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By Vicki Hess
So it’s the holidays and we’re all supposed to be feeling grateful. Music is playing, decorations abound…it’s like you’re living in a sappy Hallmark movie…or is it? What if you really feel tired, overwhelmed, frustrated or jealous? What if the posts on your friends’ social media walls aren’t bringing you joy? What if all you want to do is complain? Relax. It’s okay. You do you. Unless…what you really want is to feel more energy, less overwhelmed and happy with what you have. If you’d like to make that choice, read on. Did you know that according to Robert Emmons and other positive psychology researchers, having a regular gratitude practice actually:
It’s simply a choice to be grateful. Yes, it takes intention and it’s a decision you can make right now. Stop and think about something you are thankful for. Yeah! You did it! Still feeling like you are faking it? Instead of thinking “When I’m happy, then I’ll be grateful” or “When I’m not working so hard, I’ll be grateful” flip it around. Try these on for size: “When I’m grateful, then I’ll feel happy.” “When I’m grateful, things at work won’t feel quite so bad.” Some of you are rolling your eyes. It’s okay. You can go back to your high stress, very busy life any time you want. You see it really is a choice. Not the external circumstances – some of those are tough to change – but the internal response is all yours. You’ve got the power to be grateful right now and every day moving forward. Create a habit of gratitude and you’ll literally become a magnet for things to be thankful for. Still doubtful? That’s okay. Try it a little bit at a time. Soon, you won’t remember what it felt like to complain all the time. You won’t remember why you let the little things get to you. You won’t remember the crabby old you. Looking for your next healthcare speaker? Get in touch with us at the Capitol City Speakers Bureau today to make your healthcare event a success!
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By Kristin Baird
My team and I have been on the road doing culture assessments for various health systems recently. We've found some common denominators among the organizations that struggle with engagement, patient satisfaction and financial performance.Among other things, these cultures don’t foster recognition and gratitude. Show Appreciation It saddens me when I see healthcare workers starving for even the smallest crumbs of appreciation. After all, they are the ones on the frontline creating the customer experience. When workers feel appreciated, they engage and deliver better patient experiences. Let them know how much you appreciate them – that you’re thankful to have them on your team. That they make you proud. In this time of thanksgiving, make your gratitude known. It will not only inspire your team members, it will help you appreciate all the good that is happening around you. Happy Thanksgiving! Looking for your Nurses Week healthcare speaker? Get in touch with us at the Capitol City Speakers Bureau today to make your healthcare event a success! By John O'Leary. This was originally posted on JohnOLearyInspires.com. When John O'Leary was 9 years old, he suffered burns over 100% of his body and was expected to die. He is now an inspirational speaker and bestselling author, teaching more than 50,000 people around the world each year how to live inspired. John's first book, ON FIRE: The 7 Choices to Ignite a Radically Inspired Life was published March 15, 2016. John is a contributing writer for Huff Post and Parade.com. John is a proud husband and father of four and resides in St. Louis, MO. Order John’s book today anywhere books are sold.
Have you ever had someone make a big difference for you? Better question: Do they even know? Frequently we so quickly move on with our lives that we miss the opportunity to share our gratitude for all someone else did for us. Let me explain. I Never Expressed my Gratitude to my Brother for Saving My Life Shortly after college I bought my first home. A couple of my buddies lived with me and paid me rent. We had a back yard, wooden deck, hot tub, barbeque pit… basically everything a twenty-something guy needed! My brother Jim called shortly after I moved in. He wondered if he could live with us for a few weeks while transitioning from a house he was renting into one he planned on purchasing. He was a successful attorney, my only brother, and I was happy to have him move in for a while. On July 3, 1999 with temperatures in triple digits and humidity so high it made breathing a chore, I helped Jim move. Now, I worked mowing lawns as a kid, bailing hay as a farmhand in high school, and remodeling distressed properties after college. But I’d never worked as hard or for as little as the day I moved Jim in. We carried his free weights, a ski machine, and a treadmill. We carried a giant wooden bar, a pool table, a massive dresser, a beat up bed, a love seat, couches, ottomans, end tables and bags of junk. After a brutal day in the heat, we finally finished. Finding Gratitude in an Unlikely Experience Jim took a quick walk through his old house to make sure we’d grabbed all of his stuff. That’s when he saw his Christmas decorations hiding in the corner of the basement: Wooden reindeers, light strands, a box of ornaments and a giant Santa Clause. He called me over, handed me a few boxes of lights and one of the reindeers, looked at me and said, “Man, this stuff is going to look amazing at our Christmas parties.” Christmas parties? It’s freaking July, Jim. You’ll be in your real home before September. Right? Well, my friend, a “few weeks” turned into three years. Three years of fighting over the television remote control and leftovers. Three years of laughter and great memories. Three years of watching sports and wrestling matches. Three years of going out and staying in. Three years of hosting family gatherings and, yes, Christmas parties. In other words, three years of living like brothers again. Who Has Elevated, Shaped and Inspired Your Life? And not once during the three years we lived together did we talk about the fire that defined my childhood and changed our lives. Not once during the three years we lived together did we acknowledge to each other, or the three other roommates, that Jim was much more than a brother. He was my lifesaver, my hero, and without him I wouldn’t be alive. There are so many individuals responsible for me successfully surviving a childhood fire that should have killed me – paramedics, doctors, nurses, technicians, community. There