Life to the Max Podcast
Welcome to 'Life to the Max Podcast,' where resilience meets inspiration!
Join us on a transformative journey through the life stories of remarkable individuals, including Quadriplegic Army Veteran Maximilian Gross. In this empowering podcast, we dive into tales of triumph, courage, and the human spirit's unwavering ability to overcome obstacles.
Our show is a celebration of diverse narratives, from awe-inspiring achievements to the darkest of traumas. 'Life to the Max' is a testament to the power of living authentically, no matter the circumstances. We believe that everyone has a unique story worth sharing, and we invite individuals from all walks of life to join us.
Discover the profound meaning of living 'Life to the Max'—a concept that resonates differently with each storyteller. It's a journey of perspective, resilience, and finding joy amidst life's challenges. Tune in to be inspired, motivated, and reminded that there's strength in every story.
Ready to redefine what it means to live life to the fullest? Share your story with us and become a part of this uplifting community. Because, at 'Life to the Max,' every story matters.
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Life to the Max Podcast
Eat What You Kill: How the Navy Forged a Hospital Leader from a Lost Teen
Discover how Chris Blair transformed from a directionless small-town teenager into a successful hospital administrator through military service, healthcare experience, and exceptional leadership skills.
Chris shares his pivotal moment of clarity when he realized he needed to make a profound choice to change his life trajectory, leading him to join the Navy as a Hospital Corpsman. His military experiences built the foundation for a healthcare career that spans from direct patient care to executive leadership.
The conversation reveals how Chris's unique perspective—having worked at every level from patient care tech to hospital administrator—shapes his people-first leadership philosophy. "Culture eats strategy for breakfast," he explains, demonstrating how focusing on employee engagement turned struggling hospitals around during his career. When he transformed one facility's employee favorability rating from 3.2 to 4.1, the finances naturally improved too.
What makes Chris's approach distinctive is his servant leadership mindset: "I am not in charge of anybody and no one works for me. I work for them." This perspective, combined with his "eat what you kill" entrepreneurial energy, created environments where healthcare teams flourish despite the industry's challenges. His candid insights about healthcare's thin 3% operating margins and the constant balance between quality care and financial sustainability offer rare glimpses into hospital administration realities.
Beyond career insights, Chris discusses meeting his wife while stationed in Guam, earning his MBA with a 4.0 GPA while working through COVID, and his philosophy that failure isn't a person—it's just evidence you're trying. His journey exemplifies how military discipline, healthcare experience, and genuine care for people can create an extraordinary leadership approach. As Chris says, "All gas, no brakes."
just a couple of puns all trying to get by. Just a couple of teens all trying to survive. Live to the max, because you don't live it twice.
Speaker 2:A couple green thumbs all heights welcome back to another episode of life to the max. I'm your host with the most, max Gross, and today I have Chris Blair, which is my friend Nick's father, and I'm super excited to talk to him. Chris Blair is no stranger when it comes to the healthcare system. He is a hospital administrator. That's correct, he's a hospital administrator and he's done a lot of other things as well. So, uh, I'm super excited to get to know you man. Yeah, me too. Yeah, too good to talk to you. Yeah, uh, you probably heard a lot about me because of nick, right yeah yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:So let's just, uh, dive right into this. You ready? Let's get it okay, all right, so where did?
Speaker 1:you grow up. I grew up in indiana, north north central indiana a little small town called cicero, another small town person another, because how was that?
Speaker 2:did you enjoy it?
Speaker 1:I would uh recommend it to anybody, there's just something about a small town USA, yep.
Speaker 2:Yep, it was amazing. Yep, yeah. So when you were growing up in Indiana, what were some of the hobbies that you enjoyed?
Speaker 1:Sports Sports. Yeah, we grew up in a block with there six of us all in this within two or three years of each other, and so, whatever season it was, whether it was basketball, baseball or football, we were outside doing it, and so it was. It was sports sports, sports sports sports, sports.
Speaker 2:It sounds like, it sounds like my childhood. I love it. What um? What sport was your favorite?
Speaker 1:uh, being from indiana, basketball basketball.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, okay, yeah, I understand. So, um, when uh, you were growing up into, like your adolescence, uh, how like, how was that like going into high school and stuff oh yeah, high school was great Again.
Speaker 1:My graduating class had 160 people, so we grew up with each other, we knew each other, and then you had your subgroups of friends, depending on what you did, but everybody knew everybody. It was just this easy transition from elementary to junior high to high school. It just happened, it was organic, and you just brought along the same people that were with you the whole journey.
Speaker 2:And you guys are all on the stage like putting your cap and gowns on with the tassel on the different side.
Speaker 1:That's it.
Speaker 2:And they throw you into the world, the tassel on the different side. That's it. And they throw you into the world. They cast you into the world. That's right. What did you start doing first when you got cast into the world? Struggling that was my first response.
Speaker 1:I didn't know what I wanted to do. I graduated when I was 17, which in retrospect that's too young. I mean 17 year olds. Most 17 year olds have a hard time picking out what clothes to wear in the morning to go to school. So I thought, natural course, would just go to college, and I found out very quickly I did not have the attention span for it, and so I just tried to find a job that I felt like would give me some momentum in life, and it just it didn't work out. It just didn't. It was. It was dead end after dead end after dead end.
Speaker 2:What year was this?
Speaker 1:I graduated in 1989.
Speaker 2:1989.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so that's when the soviet union fell. The stress from the wall came down.
Speaker 2:When the wall came down, that's right were people like partying like around here as well that.
Speaker 1:Well, I I don't remember it happening in 1989 and I I you know you have to understand in in 89 the internet wasn't a thing and so the news broadcasts. It was just different than what it is today and so I don't remember it really taking place. I know it did, it just wasn't like a big thing. It's not here.
Speaker 2:It wasn't a big thing here Right there was a huge thing there, but not here, right yeah? So you got cast out of the world. You didn't know what to do. What was the first job?
Speaker 1:you landed. I was cutting grass for a teacher. She had a little small business in the summer and she would mow apartment complexes, and actually her daughter's my girlfriend at the time, and so I started doing that small business in the summer and she would. She would mow apartment complexes, and actually her girl, her daughter's my girlfriend at the time, and so I started doing that. Uh, and then, of course, summer ends and, um, I worked at a pizza place for a while, which is a good experience, um, but just really nothing that stuck.
Speaker 2:What propels you to get your bearings?
Speaker 1:I woke up. This is no joke. I woke up one morning and thought if I don't make a profound choice in what happens next, I'm going to wake up every morning in the same place doing the same thing. And I could feel myself getting caught in this rut and you know, they say a rut over time becomes a grave. And so I woke up that morning and made a choice that I've got to do something profound. And I did. What was that? I called the navy recruiter and I said I need to join the navy today. How do we do this?
Speaker 1:just go to maps, all that ready to go well it didn't happen quite that fast that, but that was, that was the. Uh, that was that was the. The motivation like let's do it before I change my mind. Why did you choose the Navy? My uncle had served in the military. I had a buddy that was on delayed entry in the Navy, and so I thought I feel very triggered right now, Chris.
Speaker 2:I was in the Army myself, so I'm just army man myself, so like I'm just messing with you.
