Yeah. I mean, you have to keep those goals in mind. For me, this role that I'm in, the Associate Dean for Research, when I thought about leadership, what did I want to do in leadership? I wanted to think about research and strategize and build teams and collaborate and think outside the box about science and translate science to development and advancement to make money for the university. All of those things were things I really wanted to do and so I kind of had my eye on that role for a long time.

Penny Gordon-Larsen:

I think the more in advance you're thinking about where am I headed, what would I really like to do, then it's really easy to say no, because if you know that's not in your plan, then there's just no reason to do it. So if you're really clear about that. The thing that's really hard early on in your career is you have less agency because you do need to be a good citizen and you have to be a team player and you need it for promotion, and so there's these leadership things that you have to do and some of them just are not that interesting. Unfortunately, you do have to do them.

Penny Gordon-Larsen:

I think once you get through that stage, I mean, even so, when you come in in a new role, a new position, if you're moving universities or starting a new position, you should just think, what would I want to do and what kind of roles are there and what are the good ones. If somebody asks you to do something else, you can just say, "Well, I want to do that one," and that's fair. Speak up for yourself.

Lisa Bodnar:

At this point, Penny, a third of your way into your life, what makes you happy?

Penny Gordon-Larsen:

Okay, wait, can I pause there? One of the things that with this lifetime thing, one of the things they just recently did actually for the Obesity Society, they asked all the past precedents to write basically their obituary and give it to them so they can have it on file. Isn't that horrible?

Lisa Bodnar:

Yes.

Penny Gordon-Larsen:

They didn't tell that's what it was, but then somebody was like, "Wait a minute, is this our obituaries? I'm like, what, like 53? Are you kidding me?"

Lisa Bodnar:

Did you copy it and send it to your kids and your husband and be like, "Well, here's a start."

Penny Gordon-Larsen:

No, I don't even know. I don't even know what I wrote.

Lisa Bodnar:

Okay, okay. What makes you happy?

Penny Gordon-Larsen:

My kids make me so happy, my kids and my house full of animals. I actually, at every stage of my kidness, my children's stages, whatever you call it, I've loved everything. Except when they were crying babies, that I was not that into, but every other age has just been so fun. I love having them now that they're 18 and they're 20. They're just very cool people and they're fun and we laugh. I totally love, love, love just doing everything with my family.

Lisa Bodnar:

If you could turn any activity into an Olympic sport, which would you have a good chance of winning a medal for?

Penny Gordon-Larsen:

I can really sink a bag of dog poop into a flower pot, really well. I think competitive shopping, farmer's market division. There's a lot that goes into it, there's more that goes into it than you think. You have to know what's in season, you have to know who's going on vacation when. I've been-

Lisa Bodnar:

Wait, what is the vacation have to do with it?

Penny Gordon-Larsen:

Oh, because if, for example, there's a father-daughter farmer pair, The daughter makes the salad bags and so if she's not going to make those salad bags, I am not going to that stand. You can only be the first person at each one time. There's all these people I know there so I ... Linda [inaudible 00:21:58], I don't know if you know her, but she's a professor. She and her neighbor, Nancy, and I, sometimes we do team shopping so that we can each get to like the things we want. Barry's there in the morning, David Gilkey's there in the morning. It's very competitive. It's so stressful, actually.

Lisa Bodnar:

This is like super nutrition nerds, like, "I have to be competitive with the farmer's market."

Penny Gordon-Larsen:

I know, it's ridiculous.

Lisa Bodnar:

Why would you be valuable in an end-of-the-world scenario?

Penny Gordon-Larsen:

There are not actually many reasons for that, but I can-

Lisa Bodnar:

But you can shop at a farmer's market like nobody's business.

Penny Gordon-Larsen:

I will be the person who looks you in the eye when your finger has gotten amputated and be like, "Oh, it's fine. Don't worry, it's totally fine."

Lisa Bodnar:

You're a calming presence.

Penny Gordon-Larsen:

And I am really good at walking in the woods, in the dark so I could be the night scout.