are countless individuals who helped inspire me to thrive afterwards – my parents, therapists, Jack Buck, classmates. Yet none of them would have had an opportunity to do their job, give their time, offer their prayers or encourage me forward had it not been for Jim’s heroism the day I was burned. As I stood in the front hall burning as a child, he’s the one who picked up a rug, beat down the flames, risked his life, burned himself and saved my life. And I never even acknowledged it much less expressed gratitude for it. How and Why to Express Your Gratitude Well, I have now (speaking about it publicly for 10+ years and in my #1 National Bestselling book ON FIRE, you could say I shout it from the rooftops everyday and it has cemented his impact and my gratitude) and it’s brought us closer together as brothers and as friends. My friends, we all have been elevated, encouraged, shaped and inspired by others. We all have individuals, coaches, mentors, and teachers who made a profound difference in our lives. Use this moment and an excuse to intentionally reach out to those individuals and express your gratitude. When you connect, rather than talking sports, or weather, or what the market did today, choose to participate in conversations that will breathe life and possibility into the moment. Rather than ignore their impact or wait to share with them next time, choose a conversation that matters, elevates and actually shows gratitude. Rather than hope they know, thank them for who they are and what they mean to you. While silent gratitude isn’t much use to anyone, shared gratitude sets others on fire for life. Looking for your next healthcare speaker? Get in touch with us at the Capitol City Speakers Bureau today to make your healthcare event a success! By Courtney Clark
“Hey, girl. Gimme a smile.” If you’ve ever been hollered at on the street (and if you’re a woman, it’s probably not really if, but when), you know how insulting it can feel when some stranger demands you flash a smile and fake happiness. The real problem? It’s not just sexist strangers on the street. We attempt to force happiness on ourselves and others all. the. time. Even when we mean well, we often discourage sadness in our friends and loved ones. “Don’t feel bad,” we say. “It’ll all be okay.” “It could be worse.” Or the ultimate punch in the gut: “Stop feeling sorry for yourself.” Happiness is supposed to be a private emotion. But because of a focus on personal development in recent years, happiness has morphed from an internal journey to an external measure of how evolved and successful we are. We’ve somehow come to believe that if someone isn’t happy, there must be something wrong with them. They aren’t trying hard enough to find happiness, or they need to control their stress, or they’re choosing to be sad. When we think like this, we turn happiness into a weapon. If people don’t meet our definition of happy, society begins to think of them as “weak.” Why You Beat Yourself Up About Happiness Weaponized happiness is a new epidemic, where everyone is expected to meet societal standards of joy or else be deemed not tough enough. Of course we all WANT to be happy. But it isn’t always quite so simple. Life can be stressful and difficult. And even if we aren’t in the middle of a crisis, life simply may not always be enjoyable. (And that’s not even accounting for clinical depression, where guilt over not being happy is likely to just make things far worse.) Everyone else’s life looks shiny and perfect from the outside. Blame it on Instagrammers, but we’ve come to believe that if we aren’t running through a meadow with flowers in our hair and a blissful look on our faces, we must not be truly happy. Happiness doesn’t always look like a shiny blog post. When we judge our happiness but what other people’s lives appear to be, we’re measuring against an unreliable yardstick. Why You Judge Others’ Happiness Insisting that others be happy is a bad habit that comes from a good place. When you care about someone, you don’t want them to hurt. You want them to be happy. But when we attempt to shortcut their hurt or sadness, we’re not actually helping them find happiness any faster. In fact, studies show that ignoring feelings of sadness can actually keep you feeling sad for longer. A life of blissful joy isn’t the best goal. People need a little struggle, a little effort, and a little sadness to appreciate the humanity of being alive. The people who have overcome THAT, and can still find happiness even after sadness, are the ones we should really be looking up to. So when a friend or family member is struggling, don’t judge their sadness. Don’t force them to be happy. Allow them their experience, and then help them move on when they can. It’s time to stop measuring excellence in others based on how happy they seem. Happiness is not a weapon we use to beat up others. It’s a tool, and it must be a tool we use by ourselves, for ourselves alone. Looking for your next healthcare speaker? Get in touch with us at the Capitol City Speakers Bureau today to make your healthcare event a success! By Beth Boynton
Integrating improv activities into your day to day work can be part of an organizational development effort to boost to morale, improve communication skills, build positive relationships and cultures. Today we're exploring an incredibly simple activity called “I am”. If you are willing to take 10 minutes out of a staff meeting, clinical inservice, orientation process or other, you will build positive relationships and promote assertiveness and listening skills! Don’t be fooled by the simplicity of this activity as the results can be profound! Discovering “I am” This exercise is simple and promotes trust, self-awareness, empathy, and communication skills. By making time for “I am” in your meeting, you will help staff practice assertiveness and listening while inviting people to get to know each other a little better. How to Teach “I am” On a piece of paper, have staff complete the sentence, “I am _____________” three times. Tell them they will be sharing with 2-3 others in the group. Give them examples: “I am excited about this meeting.” “I am stressed about our new EMR.” “I am hungry.” Give the group 5 minutes or so to complete and then instruct them to share with 2-3 others over the next few minutes. Facilitation Tips
There is a lot more to applied improv than meets the eye! Looking for your next healthcare speaker? Get in touch with us at the Capitol City Speakers Bureau today to make your healthcare event a success! By Tim Hague Sr.