Speaker 1:Yeah, if I didn't know that you were in the army I probably would have had a different answer, but out of respect for your service, I withheld the jokes no like we were just talking about where history buffs in the Navy were badass in World War II.
Speaker 2:it was crazy the, the battle of medway, the battle of the pacific, and also like it's like helping germany, oh, helping britain with the atlantic yeah like so, like there's always just like. I like what used to be like oh, navy maybe. But then when I see like these old, old timers, like back then, I was like, wow, the navy dude, like that's awesome yeah, you know yeah so that's so. That's really cool man. So when you went to the navy, what job were you looking for?
Speaker 1:so when I joined, this was in. So this was in 1990, september of 1990, which is when the Persian Gulf started escalating, and so, of course, the original Top Gun had just come out. And so I went to the recruiter saying I want to fly jets, which me and about 40,000 other people did the same thing, and I said so, I want to fly jets. What do I need to do? And, of course, as a great recruiter, as they always do, they give you impeccable advice. They just need you to get to boot camp. So I actually signed up as an aviation electrician. That was my initial job that I was going to be doing, but that changed as I got closer to. I was on delayed entry and it was like five months, and about two months into it I'm like this is not going to work. I can't wait this out. So I went back and said what do I need to do to move quicker? And they have this, they had this uh program. It was a uh, it was a um. Oh, what the heck?
Speaker 1:It was kind of this where you go in as an undesignated um recruit and you get out of boot camp and you go through four weeks of training and then you go out to the fleet and then you figure out what you want to do in the navy and then they bring you back and take you to school and do that. I'm like, fine, I don't care, just get me out of this town, I just need to go. Why?
Speaker 2:did you want to get out so?
Speaker 1:bad Because I was going nowhere. I was just I was going nowhere with life and I didn't see how staying in that town not that the town was bad, there was nothing, my friends, my great friends, the town was bad. It was just there was nothing there. Personally, I could see that would play out uh and and have any profound or positive. Just want to spread your wings and fly, that's right.
Speaker 2:Tired of the same old scenery, that's right, okay, so so they uh excel you to this uh different program. What a way and what?
Speaker 1:job. Was that? So it was? It was. Uh, I got it. I went to boot camp under a non-designated rate, and this was in january of 91, and I got there on the 10th of january. On the 11th, congress declared war and the persian gulf kicked off desert shield. Yep and so, or desert storm, then desert shield, one of the two, I'm not sure which one was me neither man, yeah, but but like the same thing, right?
Speaker 2:um yeah.
Speaker 1:So short scoff, yeah. So when that happened, there was this big push for corpsman, hospital, corpsman, the navy, and so our company commander said we could, if you, if you're interested, you can reclass or you gotta, we gotta, reclass now and then we can. You can reclass and you can go to core school. After boot camp and my stepdad was a firefighter and I grew up in the fire department. I'm like what's a corpsman do? He explained it. It sounded like an emt. I said let me go do that. So I got reclassified to go to hospital, core school. So after boot camp I went to core school.
Speaker 2:Let's talk about boot camp. What was boot camp like in 1990 in the navy?
Speaker 1:so shortly before then they changed a lot of things. Couldn't smoke, couldn't smoke at boot camp. Um, the company commanders couldn't lay hands on you Bastards. Yeah right, I tell you that in my opinion, that's when the military started getting soft. Oh yeah, right. Oh yeah, when you couldn't light up a Marlboro light and you didn't have to run the risk of getting whacked in the head from your company. Commander um bouquet was an amazing. It's exactly what I needed. It was.
Speaker 1:It provided structure, guidance and discipline but, also promise, for there was something after this that I could, that I was going to do, and so it just really, I reframed my mentality of how life's going to play out so in the army we go through like phases, like red phase, blue red phase, white phase, blue phase and red phases.
Speaker 2:They're in there, your face, like all the time, like you are not alone, like they're screaming in your face and they're breaking you down. You know what I mean and I understand why they do that now because you come out a different person when you leave boot camp you really do, and you're like, wow, I didn't realize how privileged I was after boot camp.
Speaker 2:Well, before boot camp, I didn't realize that, like, oh, candy bar. Like, dude, they were selling candy bars at my freaking boot camp for 50. A candy bar, bro, because it was contraband and I was like I'm not having a candy bar, bro, and then 50 dollars coming. No, but people were buying them from the whole lake. That's it. Yeah, so when you went to boot camp, you explained that it helped you build a foundation. Basically, was it as hard as you thought it was going to be?
Speaker 1:No, no, no, no, no, and I think in retrospect it was hard, but I also understood it was necessary. And so when you realize this evolution is necessary, I think the magnitude of how hard it is gets diminished, which is how you're able to get through things. If I focused every day on how hard boot camp was, I would have been miserable and I probably would have not stuck around.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah. Well, boot camp was miserable for me for the first three weeks, it was just absolutely miserable. But then they just start saying like okay, hey, hey, you can read the ranger or you can read this, and then like they start leaving you alone, but they still fuck you up you know what I mean? Yep like it's not. Like it's not like you're off the hook like right you're not off the hook until you leave for graduation. Man, that's right. So after the boot camp, you go for training.
Speaker 2:To be a corpsman right Yep, Do you guys call?
Speaker 1:it AIT, a school, a school, a school. Okay, yep, now I went to San Diego for that. So boot camp in San Diego, corps school in San Diego, and that was again the level of training that you get. So Army medics it's a little different for corpsmen than Army medics. You know Army and I know this because when I worked in Longstall I worked, you know, shoulder to shoulder with the Army. You're a soldier first and foremost.
Speaker 1:And then whatever you're trained to do, that's what you do. Second, in the military, in the Navy, it's different. As a corpsman, your primary role is to take care of people, and so we abide by rules like the Geneva Convention. And so as a corpsman, I could only carry a 9mm, I was considered a noncombatant, and as corpsman, our job was to take care of Marines, because we were the medical for the marines, and so corpsman would go forward with marines, because nurses and doctors and pas were too expensive and corpsman were considered expendable, so they would go front forward with the marines. And so if you imagine what that training requires understanding that you're going to be the medical provider for a group of Marines- Meaning if they have a sucking chest wound, you got to know how to put a chest tube in quickly.
Speaker 1:So we had to learn all of these things in 12 weeks of core school and it's it's all geared around combat readiness as a corpsman, yeah.
Speaker 2:I had to do something similar with combat lifesaver training. It was only for like six weeks, but, um, I, uh like I had to learn like how to, like you know like uh, improvise, use an mre bag, mre bag like cut it to like uh to like seal wound or something, or to check for exit wound in the back, because you never know like there's an exit wound, he's bleeding out in the back and stuff so like. And of course, the tourniquet. Tourniquet is number one.
Speaker 1:You probably learned that like the first day right pretty early on in the training. Yeah, bleeding is bad, stop yeah, so, um, you wait.
Speaker 2:so first of all, I see. So you uh went from Indiana. Where was boot camp? San Diego, Okay, so what was? How was like the culture shock, like being in a big city like San Diego?
Speaker 1:Well, I mean for boot camp there. I mean, we didn't see the big city until. Liberty Weekend, but you know you're sheltered in boot camp.
Speaker 2:I know that I felt like when you went to, of course, of course.