Lisa Bodnar:

What are your thoughts on honeydew, Penny?

Penny Gordon-Larsen:

I like all the melons.

Lisa Bodnar:

One for team honeydew. I'm keeping a tally and I forgot to ask Penny Gordon-Larsen last time. She gave it a six out of 10, but I'm going to round it up to a 10 and that means she's team honeydew. So me, you, Penny Gordon-Larsen, team honeydew.

Penny Gordon-Larsen:

Okay.

Lisa Bodnar:

What is the maximum number of journals you submitted to before the paper was finally accepted?

Penny Gordon-Larsen:

I don't know, but if I had to hazard a guess I would say seven.

Lisa Bodnar:

Okay. Would you rather have a third eye or a third arm?

Penny Gordon-Larsen:

Third arm.

Lisa Bodnar:

Why?

Penny Gordon-Larsen:

Because then I could type and do other things. I could eat and type.

Lisa Bodnar:

What's your favorite kitchen appliance?

Penny Gordon-Larsen:

My wine opener, of course.

Lisa Bodnar:

Which has worse, laundry or dishes?

Penny Gordon-Larsen:

Dishes, by far.

Lisa Bodnar:

What's your favorite dessert?

Penny Gordon-Larsen:

A hot fudge sundae.

Lisa Bodnar:

With what on it?

Penny Gordon-Larsen:

Like homemade hot fudge, a really gooey brownie, really good vanilla ice cream, whipped cream, a little bit of nuts.

Lisa Bodnar:

Cherry?

Penny Gordon-Larsen:

No.

Lisa Bodnar:

Oh, arg. Who doesn't love a cherry? All right, we can still be friends. On a scale of one to 10, how uncomfortable would you be without your smartphone for a week?

Penny Gordon-Larsen:

Eight.

Lisa Bodnar:

Eight, meaning?

Penny Gordon-Larsen:

Uncomfortable.

Lisa Bodnar:

Okay. What's the weirdest thing in your refrigerator or your purse?

Penny Gordon-Larsen:

I have this little Buddha, a little pink Buddha.

Lisa Bodnar:

In your purse, not your fridge?

Penny Gordon-Larsen:

In my purse, not in my fridge.

Lisa Bodnar:

What is your go-to COVID quarantine snack food/emotional crutch.

Penny Gordon-Larsen:

That's hard. It's definitely cheese and Triscuits, but also Cheese Curls.

Lisa Bodnar:

Last question. Can you name all six Brady Bunch kids? I'm going to time you.

Penny Gordon-Larsen:

Marsha, Jan, Cindy, Greg.

Lisa Bodnar:

Whoa.

Penny Gordon-Larsen:

I don't remember that other one.

Lisa Bodnar:

Think.

Penny Gordon-Larsen:

Mike?

Lisa Bodnar:

That's the dad.

Penny Gordon-Larsen:

I don't know.

Lisa Bodnar:

Peter?

Penny Gordon-Larsen:

Oh, yeah.

Lisa Bodnar:

Peter. What's the mom's name?

Penny Gordon-Larsen:

Carol.

Lisa Bodnar:

Aw, yeah, bonus points. Do you know what the dog's name is? Come on, Penny. It's an animal.

Penny Gordon-Larsen:

Fido?

Lisa Bodnar:

That's not an animal.

Penny Gordon-Larsen:

Bear?

Lisa Bodnar:

Close.

Penny Gordon-Larsen:

Wolf? Tiger?

Lisa Bodnar:

I cheated. Penny, I'm so glad that you could be on the podcast today. Thank you for doing this.

Penny Gordon-Larsen:

Aw, you are welcome.

Penny Gordon-Larsen:

I seriously did not sleep well last night, so I'm not thinking. Really, I am not thinking very clearly.

Lisa Bodnar:

Did you not sleep well because of the interview?

Penny Gordon-Larsen:

Well, because of the interview and I ate onions.

Lisa Bodnar:

Oh, okay.