Contentment. The word alone can produce a ripple of frustration in my soul: I imagine a quiet peacefulness that’s at odds with what I often feel my life to be. I’ve known people who seem to inhabit that kind of space, and I’ve always wondered what it might be like. I remember being sixteen and sitting on our front step one hot summer day in Kansas, bored out of my mind, wishing I was older and could take on all the amazing things that only adults get to do. I wonder if this doesn’t represent the first seeds of my discontent. A restlessness that only now, many years later, is being tamed by Parkinson’s, of all things. It’s an unrelenting master. You may dance with it, but it will choose the music and the timing. At best, you can only follow along. I’ve come to terms with this fact. That is, the nurse in me understands the clinical reality; I can say the words out loud without flinching. I’ve also taken it that difficult step further: I acknowledge that modern medicine cures very little and that I’ll likely go to my grave with this new best friend whom I hate. Surprisingly, this has brought me a level of peace, of contentment. Sounds insane, I know. Does my acceptance of Parkinson’s equal a lack of courage to move forward? Not at all. Instead it gives me a foundation from which to attack the future. I can’t change the fact that I have Parkinson’s. It doesn’t mean that I can’t live well with the disease and that I can’t work for a cure. But until I accept reality, I’ll never be able to successfully move forward and I’ll never know true contentment. What is contentment? Is it merely “a state of happiness and satisfaction,” as it’s defined? I think it’s more than that. I think it involves a choice—but do you always have one? Yes and no. I can’t choose to not have Parkinson’s, but I can choose how I respond to it. The disease is a hard thing to bear, but is it any more difficult to choose contentment? Parkinson’s has taken my ability to run as well as I did, but what good would it do me to daily lament that I can no longer manage a seven-minute mile? It seems like a silly notion. The disease has also taken my ability to function as a nurse—and of what value would it be for me to lament this loss? Yes, there is an appropriate mourning to be had, but at some point I need to move on. Here’s the hard part, the part that many people facing life-changing circumstances struggle with: “What can I do to remain productive and useful?” One practice I have is to list the things I can still do and then ask how these might be used to help others. I would encourage you to start your own list, keeping in mind that no ability is too small or insignificant to make the cut. Now, how might you deploy these to put a smile on someone’s face or ease their burden? When we take the time to draw up an inventory of our lives, we find that things may not be as bleak, we may not be as barren in ability, as we thought. We can choose to accept our shortcomings and embrace what we can do. Our lives are finite. We all know we’ve been given a certain number of days; it’s just that we rarely like to think about it. Parkinson’s has driven this reality home. It has encouraged me to make good use of my time, knowing that it could be taken from me. It’s a matter of being courageous enough to acknowledge that truth—and to recognize that our time is also infinite in the sense that every day we can choose innumerable ways in which we might live our best. The options before us are limited only by our imagination and our willingness to dream new dreams. Early this spring, an arborist came by and inspected the magnificent old elm tree that had stood in our yard for as long as we’ve lived here. It was a truly beautiful tree, the largest for blocks, its branches extending into our neighbor’s yard and creating a canopy over the street. We were told that the tree had a major split down the center of its huge, bifurcated trunk and would need to be cut down. It was hard to believe: the tree looked healthy and strong, with no visible sign of disease. Nonetheless, it stood on city property and had to go. We were dreading that day. Now Sheryl was in tears as we witnessed the speed and cold efficiency with which our tree was brought down. Giant branches came thudding to the ground; they were thrown into the chipper and all but vaporized. In short order our mighty elm was reduced to sawdust and chips, our yard left with nothing but little mounds of dust dotting the newly fallen snow. When our daughters arrived home from school they cried. We’ll mourn the loss of this beautiful tree, but in time we’ll move on. It’s inevitable. And it’s necessary, even healthy that we do so. But that doesn’t mean we’ll forget; rather, we’ll plant a new tree where the old one has fallen. This is what it is to Live Your Best—this is contentment in the living. We can’t change the fact that the tree had become unsafe. So in its place we’ll plant anew, begin a new season of growth. And that tree will bloom with a beauty that couldn’t have existed had the old one not come down. Parkinson’s has brought a certain closure to my past life—you could say that it has felled it. But I can plant anew; I too can experience new growth and new beauty. When I accept limits and practice contentment, I can look forward to all that will be as I learn to grow in this new life I’ve been given. It won’t look the way I had imagined, but I’m confident that