Speaker 1:So that was different. I had never encountered homeless people in Indiana and I never encountered people that knew when you got paid. I never encountered people that knew when you got paid and when the first time I walked downtown San Diego on payday weekend, everybody knew I had been paid and it was almost like this army of panhandlers, I mean it was. It was an awkward feeling for me because I'd never experienced.
Speaker 2:And you know I wanted to. This was in 1990. 91. 91. And there was homeless. I wanted to. This was in 1990. 91. 91. And there was homeless people there.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, oh wow, In San Diego, yeah, yeah, that's so that was in shape.
Speaker 2:I mean, if anything, it got worse. That's horrible. Like when I was in the military, same thing they knew when you got paid and they called them tag chasers for dog tags. So we weren't allowed to wear dog tags because, like, they want to like hug us and like, if they feel dog tags like, okay, he's a soldier.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but like they couldn't tell, by your haircut right? Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 2:I'm like thinking like okay, well, I have a high and tight hair.
Speaker 1:That's not in style.
Speaker 2:So how long was?
Speaker 1:Corbin's school. Corbin's school was, I think, 14 weeks. I believe 14 weeks.
Speaker 2:And they just threw you out into the world when?
Speaker 1:did you go? I went to Great Lakes. I was assigned to the hospital in Great Lakes, initially just on a general duty corpsman on a medical floor, learning how to be a corpsman. What was that experience like? It was a good experience, but if you remember back when I reclassified as a corpsman in my mind I thought I was going to be like an EMT. Right, and being on a med-surg floor is nothing like being an EMT. Yeah, it's like being a patient care tech or a nurse from CNA.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah yeah, so a little disappointed. But also I knew there was a ton I didn't know, and so I just optimized that time to learn as much as I could. And I also learned in bootcamp if you're a high performer, you get recognized for that and you get special privileges. And so I thought, well, I'm just going to continue to be a high performer and maybe something good will come out of it, and and so so your response, your response basically Anything I can get.
Speaker 1:Look, we didn't have the internet, we didn't have chat, gpt, they were called books. We had to, we had to read them, and so I was reading the PDR physician desk desk reference. But now you have an app on your phone. You can think of the med and it'll pop up on your phone. Yeah, so I had to read and I just anything I could get my hands on. I was just in it, yeah.
Speaker 2:That's awesome. And then, how long were you in the rear, like would you say? Like basically that's like the rear, like you were on the stateside, yeah, stateside. So how long were you stationed there?
Speaker 1:I was there for two years yeah, two years and then I eventually moved down to the emergency room, which is really where I wanted to be, and then ultimately on the ambulance crew. So I kind of worked my way into the best job for corpsman, which was running all the ambulances. Why did you want to be?
Speaker 2:in that room.
Speaker 1:Well it's because again it goes back to the reason I wanted to be a corpsman, because I it sounded to me like I would be an emt and I could. I could associate with an emt because my, my stepfather was a firefighter and I was around the fire department growing up and I saw what emts did and I I mean I, looked up to the emts because they're the ones going out dragging people out of cars and, you know, saving people's lives.
Speaker 2:What was like a like a real life moment where you're like, wow, like I'm actually like where I want to be. Yeah, when was that?
Speaker 1:that was in I. I think I'd been in the Navy a year and a half. I had just gotten on the ambulance squad. Now you have to understand, you're going to calls. You know the military is a very young demographic, right? So you're not dealing with heart attacks, things like this, because it's just a young demographic, and so a lot of the things we picked up were sprained ankles, whatever. But I remember distinctly a call to boot camp. We had to drive over to boot camp and it was, um, we got a call for uh, well, I'm trying to be politically correct and how I probably fire. No, it was um, the the confusion. So this, this recruit was confused and it was very vague. So we get over there and we walk onto the floor and it, there's a recruit and he's, he's covered in his own feces and um, which isn't normal, by the way, even for boot camp, right, well, well, I mean, yeah, I would agree with you.
Speaker 2:Actually, I had to think about it. I was like 55, man. Yeah, that's not normal.
Speaker 1:Even though the food tends to help with that. So we get there, and this is something that we're not accustomed to, because you could tell this guy's countenance was there was something off, and so he's confused. We finally gave him the ambulance away because he was the other recruits and even the coming to command. They thought he was faking it and we just need to get him out of the environment and figure out what the heck was going on. So we get him on the ambulance and people pupils are unequal.
Speaker 1:One of them's not reactive, and I'm like something bad's going on and despite how much I had read up to that point in 18 months, I didn't know what the heck was going on. It was scary because I just knew something bad's happening here, and so I'm like, well, let's just put oxygen on him and get him to the hospital and figure it out. And so it turns out he had a. He had a brain bleed and, uh, we were able to. And then, once we diagnosed it at the naval hospital, we urgently transported him um to a hospital downtown chicago and he was able to get life-saving care he needed. We didn't have that available at the hospital uh, naval hospital, yeah, so we had the life-saving treatment that he needed and we, we transported him down. And I just remember, driving on the way back from transporting to chicago, me and my partner, the conversation, like what in the heck? Like how do we? We got to level up. I mean we didn't do anything wrong, but what could we have done different?
Speaker 2:because, wow, quicker yes, like while we don't see that here.
Speaker 1:The expectation at some point when we're at a duty station or with the marines is you got to figure that out, you don't have time to him haul around, and so that was a a wake-up call that this is a. This is a real job that I have here.
Speaker 2:Yeah, especially if you're on a battlefield and you need to perform here on this like a Marine, you've got to be on your toes ready to go know what you're doing. That's right. Yeah, so that probably was the humble dude You're like okay, I'm like lock and load, I'm going to dial in, that's it. So you stay at the Great Lakes for a couple years, and then when did you know out?
Speaker 1:of the country so the next yeah, the next uh rotation you do is stateside, and then you do sea duty, which is either marines, overseas hospital or a ship. And um, the war had ended and they had an abundance of corpsmen. So there were no billets to go with the marines and I wasn't really keen on going on a ship. So I got orders to go to Guam, to the Naval Hospital in Guam, which is the antithesis of Great Lakes, illinois, complete opposite. It's an island. You could call it an island. It's a pin drop on a map, is what it is, but it's the most beautiful, one of the most beautiful places on earth. Really, yeah, yeah, no question about it.
Speaker 1:So when you got the orders to go to Guam, were you pretty stoked? I pick them, I took them. Oh, you picked them Back. Then you had to call a detailer and say, hey, here's my rotation date, what do you got open? And he would say here's what's open, and I said, well, let me do guam. So that was it. So it was my choice and you did, you know?
Speaker 2:did you know where guam was?
Speaker 1:kind of I knew.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean, I knew kind of where it was in the middle of the google maps or anything. No, that did not exist.
Speaker 1:it was an atlas map that you folded out, but I knew it was in the Pacific Ocean somewhere.
Speaker 2:I thought it was in the Caribbean. Wow, I'm stupid.
Speaker 1:It's west.
Speaker 2:I really got to pull out Google Maps and look where it is.
Speaker 1:Yeah, If you scan your eyes from Hawaii west and squint before you hit Japan, you'll see Guam. Guam was pivotal during the world war two. Wow.
