Category: General Medicine
Yoda’s New Guide To Winning In 2017
What do you think about when you hear the name Yoda?
Maybe you don’t think of anything. Maybe you just see a wizened old dwarf, with pointy ears that stick out at right angles to his head. You see a scene from Star Wars. You see the Death Star and Luke Skywalker and cool lightsaber battles that you faithfully reenacted with your older brother in the backyard with broom handles and sticks. And your mind goes off on a nostalgic trip to a galaxy “far, far away”.
Or maybe you do think of something. Lots of somethings. Lots of wise somethings, and double-speak wisdoms that have come out of the mouth of this beloved fixture of George Lucas’ fantasy world.
Things like:
“When nine hundred years old you reach, look as good you will not.”
Perhaps an instruction to be careful about judging a matter prematurely. When it’s your turn to be in the same position, you’ll marvel then at the things you scoff at now.
Or perhaps you remember this line from The Phantom Menace.
Fear is the path to the dark side…fear leads to anger…anger leads to hate…hate leads to suffering.”
Dance with the fear…use it as a compass for what you should do next…but never let fear be your leader. Because fear leads to anger leads to…(see above).
Or maybe your mind just homes in on the definitive Yoda-ism. 8 words.
Do, or do not. There is no try.
Don’t try to sing. Don’t try to write. Don’t try to dance. Don’t try to start a business. Don’t try to lose weight. Don’t try to quit smoking. Don’t try to eat healthily.
Instead:
Sing. Write. Dance. Start a business. Lose weight. Quit smoking. Eat healthily.
Nike would say: just do it.
But Yoda would probably cut out the emotive word “just” (which may feel as if your specific challenges are being overlooked/unacknowledged/unappreciated)…and simply say:
Do it.
Do it broke. Do it out of tune. Do it with no training. Do it badly. Do it very badly. Do it even if nobody helps you. Do it when everybody opposes you. Do it quietly. Do it loudly. Do it boldly. Do it timidly. Do it even if you know you won’t win. Do it even if they say you shouldn’t.
However you’re able to do it…do it.
What matters is that you do it, not how you do it.
Because it turns out that when you do the things you feel drawn to do, you tap into Basil King’s strange and “mighty forces” that go to work on your behalf, to help you in your quest.
In 2017, decide to do it…whatever ‘it’ is.
This isn’t “new” in the sense of being something you’ve never heard before.
But if you’ll allow it into your heart, these words can replace your old guide of fear…and be the new guide that leads you into the full potential that awaits you next year, and every year you choose to live by it.
*Image by Dr Case
Stroking glass
If you own a smartphone, you are in the business of stroking glass (aka touch screen), several times an hour…to connect with over 2 billion people in the greatest Information network that gas ever existed on the planet.
Stroking glass is a metaphor for the extremely weird and freaky practices that lead to powerful, unimaginable quantum leap Outcomes.
Stroking glass is how we have penicillin, washing hands with soap (Semmelweiss), IVF, ultrasound scans, vaccinations, laparascopic surgery, Google Glass consultations, unlocking the human genome etc
Every great breakthrough is the result of someone being brave enough (or foolish enough) to dare to stroke pieces of glass…to see what will happen.
So here’s the shortcut to achieving breakthroughs in medicine, and other disciplines with entrenched, incurable problems.
See the conventional way of doing things…and then start stroking pieces of glass until the status quo gets uncomfortable, and says you’re doing something wrong/weird/freaky.
“Why do you have to stroke it?”
When you get that feedback, pay attention…you’re probably closer to a Quantum leap breakthrough than anyone’s ever been before.
Yesterday’s bloodletting…
…is today’s plastic surgery, pharmaceutical prescriptions, the way we take blood, the way we deliver babies, our understanding of the cell, the way we build our hospitals, the way we train future physicians…
Yes, those doctors felt about bloodletting the way we feel about the current fixtures in medicine and health care.
So if we assume that future generations will look back on today’s practices with bewilderment (as is the right of those who follow us)…let’s imagine the sorts of things they’ll say.
And then, once we’ve imagined them and written them down, let’s work on changing those things right now.
If we can commit to this practice in every area of medicine, then tomorrow’s Doctors and patients will have nothing to say except…Thank you.
Thank you for refusing to settle. Thank you for continually building the impossible to imagine world we live in now.
What’s your outcome?
Get into medical school. Attend lectures. Write notes. Do assignments. Study for exams. Don’t sleep. Do ward rounds. Get grilled by the Consultants. Do exams. Pass exams. Repeat x 5 years. Graduate. Survive year-long internship. Specialize. See as many patients as possible. Become a Consultant. Start your own practice…why?
Or as Tony Robbins puts it: what is the outcome that this path is designed to achieve?
Is this the only way to achieve that outcome?
Is every component of this pathway 100% essential? Are there any redundancies?
How could we make it better at achieving the outcome?
Would you be willing to kill this pathway for the sake of achieving the outcome?
As Victor Frankl described it:
Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.
As the new year approaches, get clear on your outcomes…and then ruthlessly assess everything you do in the light of its ability to help you achieve these outcomes.
10 things they won’t teach you in Med School (but you need to learn them)
Financial literacy…cash flow quadrants, assets, liabilities, passive income
Salesmanship…To sell is human
Copywriting…salesmanship in print
Magic tricks…sleight of hand, card tricks, simple ways to kindle the imagination of your patients
Stand up comedy…Laughter is medicine; learn how to dispense it
Entrepreneurship…how to make money by SOLVING problems
Fungal marketing…ideas that spread (in the dark) win
Redundancy…Continuously seeking innovations/practices that make your job irrelevant
Networking…With people to collaborate and with technology to find solutions to medical (or other) problems
Being your own Media company…The world is eager to tune into what you have to share
Treating the wrong patients
What if the key to breakthroughs in health care isn’t in taking care of the sick…but in taking better care of their Doctors?
What would happen if we took better care of the Medics (doctors, nurses, medical students, carers) who are constantly being trodden underfoot by a broken system that refuses to be fixed?
Medics are patients too…patients with a tremendous amount of leverage when it comes to health.
What are we doing to empower them to live rich, fulfilling and healthy lives?