#15 Medicine, Mistakes, and Mastery: A Deep Dive with Healthcare Maverick Dr. Peter Antevy

What was the like my own like superpower or secret sauce type of thing. But if I had to put it all together, I think that the term servant leadership is probably the best way to describe my style. And basically what is servant leadership is when you prioritize serving the greater good.

Hey everybody. Welcome to the TIMSA Leadership Podcast. My name is Eric Claus. I'm happy to be your host. I feel like I'm getting ready to interview a rock star in emergency medicine. And my goodness, what a thrill it is to have Dr. Peter and Heavy here with us today. Dr. And Savvy.

Thanks for joining us, Eric. I'm so happy to be here. So happy.

Oh my goodness. Well, we're going to have a great time. I wanted to give you a proper introduction and for those that don't know you, which is hard for me to believe because I think everybody knows you, but I wanted to just kind of summarize a little bit about what you've been able to accomplish. So here we go. So you have been the EMS Medical director for several agencies in Florida. Your contributions have truly been nothing short of exceptional. You work with over 2,500 paramedics. You are board certified in both EMS and Pediatric Emergency medicine. You have won numerous awards including the NAEMT Medical Director of the Year award. You have been featured on 60 Minutes and you are a sought out national speaker in every circuit and fascinating journey with that and we're going to be talking about that. You're also a very successful entrepreneur and the founder and chief medical officer of Hand Heavy, which is a pediatric healthcare technology company that's committed to improving the treatment of critically ill and injured children in emergency setting settings. Your innovative approach has been transformative and your work is changing lives. And I could go on and on, but my goodness, what an absolute thrill it is to be talking to you. You, you are in beautiful Florida and I'm kind of jealous. I wish I was there in person, but soak up some of the sunshine and pass it along to us. But man, what a pleasure.

Thank you, Eric. So happy to be here. I'm so happy that you're doing this. Leadership is such an important topic, something that I'm kind of learning along the way. And yes, the weather here is. It happens to be. We have a beautiful week here. So it's about 67 degrees, no clouds in the sky, so we will send some of that your way.

Well, that's incredible. We've been friends for quite some time and I got to join you on your webinar recently. Talking about a project that we're doing and certainly what a thrill. And I got to meet you several years ago, was down there speaking at a conference and we got to hang out and our families got to hang out, and we've been friends for many years and to, to have this conversation. But yeah, it's, it's, it's absolutely, absolutely incredible. I know you're a busy guy.

I know you're busy too. And the fact that you came down to speak at our conference and when you spoke the other day, by the way, on Friday, I had so many people text me and that our conference folks want you back. So FYI, I'm going to be connecting you with them after today's talk.

That's awesome. Well, I consider traveling there anytime, so it's, it's awesome. So, Dr. An, we got so much to talk about. And I know when we did this pre interview discussion, we spoke about an hour and a half. I was taking so many notes. I'm like, I cannot wait to share some of the things that we talked about. And I wanted to just sort of jump right in about your experience. You knew you've been a physician for a while, but this kind of dream, you kind of felt called to emergency medicine, specifically in pediatrics, when you were a kid. Kind of walk us through that journey.

Yeah, it's a very weird thing that when you're young and you, you kind of know what you want to go into. And I didn't realize that until my aunt and Barbara. Many years ago, she found a middle school yearbook. And, you know, it has all the photos and it probably was even before middle. I don't know what it was, but it was me on a tricycle. So embarrassing. I had like clothes from the 1970s on and, and I have a twin brother. So, like, I think my parents dressed us the same. But then it says, what do you want to do when you get older? And it's a pediatrician. And I think it's because of the, the doc who, with Dr. Patel may rest in peace. He was so good and we used to love going there. And I just remember having this feeling about him and he was just like one of the nicest. Like, he's very empathetic. We used to get toys every time. And so maybe it was because of him, but it's what I wanted to do ever since I was younger.

That's incredible. And what a gift to be able to know that and to be able to chase your dream from a young early age and your path from Physician to entrepreneur is truly not traditional. And you've made the transition and kind of share that story behind really making that. That transition. And what inspired you to venture into entrepreneur in your company, developing your company?