Speaker 2:Pivotal. Yeah, I didn't, I didn't think of that. Yeah, well, cause we were island hopping and world war two, like. So that was a, that was a difficult war, cause that was a difficult theater of the war because, like we're trying to like get to japan, there's so many islands in the way and they got the philippines and guam was, we probably would put an airfield there right, there is yep, we, we liberated guam.
Speaker 1:We liberated guam and then took control of the island because it was occupied by the Japanese.
Speaker 2:You're teaching me something.
Speaker 1:They took Guam on the same day they bombed Pearl Harbor. It was coordinated Wow.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it was like there was a very short span of time that it took place and not enough time back then to convey the message that Guam had been taken over in order to react to it. And then Pearl Harbor happened.
Speaker 2:That's. That's. That's. Thank you for teaching me that man. Usually, usually I got like usually I'm smart when it comes to history, but I've been, I've been fumbling the bag lately. So you like you said you got to get the hell out of Indiana, then you go to Guam.
Speaker 1:What was that? Like Guam was incredible, incredible. You know golf beach all the time. I mean, if you want to go to the beach, it wasn't a big plan because at its widest point it's about five miles wide. Uh, so every road you're on you can see the ocean for the most do you ever stay there?
Speaker 1:I do. I'm trying to figure out what part of the story I want to tell you. So we get there to check in. We get there in the middle of the night to check in. It's been 24 hours we've been flying. We flew to Tokyo direct 18 hours on a smoking flight. Yeah, which was wonderful. So we get there in the middle of the night to Guam and we check in at the quarter desk, the quarter deck, and they don't have any records.
Speaker 1:And I, as a buddy, and I went together, um, uh, and they don't have a record of us coming, like, oh, we didn't know you guys are going to be here, like really, of course, again, no internet, you know that happens. So they didn't have a barrack, the barracks room for us. So they're like we're gonna ship you over to the naval air station. There's, there's barracks over there, what they meant by that. There's a storage building you can stay in, and so that was our introduction. But we were you know, I was a kid man. I'm like we wake up next morning like we're going to the beach. Now I'm from indiana and you can tell my complexion not real dark, complected. So we go to the beach and, uh, I'm not gonna use sunscreen because I gotta, I gotta get my bronze on man I gotta look good and I wake up in the middle of the night that next night itching, like my entire body was itching.
Speaker 1:I'm like what the heck I get in the shower can't? Next morning I wake up terrible no rash, just itching. So I go to the hospital and I run into one of the nurse and I said what the heck's going on? I wasn't really sunburnt bad at all and she said how long you been here. I said about 36 hours. She goes. Did you go to the beach? Yeah, she's got sun poisoning. It happens to everybody when they first get here. Take some ben Benadryl, you'll be fine. So I took Benadryl and I was fine and I never had an issue after that. But it was the most miserable 12 hours of my life.
Speaker 2:I can imagine. I think when I was at boot camp I got sick from all the shots they gave me or whatever. I had to do a peanut butter shot, which is right in the right ass cheek. So I was like, and then like, after that, the night after, I'm just sick. But they're like no, you're getting up, you're still doing this like you're, and I'm just like. So I totally can understand that. What was it like when you got to your first station in Guam?
Speaker 1:So I worked in the ICU. I went from this hospital in Great Lakes, which was really just taking care of the young population, to Guam, of the young population to Guam, which, even at the time, even if they were a federal employee, so we had locals that were federal employees that could access healthcare at the hospital, and so it was a completely different demographic and it was there were some sick people there, and so I I was working the icu and now I'm exposed to sick people. Uh, lots of trauma, and I was able to hone a lot of skills during that that tour there a lot of trauma, like from what so?
Speaker 1:the road, the base of the roads? When they mix the roads up, you think about. You know, here we use gravel and these things to to form the asphalt. Well, there there's no gravel, so they they just they ground up the coral, but when it rains, the oil from the coral rises to the top and makes the road slick. And because they have typhoons, they don't have wooden telephone poles, they have these concrete poles that are about 10 foot in diameter. So people have a tendency to slide off the road and smash into these things on a regular basis. And then it's an island, so you have people that are getting sucked on, riptides out, getting caught underneath the reef. Um, you know, it's a heavy populated jungle, so people go on boonie stomps and fall off cliffs and, yeah, lots of, uh, lots of that, those types of injuries. And then there's the gunshots and the stabbings and things like that, so were you helping civilians
Speaker 2:both, yeah, so you're helping civilians and soldiers. Yeah, I didn't know that. I thought like when I I felt like like at fort camp, like we only take care of the military.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so with Guam being a territory, there was a civilian hospital on the island. But there was an agreement that if there was an injury in the community and an ambulance responded, that we would bring whomever needed care to the closest hospital, which could have been the Naval Hospital. We would stabilize and care for them and then at some point, if they were stable enough to transport, we would transport them over to the local hospital. But you know, it was just one of those humanitarian agreements we had on a small island, you know.
Speaker 2:Again. What is the craziest thing you've seen in Guam besides the guy?
Speaker 1:at boot camp. So, guam, I would say, uh, I, we saw a. I saw a guy, um, so when we would have traumas that would come in, they, if we were slower in the icu, we would always all go down to the er and help out for traumas. And so, uh, we had a. There was a guy that was chopping down um, mangoes it was mangoes with a machete and he whacked a power line and so the entrance came through the machete and came out his side and just it looked like it didn't look real, like the exit wound was his entire left side of his body. Just, yeah. So you went down there and like, where do you put the chest tube? It's, yeah, it was pretty. It was pretty. I mean, mean, it just gave you true appreciate for the power of electricity. Yeah, there was no, yeah, yeah, that was probably the most one of those interesting things I saw in guam, for sure besides your wife, right, I met her.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, exactly my wife, yeah, she was uh, we.
Speaker 1:She came um. She came to guam. Uh, she had orders as a, you know, she was a nurse corps officer and she got there probably six months before I was supposed to leave and she was assigned to the icu and, you know, once she laid eyes on me it was all over. Man, I mean, that's all I mean.
Speaker 2:You can see, look at me, you guys just have like arms and like helping patients and stuff. You got blood all over your lock eyes, just like the movies look man, I I outkicked my coverage.
Speaker 1:I had, 29 years later I'm thinking jiminy christmas. Poor thing, she had no idea what she was getting into.
Speaker 2:It's really done. I just interviewed her, like literally like an hour ago. Yeah, no, she has an amazing story. So, like I, I can't wait for you to be able to hear that. Yeah, yeah, well, you probably have heard it. Obviously for her to tell it. It's an amazing story. But let let's stick to your guys' story. So you met your significant other, then wife, and how did that?
Speaker 1:progress. It was challenging. You get it as a military member. Officers and enlisted aren't supposed to frat and eyes, but when you work we're a small unit, but, dude, you're a stud. Well, there's no unfortunately, there's nothing written in the uh uniform code of justice that say, if you're a stud, that disqualifies you from the rules because you're a stud. I mean that would create a national problem, I think now, um, what was the question?
Speaker 2:I was like how did you, how did it progress?
Speaker 1:oh, how to progress you threw me off, man, uh. So so we were, we worked in the icu together and it was a small group of people and you know those groups of people would do life together outside of work. Yeah, and we, just we were, we were at events together and within the department and we worked a lot together and just we just something just clicked, I mean and so here's the thing.
