Category: General Medicine
10 Minutes A Day
If you struggle to find time to do the things you want to do, try embracing the idea of 10 minutes a day.
10 minutes a day.
70 minutes a week, 300 minutes a month, 3650 minutes a year (60 hours and 50 minutes a year).
What could you do with a 60 hour block of time over the next year?
What is the MOST valuable asset you could build with a solid chunk of 60 hours?
Could you spend 60 hours building something in 2017 that freed up 600 or 6,000 hours in 2018?
Of course you can.
The challenge is to pick ONE thing that you can build over the next year…in sessions of just 10 minutes a day.
Great expectations
Today is the day that you publish an idea that sparks a conversation that leads to a world-changing breakthrough.
Today is the day you discover an unchallenged assumption that leads to the discovery of a new way of doing things.
Today is the day you figure out a way to learn 17 weeks’ worth of course material in 17 days or 17 hours.
Today is the day you break the 4-minute mile of Medicine.
Learning from IBM, Microsoft, Google and Facebook
First, there was IBM. A dominant force in Computers, with its superior hardware built into every desktop computer.
Then Microsoft came and usurped them with one simple question: how do we become the intelligence that runs all of these machines? How do we become the power behind the throne?
The result: a universal operating system that was separately installed on millions of computers. DOS. Windows. Microsoft Office.
Then Google came and replicated the Microsoft model online. They became the Operating System and core utility for those accessing the Internet. Google became a verb. Google Docs became a staple.
Then Facebook replicated what Google did online within the niche of “social media”. The online Operating System for those using the Internet to facilitate social interactions.
And then companies like Snapchat are replicating the Facebook model within the sub-niche of a specific type of “in the moment”, ephemeral interaction.
Here’s the lesson.
Operating Systems trump hardware.
So even though Medicine revolves primarily around building better “hardware” aka training people to become Doctors…what if it focused on building a better Operating System aka “a universal way of thinking and processing information about health care and disease”.
This system would have multiple nodes that go beyond the traditional ones of Doctors, Nurses, Carers, Researchers etc.
In the same way that Google will acquire a YouTube to grow its Operating System, or Facebook will acquire Instagram, this Med OS will acquire kindergarten educational programs, Hollywood TV shows, Netflix original programming, popular video games, best selling children’s books, cult-classic comic books, advertising campaigns…Every method possible to propagate the Med OS way of thinking.
It decentralises health care and turns every person connected to the Med OS network into a front line Medic.
With 7 billion Medics on the case, our odds of eradicating longstanding deadly diseases would be improved exponentially.
I’ll try and outline this Med OS and publish what it would look like.
A platform for health care data analytics where each person on the planet acts as a “data node”.
More thought required.
Key point: Operating Systems trump hardware.
How to get paid a ridiculous amount
3 words.
Become ridiculously valuable.
The amount you get paid per hour or per week or per month is NOT a reflection of the time you spend…but of the value you provide within that time.
And the amount you get paid is seen as a great bargain by the person paying you.
So when Henry Ford more than doubled the daily rate to $5 a day in 1913…it’s because the system he created turned a $5 investment in wages into a $30 return in value.
In other words, he was handing out one $5 bill and being given back six $5 bills in return.
Similarly, the $20/hour you get is because your perceived value is probably $120 for each hour you spend working.
So if you want to be paid significantly more than you are right now, you need to become significantly more valuable than you are right now.
Become more valuable…get paid much more.
Here are 2 simple ways to get started.
#1 Change your context
Maybe you’re doing the right thing in the wrong location.
Teach guitar classes at the local high school?
What if you taught the same class at the local nursing home? Or to busy executives.
Or what if you took what you’re already doing online? Platforms like Udemy, Skillshare and others make it extremely easy to make a living sharing what you know.
And that’s just if you’re looking to leverage the power of teaching what you know…an opportunity available to all of us.
#2 Change your content
This might mean simply switching from what you want to offer to providing what the marketplace wants to pay you for.
That’s how Nine Inch Nails got started.
They knew they wanted to make a living playing music that others wanted to pay for…but they weren’t completely precious about what that music needed to be.
So they released several different types of music, and the one that the market place resonated with became their music.