Well, it was completely by accident, Eric. I'll tell you that. I used to be embarrassed to tell this story, but now I tell it because it's become therapeutic for me. But in 2005, you know, I trained at. I trained at two of the top children's hospitals in the country. And I was supposed to be the smartest guy in the room. And I get down to Joe DiMaggio, which is a level one trauma center, tertiary children's hospital. It's where everybody comes, right? And so I was on. I was on shift. And I'll never forget the day. I'll never forget the nurse. I'll never forget the room the child was in. But we had a child come in in severe anaphylaxis. And the nurse comes out and says, stopping again right now. She says, severe anaphylaxis. I said, no, no problem. Now, you know, my heart rate's going up a little bit. And I said, let's get some epi. And then she said, how much epi? And remember, I was newly out of fellowship, so I didn't know it as well as I know it now. So she saw me struggling, so she brought me the length Ace tape, and she pointed to. At the 1 to 1000. And I said, yeah, give that. And it was 2.1 ML of 1 to 1000 or the 1 milligram per milliliter concentration.

We gave it. I ended up giving albuterol, St Medrol, et cetera. And this girl's heart rate and blood pressure go through the roof. Well, her hives went away and her wheezing got better. But I. I didn't know at the time that I had given her. Instead of 0.21 milliliters, I gave her 2.1 milliliters. And when I say I didn't know I made the mistake, it's because at the moment, I thought I had the right dose. And nobody was there to say, oh, by the way, buddy, you messed up. Fast forward a couple of years and I become a medical director. Thank God for that. Chief Julie Downey found me and said, we want you to apply. And I did, became the medical director, fast forward. And I started seeing the same mistakes over and over and over again. And I said, wait a minute. I gave that same dose a few years ago, and then I started seeing fentanyl overdoses medad overdoses, which are we call errors of commission, meaning you gave a drug, it was wrong whether it's under or over. But then there's what we call errors of omission. And any healthcare provider who you speak to, they've been in the field has made this error. Meaning they have a child with a problem and they don't give the med that the child needs. Why? Because they don't know the dose or they don't know how to mix it, or they've never given it before or whatever excuse they make up. And then they deliver a child to the hospital without the epi, without the midazolam, not having given fentanyl for pain, not having done RSI or DSI because, well, let somebody else do it. Those are not errors that are ever being reported, by the way. Those, those are 50% of the errors that happen in pediatrics today. So to answer your question, I knew that I was in trouble from that moment. And you know, that wasn't the only mistake that I had made. And so now I started to have a lot of stress that I'm realizing when the nurses are asking me for a dose that it just doesn't come rolling off the tongue. And the next code, I have this now with this 7:00am call, right. You know, our shift starts 7:00am to 7:00pm and always that morning.

Is when you have the kids who have, who are on cardiac arrest, the infant who had some event, whether we call it sueds or whatever you want to call it, they used to call it sigs. And they, they brought this child in right as I'm starting my shift.

Now this was one room over from where the other case happened. Now we're in what we call room five, our recess room. And remember this is probably July of 2005. I just started and the nurse. So I'm at the head of the bed and now I'm, I'm asking for medication, but I don't know the dosing. So the nurse gives me at that time we had the braslo tape encased in a very large piece of wood. I mean, it's embarrassing. Now some people will know exactly what I'm talking about because people were stealing the tape. So someone decided to encase it in a. It's about six feet long.

Yep.

The nurse hands me a six foot piece of two by four as I'm running the cone, right? And I said, what? Like, I'm looking at like, what do you want me to do with this thing? I've never used it in la, we never use it. In Pittsburgh, we never used it because we used age literally. Like, if I turn, I would probably kill two more people. That's how bad it was. So I started, I had that bad experience and I said to myself, wait a minute, are you telling me that at the other two hospitals, top children's hospitals, we never did this? Now I'm at a community hospital and this is what they do. So I started calling a lot of people. I started calling my mentors back in Pittsburgh, one of them being Bob Hickey. And Bob is an amazing human being. Super smart, great at the bedside, great at research. He happens to be the second author of Pals. And I said, okay, he's perfect because Bob never used link. Bob only used age. Every code that we were in, I would walk right behind Bob. He said, how old is this kid? Three? And then he started rattling off everything he needed. I called him up, I said, bob, I'm having a. I mean, I'm a zero stress kind of guy. Like, nothing. I think my wife doesn't like this part, but, like, nothing bothers me. I don't get upset. I don't get angry. I kind of like, you know, I just kind of go with the flow. But I said to. I said, bob, I'm. I'm getting. I'm feeling this stress that I've never felt before because I feel like I'm an incompetent human being. I'm an incompetent doctor. The people here don't trust me. And I said, you used age here? They're making me use a lane based tape. I said, why is that? He says, yeah, I don't know. I said, but you wrote the guidelines. You wrote pouts. And he said, yeah. He says, there's some data on length, there's some data on age. He says, I think age is better. And I said, I agree. So we hung up the phone. And then I spent the next few months trying to solve this problem. I never intended to start a business, Eric. I, in fact, was so embarrassed of myself that once I finally did figure out a solution to this problem, I didn't tell anybody for two years.