Speaker 1:You get this and you can appreciate this as a military member. Maybe it's changed, but I I can only report what I know from this is probably 1994. There's not a lot of good looking women in the military.
Speaker 2:Would you agree with this?
Speaker 1:That's why there's two scales. Right, you know that's two scales. There's the military and the civilian scale. It's like what would she be if she was a civilian? She was, she was a 10, like, not even military. And I was like where in the world did this woman come from? Like I, you just never experienced anything like that being in the military. You just see, these did you did.
Speaker 2:You salute her before you got down on one knee there was some saluting that took place appropriately.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean, it's standard, uh, and it just happened, know, like we had a lot of the same interests, even though she was from Texas and I was from Indiana. We had a lot of this, we had the same humor, it's what it sounds. I'm telling you, and I would tell you it was the three amigos that did it. It was the three amigos. We watched the three amigos together and that was like it.
Speaker 2:You watched? The three amigos together and that was like it.
Speaker 1:We you watched the three amigos together. Yeah, that's what did it. That's that's kind of what lit the fire, like we were like could tell that that we there was an attraction, and then I'm just like, look, let's go, let's watch it here's. Let me tell you the story with the three amigos. If you've never seen it, you got to watch it. It's a classic.
Speaker 2:I've seen three. No, actually not. I'm thinking of those guys that hurt each other. No, that's not the three amigos.
Speaker 1:That's the opposite of the three amigos. Three amigos had Steve, uh, steve martin, chevy chase and martin short. So anyway, uh, we were working days and you know, you know how there's that you really like somebody and but there's that awkwardness, like man, I just when do you put it out there? And so we were talking and uh, she goes when are we to watch the three amigos together? And I said, well, let's watch it tonight. She's like okay, watch tonight, I'll come over after work, we'll watch three amigos. I'm like perfect. Well, she didn't know. I didn't have a VCR, nor did I own the movie. So I got off early, I had to go to my buddy's house to borrow a VCR and then I had to go down to the video store and buy the three Amigos. They didn't have streaming. This was in 1994.
Speaker 2:I know, I know, I know, I know, I know they didn't have streaming at all.
Speaker 1:That would have made it easy.
Speaker 2:It would have made it way easier. But that's cool, you put your mind to it. You're like okay. I got to do this. Maybe she didn't know that. Did you tell her?
Speaker 1:I may have told her after the fact, but she didn't need to know that it wasn't in her business.
Speaker 2:Yeah she didn't. She just needed to know that I had a VCR the three Amigos, that's it. And for everybody listening out there all those kids get a girl watch three Amigos. That's it. Let's get your res up. That's it, okay.
Speaker 1:We've had and our kids have, they've watched it, and so we've got these, all these three Amigo lines that we, that we have now become, these family jokes and family sayings. It's been kind of cool how that's. We've just taken that moment in our lives, how we met and we've just stretched that across 30 years and and included the kids, and, and, and they're all. They've been a, they've been a part of of that.
Speaker 2:Yeah and you know your life's been uh crazy. From one of her, like you know, like um and I, I kind of want to like accelerate a little bit, like so, like you know, like a fast forward, it's kind of that. So you marry Michelle, right? And when did Nick come into the picture?
Speaker 1:So Nick was before we got married Okay.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Nick was before Michelle and I got married Okay.
Speaker 2:Yeah, all right. Well, he's the reason why you're here. Well, he's not really here the reason why he's here. Actually, I'm thinking the wrong way but um something like that.
Speaker 1:So how long were you in the Navy until you got out?
Speaker 2:uh, just shy of five years yeah, five years, okay, and then uh you where did you go next?
Speaker 1:so Michelle was still in and Nick was born, and so michelle took orders to great lakes so we could be close to nick that's exactly what she said to me on my podcast. Oh good we got our story straight, yeah no, that's.
Speaker 2:that's beautiful that she did thought Nick's an awesome person. I was super excited that you said you were down to do this and I have to ask you a question. So, like Nick told me that you were devastated when he quit baseball.
Speaker 1:Devastated.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Here's the good news I was in Germany when he called me. It's probably good for him, but it was devastating. But of course, looking back, I mean he was so talented. The kid could do anything he wanted to do, it didn't matter. And when I first saw him riding his bike, because that's what could do, anything he wanted to do it didn't matter. And when I first saw him riding his bike, because that's what he told me he wanted to do.
Speaker 2:He's like oh, I want to ride my bike.
Speaker 1:I'm like you can ride your bike in the off season. They're going to pay for your college. You got to throw a ball and swing a piece of wood. What's the problem? I want to ride my bike. I want, would. What's the problem? I want to ride my bike. I want to ride my bike. Ride it in the off season. Now I want to do bmx. I knew I wasn't going to talk him out of it because he was a lot like me he is.
Speaker 2:He is like you from what we're talking. Like you, you guys, can you get bored pretty easily. That's why he wanted to be on the er floor yep, yep, so yeah, but I wouldn't change it.
Speaker 1:I mean, he's, he figured it out.
Speaker 2:Yeah, uh, he wanted me to tell you that. Uh, there was this one time where, uh, you're like you're not gonna make any money out of this, you're not gonna do anything with this. And then, um, he's uh making money at the circus and you're like, god damn, this son, this guy freaking, got me. I know exactly what he's talking about, man. So when he called me.
Speaker 1:I'm like you're not gonna make a nickel riding your bike, you're not gonna do it. And then fast forward to the very first time we went to watch him perform. Afterwards I'm like, do you remember when I said that he and he goes? Yeah, I'm like, yeah, I was wrong, you proved me wrong, and I think that was like the confirmation, like, yeah, he's, he's definitely a lot like me. I should stop trying to swim upstream and fight it. Just let him go. You know? Yeah, oh, yes.
Speaker 2:He's a super uh and we're, we're. We're into the same things too, Like books and stuff like that. But yeah, just a little short clip I wanted to do with Nick. We also had him on the podcast like a year ago. It was amazing. He's a good friend of mine, he's a growing family and I'm super proud of him.
Speaker 1:You're probably proud of him as well.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, yeah, no question about it yeah, so let's get uh back to you, though. So I uh, so you guys um moved to great lakes again, right, and then um what?
Speaker 1:happened after that? Um, so michelle got out of the navy, got off of active duty, and, um, I graduated from nursing school and so so you went to nursing, I went to nursing school. Yeah, yeah, I went to nursing school. Once we got back to Illinois and we were here for five or six years and then I don't know if you realize this Illinois is an expensive place to live really at least it was back in 1996.
Speaker 1:I did not know that. So this was 2002 and we at this point, you know, we had Nick and we had all four kids at this point, and I had to move kids at this point, yeah, and I had to move someplace where I could afford to take care of a family. And so, michelle being from Texas, we started looking into Texas and so we ended up moving to Texas, to East Texas, near Tyler. I took a job at a trauma center a level one trauma center there, okay, east texas, near tyler. I took a job in a trauma center a level one trauma center there, um, and bought a little house and started raising kids and trying to figure out life as an adult. You stayed in texas right through and through.
Speaker 2:We stayed in texas, yeah yeah for yeah, for a little while I said through and through yeah, just like where, where'd you go next?