it will be all that it should be. As a nurse I’ve watched as individuals and families fight hard against illness and even death. I’ve seen the frustration, the anger, the hardness that comes over people when they realize that they won’t have their way over their ailment. I’ve watched them leave this life with sour, bitter souls, angry at the hand they’d been dealt. But I’ve also witnessed what happens with those who are content with the life they’ve been given: rather than feeling resentful about what they didn’t have, they leave this world full of gratitude for all they did. The difference is striking, and it’s compelled me to continually weigh my own life. And when its totality is placed in the balance, there’s no reasonable response other than contentment. That doesn’t come easily to someone who’s often been described as a Type A personality. I like to know where I’m going, to control the pace and the course. I’ve always had the sense that there are more challenges to be taken on and tasks to be accomplished. So learning to simplify my life is a daily struggle that involves all aspects of my being. It helps to learn the boundaries of control—that I can still do many things, but in a more thoughtful manner. For example, because I think better early in the day, mornings are best for higher-level cognitive work. But that’s also when I have more physical energy. And since I can’t go to the gym every morning and get other things done as well, I need to stagger my morning activities over the week. So I do have some measure of control; it just looks different than it used to. And a big part of accepting limits is setting reasonable goals for myself each day. The choice is never easy, but it is simple. Looking for your next healthcare speaker? Get in touch with us at the Capitol City Speakers Bureau today to make your healthcare event a success! By Bobbe White
It wasn’t a new year’s resolution, but 2019 has turned out to be the “Year of the Friend” visits around the country. The only reason it happened is this: I invited myself. Ugh. I can hardly write about these impositions. Mom is, no doubt, rolling her eyes out loud at me, because people with manners just don’t do this. I’m a little sorry, but not a lot sorry, because I got to mix some biz with pleasure and spend time with really great friends. My destinations included humans – and a few hounds – ages 4 weeks old to 94. The overall theme of these travels was, “If not now, when?” I’ve learned that with major miles and busy lifestyles among us, most people won’t outright invite others. I really don’t either, really. We all just assume, “They should know they’re welcome.” They haven’t met my mother, “Not until you’re invited, Young Lady!” When imposing on others, I tried hard to abide by these ten tips. (My hosts may be rolling their own eyes after reading my intentions below…!)
Looking for your next healthcare speaker? Get in touch with us at the Capitol City Speakers Bureau today to make your healthcare event a success! By Amy Dee
Some time ago, I was eating at the Twin Dragon in Mitchell with my daughter Sofi. We were laughing and talking about school, friends, and teachers when a young boy and his mother sat down at a table close to us. As soon as they sat down, they each took out their cell phones and began texting and playing games. Throughout their meal, they were so absorbed with their phones that they exchanged only a few words with each other. They ate quickly and left. Seeing this family’s disconnect reminded me of how easy it is to become distracted in today’s world. Endless choices compete for our attention. iPhones and computers allow us to choose worldwide contact day or night. You must choose an entree from many menu options. You might pick a box of tea from twenty or more on the grocery store shelf. Will you put away phone or check your facebook page during a conversation with your mother? Every day offers a plethora of unending options. This constant stream of choices can cause a disconnect to the present moment. We must consciously choose to stay connected to our AM (activity of the moment) or PM (person of the moment) because the mere “ping” of a text message can grab our attention away. These days, IPhones and computers give us a connection to each other, but we seem to lack connection with each other. We can drive and chat on our phone without experiencing the scenery around us. We can talk with a friend while checking out groceries without acknowledging cashier. We can eat dinner with our family while texting friends. Multitasking causes us to lose our connection with the present moment. Just for today, tuck away your cell phone and consciously interact with your now moments. While grocery shopping, be engaged by noticing the colors and the sounds, and activity that surrounds you. Say ‘hello” to fellow shoppers. Listen deeply to your conversations. Pay attention to words as well as the facial expression, the intonation and feelings behind those words. Look into their eyes and give them your full attention. Consciously paying attention to your person of the moment will enhance your connection. Concentrating on your activity of the moment will allow you to savor everyday experiences. Looking for your next healthcare speaker? Get in touch with us at the Capitol City Speakers Bureau today to make your healthcare event a success! |
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