The nurses got wind and they started to say, hey, and Tevi, something's better about you lately in these codes. What are you doing differently? And I said, nah, it's just, you know, it's just, it's coming to me now.

And what one nurse I'm very close friends with today, Maricard, she says, pete, he said, stop the bs, whatever it is that you did. He said, you're giving a lecture to 200 people next week in the big hospital auditorium. There's going to be doctors, nurses, paramedics, they're all going to be there and some pediatric drowning. He's like, can you at least teach them the little trick? I said fine. So I give this whole talk which I put a lot of work into and then almost jokingly I put up two slides where I taught everyone this little method on, on my hand, 13579 and the whole thing, I taught people how to dose epi and a few other medications just by hearing the child's age. And the lecture ended and you know, after lecture ends, you know how it goes. You've given them a lot of talks. You have one or two people usually come up and talk to you and that type of thing. I had a line of like 50 people and this is early in the days where I hadn't been, I hadn't been a, you know, a speaker like now and I've spoken hundreds of times in other places. But this is one of my early talks and I had a line of people and guess what? They all wanted my last two slides.

They could care less about this amazing talk I gave.

And I came home to my wife and I said, I said hon, there's a problem here that a lot of people have, not just me.

Yeah.

And listen, my wife is non medical so she said I have to see it to believe it. So fast forward a couple more months and I'm giving another talk. And this time I gave the talk kind of more along the lines of medication dosing and so forth. And I brought two people up to the front of the room. One who was like super medic. I'd been teaching pals for like you know, 3,000 years like a self declared super medic. And I just picking people out of the crowd and then I pick a student, like a brand new student. Actually this video is on YouTube. If people go back in the history of The Hent Heavy YouTube account and we, we, we had them, we had them timed and I gave them each, I think it was like three or four medications and I wanted the volume dose. The, the super medic couldn't get one dose correct. It was kind of a setup because I knew that the lane face tape didn't have any of those medications true. That were correct for that etiology. So the EPI one to a thousand that I screwed up on that dose is on the tape for resuscitation through the ET tube. So it turns out that the ET tube dose for Epi1 2000 is 10 times more than the. Than the anaphylaxis dose. It turns out that the fentanyl dose at the time was the RSI dose three times higher. The midazolam dose was three times higher. Right. So I kind of picked those medications knowing that, that, that they would never figure it out. The, the student figured it out within 12 seconds. Right. So my wife looks at me at that moment. Her jaw was on the floor and she came home and she's like, I can't believe what I just saw. And it was at that moment that, because, listen, the more people get to know me, you realize that, like, I'm kind of more like the vision guy.

Yeah.

But like, I'm not so good at actually, like.

Operationally getting stuff done, like taking something from point A to point B. That's not me. And so my wife is that person. She's incredible. She's an incredible leader. She's an incredible human being, incredible business person. And so that's ultimately how the business began when I started making this thing. A little badge buddy, a little book. Then we made a bag and people started calling us and saying, we need that. And we said, you need what? They said, well, we want you to come to our department and get us set up. And I said, well, okay, I don't know. I have no idea what to do. Right. In January, January of 2020 of 2010, we incorporated. And then probably the first true customer we had was until. Was not until 2012.

Wow.

And then, and then fast forward and here we are today. But that's, that's, that's how I started. Not a business person.

Yeah.

By any search.