Speaker 1:yeah, um, after texas we went to well, you know, trying to think, made it. So we went to indiana for a brief stint. We bought restaurants.
Speaker 2:That's a whole other story I know, I know this story yeah, I got it, I got it right.
Speaker 1:I got the story, so we were in indiana for a brief amount of time back to Texas. Great pizza, by the way. I would argue it's probably the best pizza that's ever existed in the United States, in the United.
Speaker 2:States. Okay, Italy has some pretty good pizza.
Speaker 1:And then we went to Germany and then back to texas and then to arkansas. Where's germany? Like incredible, incredible, you could travel easily. Um, you could travel inexpensively and you could see buildings that were older than the united states, that were still functional. Yeah, they built things to last in germany, yeah it was a great experience.
Speaker 2:it was you, probably, as a history buff, went to go see all the history as well. Things to last in Germany. Yeah, it was a great experience. It was you, probably, as a history buff, went to go see all the history books as well.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think MacArthur's buried in Luxembourg, and so he's the only general, american general buried in a non-American soil. You may have to look that up. If I'm wrong, just edit it, but I think it's MacArthur. No, I'm not editing it out.
Speaker 2:You're like, look at this jerk, he doesn't know anything. See, he's dumb.
Speaker 1:But no, I think it's MacArthur that's born in Luxembourg, so go over and see his grave. That was impressive Then you know, then you have the concentration camps and yeah, with the Auschwitz and Poland and stuff, yeah.
Speaker 2:So sad stuff, but let's stay on it. Good, now right? Yeah, let's just depart from that, yeah, yeah so so so you gotta be a like working full time and it was a 4.0, is that correct?
Speaker 1:That's what they tell me. That's what they tell you. Yeah, yeah, I was. It was during COVID, by the way. So I was the manager of a large inpatient unit we were the COVID containment unit, and I had just started my MBA prior to this. And so what were my options? I could I could quit and wait till the dust settles. I could suck it up and push through it, and that's what I did. I learned when I went to nursing school. Now, I was on the GI bill. However, I consider I paid for that right Because I was the one that had to serve to get the benefit of the GI bill. So that was my time. So I learned then that I'm going to hold the instructors to a high level because I'm paying for it out of my own pocket. And number two, I'm going to, I'm going to be a high performer and I'm not going to accept anything less than the top 4.0. And so I got a 4.0 and my master's my mba program you were working at the same time.
Speaker 1:I had a full, probably a one and one and a half times, because again, it was covid. So it was about 60 hours a week respect man, that's awesome, that's.
Speaker 2:That's really cool. I'm thinking about going back to school as well, um, just just like for the knowledge you know. Like it's just knowledge is power and I love that. And um, one thing I did want to ask you is, like you went from nurse to like more on like the executive part of like the hospital and uh, I kind of wanted to get through that again, get into that because of uh, like your hospital administrator and uh, nick told me you were in charge of like three hospitals now and uh, I just want to see how that progressed like from your mba to like knowing hospitals.
Speaker 1:Yeah, uh, so, um. So I was, like I said I was, the manager of this large floor is one of the largest floors in the hospital and then covet hit um and, in a time where nursing staffing was exceedingly challenging, I had an incredible team of nurses that were committed to taking care of people and my job was to lead them in doing that. And there's a lot of metrics that we look at that determines how well you're performing, and all those important metrics were flying off the charts, and it's because of the team I had. And the president at the hospital at the time reached out to me and said what are you doing up there? I mean, how are you? And I said I'm just leading a bunch of high-performing, super-intelligent nurses. Is all I'm doing. They're making me look good. He said well, we need to get you influencing more people than just the handful of people you have up there, and so, with my experience in restaurants, I have an affinity for entrepreneurial and operations.
Speaker 1:And when you get to that point, I had to either make a decision do I go leadership up the nursing route, where I become the nursing executive, or do I go up the other side, on the operations side, and then I become part of the operations and strategy of the hospital. I just was so much better suited for the operation side, and so he became my mentor and um hired me into a position, uh, as a director of business development for the hospital where was? This? This was in 2000 or 2020, why are you?
Speaker 2:asking me dates.
Speaker 1:You know, because I want, because I, I don't see the progression, man I'm sorry, I don't know, I, I, I, I say that because I think once you're 50, you shouldn't have to give dates. So, sorry, no, it's okay. It just takes me a second to think because I, I gotta, I gotta, I gotta see the thing in my head. So 2021, 2021 is when I got promoted into the director of business development for this hospital and, um, here was my orientation. I reported directly to the president. I said what, what? What's my job? What do I do?
Speaker 1:He said you eat what you kill. Go out and get business and build relationships and just do what you do. What does that mean? Um, eat what? So it's a different philosophy when you own, when you own your own business. So let's, let's just take a step back.
Speaker 1:When I own the pizza places, yeah, my, everything that I was responsible for my wife, my kids, all my bills relied on the, my ability to sell pepperoni pizza. And if I didn't sell pepperoni pizza, I was gonna have problems. And so you have a different approach to how you do business, and there's this kill what you eat mentality. You go get it, yeah, right, you just go get it all. Gas, no brakes, yep. So I carry that. I carry that into health care. Same mentality, because health care is competitive everywhere you go, and I carry that same mentality into the, the leadership side. Uh, and health care of all gas, no breaks. Eat what you kill, go get it. And we had some successes in a short amount of time in that role. I was in that role for a year and then I was recruited to go take over a hospital in arkansas where, where were you?
Speaker 1:uh, the for the texas, texas, texas yeah, all this, the, the covid, the nursing manager role everything was in texas, okay, and then I get recruited to go to arkansas to take over a small hospital in arkansas by the same guy. He had been recruited to take over the market in arkansas and pulled me, have to take over this hospital and, uh, it was the same thing. That year was in 23. It was very challenging coming out of COVID A lot of challenges for healthcare organizations, a lot of funding for COVID was pulled back and so a lot of managing of expenses had to take place. At the same time, you still have to maintain a culture and you still have to deliver high quality care, of course. So we the hospital was not in bad shape, but there were some. There were some headwinds, and so we were able to get over those really quickly and kind of point, that hospital yeah so when you look at a hospital's performance, there's things you look at.
Speaker 1:You look at quality several quality metrics that you look at that you, as a consumer, expect. You expect to be delivered high quality care. You don't look for a mediocre hospital to go get your care for them. So there are metrics that you can look at to tell you how well a hospital performs. One of the things that you can look at is the Center for Medicare has star ratings. The things that you can look at is uh, the center for medicare has star ratings. The highest starting is a five star, which something like two or three percent of the hospitals. It's very, very elite.
Speaker 1:The hospital I was in went from a three star to a four star, and it's all based on a number of different metrics quality metrics, patient experience metrics, how safe is your hospital, and so that was one of the things we were able to do. More importantly and this is kind of my leadership style is what does the culture of your hospital look like, and how do you tell? How can you tell what a hospital culture looks like? Well, you do what we call employee engagement surveys. Let the employees tell us how they feel about where they work and as a leader. That feedback is gold, because it tells you what are you doing well, what are you doing mediocre, and what do you suck at. And if you don't have a team at the table to figure out how to fix where you suck, the hospital culture is going to fall apart.