You can replicate the same model by figuring out what your core desire is…and then testing out different ways of providing this to the marketplace. When you find one that resonates, then run with it.
Another way of changing your content is to simply go to the edges of what you already know.
Don’t just be specific… be super-specific.
Obsess over one tiny corner of your area of expertise and deliver information, products and services that cater to just that one area.
Sound ridiculous? It will to those who watch you laugh your way up the value chain.
Success is something you attract by the person you become. — Jim Rohn
The key to being paid more is becoming more valuable.
You create value out of who you really are. And as you invest more in becoming more, you will be paid more.
More money, more attention, more consideration, more help, more friendliness…at work, in your marriage, with your kids, in your fitness, in your finance, and every area of your life.
So…want to get paid a ridiculous amount in every area of your life?
Become ridiculously valuable.
If Success is a numbers game…what are your numbers?
“Success is a numbers game. And you’ve got to check your numbers.” — Jim Rohn
That’s the punchline of this article, and the number one thing you need to check going into this new year.
What are your numbers in the 7 key areas of your life?
From Zig Ziglar:
- Spiritual
- Family
- Finance
- Health and Fitness
- Work and Career
- Intellectual
- Personal and Social
In each area, you need to ask questions where the answer can be a specific number.
For example:
Spirit: how much time do you spend each day in prayer/meditation? How many chapters of Scripture do you read each day?
Family: How much time do you spend uninterrupted with your Spouse each day? How many weekends do you spend simply doing something fun? How many times did you “do it” this week? How many minutes a week/day do you spend in focused time with each of your children?
Finance: How much money have you got saved in the bank? How much do you get paid per hour? What is your net monthly cash flow? What assets do you own and how much money do they each generate for you? How much money do you owe? If you stopped working today, how long would you and your family be able to survive for?
Health and Fitness: How many pushup do you do each morning? How many minutes of aerobic exercise do you do each day? How many pieces of fruit do you eat each day? What is your cholesterol level? What is your potassium level? What is your blood pressure? How much water do you drink each day?
Work and Career: How much time do you spend developing your career? How much time do you spend creating and publishing content around your area of expertise? How many engaged subscribers do you have on your email list? How many testimonials do you have in your Testimonial Book? How much is an hour of your time worth? How many words of fiction do you write each day?
Intellectual: How many books have you read in the last 90 days? How many new things have you learned this week? How much money have you set aside for courses in personal development?
Personal and Social: How many hours of sleep do get each night? How much time do you spend each day/week doing something fun? How many close personal friends do you have whom you could confide in? How many cities around the world have people who would happily put you up for the night? How many people would show up to your funeral if you died tomorrow? How much time are you spending each day working on and reviewing your personal goals?
What gets measured gets done…and also, the numbers don’t lie.
The great news is that if your answers to all of these questions are “zero”, then success in each area is simply a matter of improving the numbers by even a tiny bit.
Get 4 hours of sleep each night? Set a goal of going to bed 10-minutes earlier each month. By the end of a year you’ll be up to 6 hours of sleep.
Get paid $20/hour? Set a goal of increasing this to $30/hour…and you’d have just increased your gross income by $20,000.
Spent “zero minutes” with your kids each week? Set a goal of spending just 20 minutes of focused time with each child per week. That’s 80 minutes a month, or 17+ hours by the end of the year.
And so on.
The beauty of having numbers for each of the 7 areas, is that simply focusing on making the numbers go up will make your whole life rise as well.
Success is a numbers game. Check your numbers.
Follow the money
How has the practice of medicine been affected by the economic landscape of the time?
Agricultural economy >> Industrial economy >> Connection economy
Did the breakthroughs of each era occur when men and women chose to think like agriculturalists/ industrialists/ connectionists…Instead of pretending they were living in the bygone eras of their predecessors?
What if the next breakthroughs will be found by developing innovative business models for the practice of medicine…playing around with a business model canvas instead of a microscope?
What if the Patients are now the Doctors?
And the Doctors are…mostly irrelevant in the face of 21st century technology?
Money changes the dynamics of just about every relationship.
Perhaps it’s time to see if playing around with the dynamics of money as a way of solving the health care problems we’re supposed to battle as Medics.