That's a fascinating story. And, you know, being A medic since 1990, I've been in those situations where, you know, we're. We hear fake it till you make it right. What you. You can't under stress. And then you gotta an infant that is not breathing and not responsive. You need to make it incredibly simple. And what I wanted to ask you, this is the fascinating part to me, you've been doing this 14 years a long time. Share with us quickly, if you don't mind, a success story which has got to drive you to do this right? I mean, yes, you have a product, yes, you're a business person, but this thing is saving lives. Give us an example of what you've heard. Feedback. I know you hear it all the.

Time.

So I wish I could, I could show you my. On my screen what we've done and how that, that is what drives us this, our entire company, period. Hard stop. Because I'm not driven by finances. I am, I'm purely driven by these outcomes. And so what, what we did is a few years ago we started, we created a challenge coin. And you know, we said we're only going to give the challenge coin to people who actually submit to us. Something that, that, that shows that their, their crew, their personnel did something special. And you know, we always say it doesn't have to be a save. Right. Because, you know, oftentimes you can do great work. But the child, for example, it was a futile case. As an example. Just real quick, last night we had a case of a child, a 16 month old, who was wearing these rosary beads. Almost like it looked like rosary beads, but it's, it's like a necklace. Parents put these on their children and the child strangulated himself during sleep, on accident.

Oh my goodness.

The parents, the parents in the, you know, when they wake up in the morning, they, they, they called 91 1, but they, they jumped in the car at the same time and they started going towards the hospital. My crew show up, actually, not the 911 telecommunicator, told them to stop and start doing CPR on the side of the road. And they did. Okay, we, we show up and we're now a mile away from the hospital. And by the way, I just got off the call with my EMS captain who told me the story, so it's fresh in my mind. And he said, so, you know, any other place people would have just said, other mile away, let's just load and go. No, they didn't. They stayed on scene. They, they got an eye gel. They put the femoral IO in. They did three rounds, three rounds of epi, great BLS care. On top of all that. Of course, now unfortunately, it turns out that his legs were stiff, his jaw was stiff, his arms were stiff. So it's unfortunate, it was probably a long time, but when they showed up to the emergency department, the ER doctor looked at them like, this is, this is amazing. Like he said, you did everything. You did everything. So I say that because if this kid would have had a chance at survival, then we would have saved that child. Yeah, we get Eric, I can't even tell you. I already had the, this little link that we've given people to actually submit cases. I just got three yesterday. So we have now hundreds and hundreds of cases. I haven't shared any of these cases publicly. Even though, even though the folks say Please feel free to share it. But we actually, every Friday I write, I take those, all those submissions, and I write a personal letter, and that letter talks about the case and it names all the people who are involved. We print out the number of letters, we give them all the number of coins that they need, and then we ship them. But we say very explicitly, we're not taking the credit, we don't want any of the credit. We just want to highlight the great work that these folks are doing. Because, you know, it turns out, and maybe we'll get this later in the conversation, but it turns out that it's not just the app. Right. There are other people trying to create an app, but what they don't understand is that it's not the app. It's the, it's. It's the, it's the confidence that you have before you get to the call, it's the confidence you have during the call. It's the ability to talk to mom, looking mom and dad in the eyes. It's the ability to speak to them whether the outcome was good or bad. Right. And there's no app in the world that's going to make that happen.

Yeah.

And that, that is really what we've come to understand that our true mission is. It's not just to save the life of these ill and injured children, but it's also to save the lives of the family members who oftentimes will have divorce, they'll commit suicide, they'll start drugs and alcohol because no one cares or no one talks to them. It's about the healthcare provider, the paramedic, the nurse, the doctor who goes home and they put their head on the pillow and they cry at night. Those are the folks that we are trying to, to help with what we're doing rather than just say, here's an app, it's going to fix the day. So it's been a really, really incredible journey personally for us to learn what we are here doing and how to do it better.

Well, it's making a difference. And I can share with you. And you know this. I'm just speaking it. Just because, you know, you've been open about that, is you think you are prepared. You go through training, you, you're, you know, the algorithm, you can draw it out, but, man, when that stress hits, you cannot remember your tool is making a difference. And I appreciate that overview. It is. It's incredibly important and I know it's very easy to find the information and we'll talk a little bit more about it. And I wanted to make the transition. And one of the things I've been fascinated with is really your journey from a leader and looking at this. And I had outlined a couple of questions, and I wanted to ask you, what are some of the biggest challenges that you faced to growing your. Your company? You almost got 50 employees right now. That is a big company. So kind of walk us through some of the biggest challenges you faced and what you've done to sort of overcome them.