Speaker 1:There's one quote I've stood by Culture eats strategy for breakfast've stood by culture eats strategy for breakfast. And without culture strategy isn't what the paper is written on. So the um, the culture was a little bit challenging. Uh, the engagement was a little bit challenging, but that's right up my alley. I dove in head first, started engaging, engaging the team. I started showing up, being visible, uh, removing barriers.
Speaker 2:Was that, uh, different for the team than where they're used to as a?
Speaker 1:woman Completely, yeah, completely. Um, um, the guy I replaced I don't know the guy. I never met him. If he walked in the room, I wouldn't know he was here. He's right behind you, I know. I saw the shadow and I'm sitting there. Oh God, he just showed up.
Speaker 1:He was very financially focused, and when you're a leader and you're financially focused, you forget about the people that are driving the finances. And I'm the opposite. I focus on the people understanding if, if I meet the needs of the team, they're going to drive the performance of the hospital and I'm not going to have to worry about finances because they're going to deliver the highest quality care and it's going to be a place where people want to come to get their care and people want to come to deliver their care. So I had a completely opposite philosophy and so I just dove in head first, like with the leadership team what can I do to make your life better when you come to work? And we just started building relationships, number one in the hospital, number two in the community, because the community confidence was a little low, and not with the hospital. So I just I got out in the community and got in front of people and talked about the great things we do at the hospital and so our employee engagement.
Speaker 1:Really, the one line that matters is favorability. Like how do you rate your favorability of your job right now? One to five, five being the best one, one being I wish I wasn't here and we were at 3.2. When I took over the hospital, we were at 4.1, the last survey that we took before I moved on. And guess what? The finances corrected themselves. The performance of the finances corrected themselves. The performance of the hospital corrected themselves. You could walk in and there was a palpable feeling that this place was different um, it's amazing man yeah, yeah, and then I did so good.
Speaker 1:He said well, I want you to go to this other hospital in the system in arkansas and do the same thing, and that was a bit challenging. It was um, it was, it was in bad shape.
Speaker 2:There's it was decades of multiple ceos coming through with different visions and then not having the longevity and then leaving can you explain like a day in life, like like being like first, uh, the hospital that's, like you know, like in bad shape, like the plan that you had, and then, like you know, the reward, obviously after?
Speaker 1:yeah, um. Well, again, you got to know where the fire's at. Yeah, right, and so that was the first thing I needed to do was figure out what's burning down and where we need to focus first, and you can historically look back at performance, and so I was able to look back at the employee engagements and realize this is probably the first place we need to focus is to engage the team, and it's really. Healthcare is such a hard job, I don't care what. So I've been in healthcare from a patient care tech to a ward clerk, to a phlebotomist, to a nurse, to the CEO.
Speaker 1:I mean I've been in every role. I can tell you there's not an easy role in healthcare. I've served radiology, I've served lab. There is not an easy job in healthcare. And I think, having that background and living in those roles, I have a greater understanding what people go through when they come to work every day. And I don't pass any judgment. I don't walk on a floor and take a snapshot and create a reality. I just don't do that. It's unsafe for you. You can very quickly develop confirmation bias if you, if that's the way you carry yourself and um you don't want to look like an aristocrat, basically right, you look like an empty suit.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and there's nothing worse for a healthcare professional to have a leader that looks like an empty suit.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and you just killed it. And I still don't understand. Are you in charge of the doctors and the nurses, or are you in charge of the doctors and the nurses? Are you in charge of, like, down to the janitor?
Speaker 1:So it depends on the role, and I say this with complete sincerity. I am not in charge of anybody and no one works for me. I work for them Because if I don't have them, I don't have a job, and so it's my job to work for them, to figure out how I can remove their barriers, get them what they need. Now to answer your question, the answer is yes. There are roles I've been in where I've been over everybody, doctors to the janitors. There's roles where I've been over service lines. So it just depends.
Speaker 2:Currently, um, it's mainly service lines that I'm over, um, but I've I've been in roles where it's been everybody so, like, first of all, congratulations with all you've done in the past few years, because this is recent, I thought this wasn't recent and I can only see you being like this. That's amazing that you were able to that. The people were amazing enough to make you better. People were amazing enough to make you better Because, like, what I say in the military is, there's no such thing as bad soldiers, it's bad leaders, and you were in the military too. So, like I mean, like I just got mad respect that you went for that and I was going gonna say something.
Speaker 1:Uh, I was gonna like see how, like you think about health care, like being in the health care's like you know, like job yeah, health care is hard, uh, and it doesn't matter where you're at in healthcare whether you're a provider or a consumer, healthcare is hard. There's so many moving parts and challenges to the delivery of healthcare that is not seen by the consumer and, unfortunately, it's very easy to cast an incorrect or inaccurate perception of health care into the general public based on an incident or an isolated incident. And that's the biggest challenge is how do you deliver care compassionate, quality care in such a way that is still profitable? People hate that Healthcare shouldn't be profitable, right? I don't know how you can't be profitable. And here's what I'll tell you industry secret Hospitals operate about a 3% margin 3%.
Speaker 1:So that's small If you're not really business-minded. What does that mean? That's small? It means 3% of what you've generated in revenue is considered profit, and that's the money you have to upgrade your delivery system. That's the money you have for raises. That's the money you have for CAT scans. That's the money you have for raises. That's the money you have for CAT scans. That's the money you have for MRIs. And, by the way, if you need a new CAT scan in your hospital, you might as well figure you're going to spend a couple million bucks on it. So that's that 3% that you have to figure out. How do you improve the delivery of care with such a small, narrow margin?
Speaker 2:It's astonishing that you were able to turn around all these hospitals and obviously you said it was for the people around you. But it's also you, man, it's your character. You're not like all high and mighty when you walk on the floor. You're like what's's up, man, like are you having a good day? Is everything okay? You know, and um, to to make these uh people like, not to make them better, but to to help them get better, you know, and have a better experience at work. That's the best thing. That's what I try to do for my nurses all the time and uh, and they, they love it here, because I try not to give them like, like, be like pouty and upset, like, oh, like. I hate my life, this that you know. You just gotta live life to the max. That's why we uh started the podcast, you know, to get a voice out.
Speaker 1:Of course, I've had my demons and like the problems that I've had, but like there's a.
Speaker 2:It's a crazy experience from going from like a nurse to like a mba covid and you jump from hospital, hospital, hospital and you're um just uh, killing it and uh, I was gonna ask you, uh something. So when I got injured and I know you don't know a lot about insurance, but when I got injured, uh, I was under dry care, obviously, and uh, I, um, I uh the recruiter told me the Army's always going to have my back, the Army's always going to have my back. And I got injured in a car accident. Everyone thinks I got shot. No, I got injured in a car accident. I wasn't driving, I was going to see my family for my birthday. It was three days after my birthday, my 20th. It was about nine years ago, on March 24th 2016.
Speaker 2:So I got injured and I'm like just focusing on myself and I'm thinking like, damn, I'm not going overseas anymore, I'm not going to be this soldier, you know, and like I get out and I learn, I learn, like all the things they tell me, like because it was a paradox, man, like my life was flipped upside down, like it's. Like you, like black was white, white was black. You know it was so surreal and with you being like into health care, healthcare I got slapped with a 1.6 million dollar bill and I didn't know what to do. I was like, wow, $250,000 to stay at Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago. So I know you worked at these hospitals. Like I was just wondering, like, do you have any like insight on that? Why, like the Army didn't have my back or the insurance company didn't do anything?
