One of the biggest fears known to humankind is the fear of public speaking. Luckily I didn’t croak on a talk I gave last week. Dr. Diamond and I spoke on “Working as one: systemic approaches to whole community health” - the title was given to us … I, personally, wasn’t sure what we were going to talk about but it came together. The talk went well but for some reason I had a lot of anxiety towards delivering it. Before the talk - a family member of an ortho patient and a professor at a local university came up and raved about her relative’s care at Iowa Specialty Hospitals & Clinics. She said she met me at joint camp and was “over the moon” with regards to the awesome care and consistent friendliness of the entire organization. We over exceeded her expectations. That calmed me down a bit and put me in the right frame of mind.
… Because we are that good. We have an awesome product to sell (our excellent care). I was meeting with the Des Moines Register last Friday (they do some of our digital marketing) and we were talking about the concept of “the best kept secret”. Well, I’ve said this before but I DON’T WANT TO BE A SECRET. In this time of upheaval in healthcare (concerns regarding costs, insurance, closing services, overwhelming patients … etc.) how can we rise above the noise and continue to be awesome? Additionally, how can we take “problems” in healthcare and turn them into opportunities?
A friend was talking about her smart phone recently. She said she is putting it away at night at 7PM because it is taking over her life. She stated that we are addicted to our phones and constantly checking them is like getting a hit from drugs. We get, according to her, a dopamine rush by constantly checking and rechecking our phones. I think (at least for me) sometimes the “noise” I spoke of comes from social media and other vicarious means (news and politics, general drama) and this takes me away of focusing on big picture items - the question of how do we take advantage of problems and make them into opportunities.
This was, and is an “AH HA” moment for me. We have great stuff going on and if I allow my focus to go to other … not important things … I’ll miss out and that’s not a good thing.