Speaker 1:That's where I'm confused, because you should have been covered by Tricare and Tricare unless where you were at was not in network for Tricare. It's messy, I'm telling you. We'd have to have a series of podcasts to go over insurance. Okay, so it's so messy. Yeah, but unless tricare was, if that wasn't an in-network provider of your care, meaning, or maybe they didn't accept tricare and I'll tell you so. Government payers, tricare, medicare, medicaid they pay the lowest, they reimburse the lowest to the health care providers, right? So? So if they have a contract, they're going to tell the provider. Here's what we're going to pay you, based on the diagnosis code or the cpt code, which probably doesn't mean anything to you. But so the organization understands what the reimbursement is, and and then what they do is they issue the bill to tricare and tricare pays the bill. Yeah, but what I don't know is why did tricare didn't pay your bill unless it wasn't, unless the organization didn't accept tricare as your insurance? Now you become a self-pay, which is sounds like what. What has happened?
Speaker 2:yeah.
Speaker 2:So, like we were, I was at the icu and I woke up and my family's around me, the art, the army this guy stood at my, my, my platoon sergeant stood at my door for 48 hours until I woke up, which was like you know, like, like, amazingly, I, I didn't know, I was that like, like I didn't know, like I meant that much to them, you know. And when I got there they said you're going to Walter Reed and that's not a spinal cord injury place at all. And they're like, okay, well, maybe Atlanta, like, but my family's like literally the best hospital is in Chicago for spinal cord injury.
Speaker 2:I'm like. So my family fought tooth and nail with Department of Defense and then they said okay fine, you can go to RIC. So maybe that's where they were like, yeah, like, but we're going to be like, like we're not going to tell you that. We're not paying for it. So it was a pretty uh crazy experience at like 21 to hear that I owed that much money to a hospital just because I was going to see my friends and family for my birthday, you know yeah, yeah, and so do you.
Speaker 1:Did track your pay any of it?
Speaker 2:They did. So I'll explain more when we get off the podcast, but I want to add this on a good note Like I said, you jumped from hospital to hospital to hospital and you had this mentor, this president of the hospital, that keeps bringing you with and telling you where to go and stuff. I have a mentor, just like that. I always recommend this book everyone. It's a broken record, but I read, I read, uh, mastery by robert green and uh, it explains. Like like, uh, you find a master. You're like, okay, I want to be like that guy and you become an apprentice. It usually takes about seven years and then you like start becoming a master. You know, and it seems like you're mastering this pretty quickly. Man, like you're understanding. Like you know, it's about the people. It's not about the money, it's about the hospital, it's about the people that are coming in. They get quality care and that's why you're getting, like, all these opportunities. You went to green bay, right, that was your next place green bay.
Speaker 1:Uh, yeah, well, ryan lander, it's.
Speaker 2:It's um the north woods of wisconsin, four hours yeah and uh, you're just like killing it, man, like for everybody out there that's listening, because you probably are listening, because it's not a, it's a podcast, but, uh, if you have something that you want to do and you put your mind to it, freaking, do it seriously.
Speaker 2:If this guy went through during covid did a job like, uh, like time, time and a half of work and he got his mba, don't be crying about going to school or trying to figure out a career. There's anything. Eat what you kill, exactly, eat what you kill. That's a beautiful saying, you know. And then, like, I like my saying as well. I'm not going to trump your saying, but, like you know, there's no such thing as bad soldiers or bad leaders. So, now that you're in this area and you kind of found your calling, in a way, it you kind of found your calling. It's kind of weird, like you went bankrupt with a pizza place and now you're like overseeing the line of a hospital.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think that's important, that if you haven't failed at anything, it's because you haven't tried anything right?
Speaker 1:I've failed I've failed, but I understand failure. Failure is not a person and um, to me, if you fail, that means you're trying. So you get up and you keep trying because, yeah, yeah, when, when you stop trying you're not going to accomplish anything, you're going to become complacent, and then the world doesn't need another complacent person. There's plenty of them out there. Yeah, right, of course, the beautiful thing is the bar in the world is not very high right now. I mean, really, it takes very little effort to rise above the median. And you know, I, I just I got to say this is sitting across from you, um, and you know, I, just I got to say this sitting across from you.
Speaker 1:People can bitch and moan all day about their life, and then I sit across from you and hearing your story and knowing what you've gone through, and I say my back hurts. Who gives a shit? Your back hurts, suck it up right. Because I sit across from you and your life was turned upside down. And this is another saying that I love.
Speaker 1:It's when you change the way you look at things. The things you look at change and you, whether you know it or not, you've done that and it's it's. I have a very dear friend that has a very similar story to yours, minus the trauma, and I'm trying to. He gets those moments and I'm sure you've gone through it. We get those moments where you're motivated and you're going to conquer the world, and the next minute you're like what am I even doing? Yeah, and so I try to continually motivate this guy, like today is just another day. You have to get up and you've got to figure out how you're going to be better today than you were yesterday. Cause I go back to, there's enough mediocre people in the world that we don't need more of them, but we got to have people that are willing to rise up and lead for the greater of the good. And that's what you're doing. And lead for the greater of the good 100%. That's what you're doing. You're doing exactly that.
Speaker 2:I mean, like I could have accepted the like. So the one thing is like with DAPTA, I don't accept the injury. I'm going to keep going, keep doing everything possible to where I can do it, to where I can get out of this chair, which is what I do. And on top of it, I do this podcast because I want to motivate people out there and tell them hey, if you're having a problem, dude, you can go outside and have a nice. You can go outside and literally take a breath. Like I can't, like I can't do that. I miss that so much. So sometimes I like say, like I was saying, like, take a breath for me, because, like, because literally that's what you can do. You are, I did not know. I did not know that it is a privilege to be able to breathe and not write.
Speaker 2:I did not know that until this happened. So you learn from the mistakes and then you get through it. And talking to you today, man, I guess that's the theme of this podcast we learn through our mistakes. So that's how we prevailed and persevered, got through it, and it's just been like you know, prevailed and you know persevered, got through it, and it's just. It's been amazing talking to you, chris Blair.
Speaker 2:Chris Blair, it's been amazing talking to you and I'm happy you were able to make some time to come out here. I know you got a busy schedule and you got any last words for anybody out there.
Speaker 1:Yeah for you. You had made a comment earlier about you. You've been thinking about going to school. When do you stop thinking and start doing? All gas, no brakes, max. All gas, no brakes. All gas, no brakes, baby. That's all I got to say, man.
Speaker 2:If you guys liked this video, please subscribe. Turn that red button into gray. You'll love it. We're going to keep pushing out vlogs. We're going to keep pushing out podcasts. I'm paralyzed from a neck-down breathe-through machine, but that doesn't stop me from following my dreams and doing what I love to do. I don't got an excuse, and neither should you. We'll see you all in the next one. Still good, it's just a different vibe, just a couple of puns all trying to get by.
Speaker 1:Just a couple of teens all trying to survive. Live to the max, cause you don't live it twice. Couple green thumbs all heights okay, just a couple.