That's a great question. I appreciate all your. All your comments. Thank Eric. I appreciate that very much. I will tell you this. The biggest challenge that was on day one is still today, which is the fact that we're challenging dogma, challenging what people know. What people do, what they've been told to do, what they believe is right, is very difficult in healthcare. And anybody out there who's trying to create something unique and novel in healthcare, the initial reaction that people will have is, get that out of my face. That doesn't work. And when you say, why doesn't that work? Well, that's because that's how we've done things. So the biggest obstacle that I had to overcome were my own colleagues. And, you know, I mean, I'll say it publicly because I've said it to them. I'm very, very transparent with this. Part of it is when I was trying to get the system into my own emergency department, when it was basically for myself, right? I wasn't doing it because I wanted to please them. And actually it was giving it away. We weren't even charging them. It took about a year before finally the person who ran the emergency department took care of. He basically went to bat and he said, we're doing this. But I could tell you that there were scores of other doctors, administrators, who basically said, take what you have and just stop. Just go back to work. Come do your shifts. Don't cause any problems. And I'm trying to say, but. But there is a problem. And it's. And they said, no, there's no problem here. Now they're telling me that they're not the ones resuscitating. They're not the ones doing 12 hour shifts, 18 times a month, weekend holidays. They aren't the ones who came from Los Angeles and Pittsburgh, where I put a lot of hard work and dedication. And I knew that there was a problem till today. Tilted. It gotten a lot better, I have to admit. But there was a period for about, I would say, the first six years or so where, Eric, I would go to a conference and not only would people not want to talk to me, they won't even look me in the eyes. They said, oh, here he comes. And then they turn around, make believe like they had to go to the bathroom. And, and, and by the way, that's why. And people who know me know I will never talk about my product to anybody unless they ask me. Yeah, I don't talk about it publicly when I get on stage. I don't talk about it because it, it turns out that being in healthcare and actually being a physician who is innovative and you, and you, you discovered something the general public just expects you to say, here, take it. Yeah, but it doesn't, but it doesn't work that way. What I've learned is, and my wife has taught me this, I used to do everything for free. I used to travel. I can't tell you, I've been to every state many times. And in the beginning it was, I'm just going to come because I want to educate you, educate you, educate you, educate. But then you realize that, that if, you know, if our, if the company is not actually having any revenue, then it cannot get better, it cannot improve its reach, our footprint. We can't help the next agency, we can't hire another developer. So I would say that the initial obstacles of being own colleagues, and then I would say the obstacle of health care in general is very resistant to change. I sure, I'm sure you have a million stories you can tell me about something that you wanted to change or operationally or, or clinically or. They said no. And you say, why? Because we've never done it that way before.

Right. Well, I hope everybody listening is paying attention. For those that don't know you and you look at, and you pull up your website, they see you as this unbelievable successful person that overnight became successful. Right. That's the way that most people think of successful people. But I think one of the things that I think is so critical, and I appreciate you saying, is that you struggled and you were judged, but you continued to push on because you had a fire, you had a passion to do the right thing. And I think that's underappreciated with successful people like yourself is that it's so easy to say, well, it's been lucky, it's an easy road. But what you're sharing is that it is a struggle. It was a very big, big struggle. Probably impacted you for several years and here you are now. And I appreciate the vulnerability with that because it is important and it's tougher than People think to, you know, make a change in, you know, lives that you're doing is unbelievable. Unbelievable. But it is. Those closest to us sometimes, I think.

Judges, I. I appreciate that. I can tell you now that I look back because, you know, at first, that's very upsetting. Like, there were. There were so many years where, you know, I always knew that there had to be a better way. Okay. There's nobody in the world who can give in to me. Why? Because I was the guy at the head of the bed. Right? Right. And I. And I could see my other colleagues, and trust me, when there was a code, everybody said, looked at me first like, are you going to be at the head of the bed? Because they knew that I wanted to be there. It wasn't like I. Resuscitation was something that I. I feared and I hated. I loved it. Like, I wanted to be at the head of the bed, period. And I knew that if I was having that issue, then other people were having that issue, too. And, you know, but exactly what you said, I want to repeat. Because the reason that the company didn't fail and because there were many months, trust me, and if my wife was in the room, she would agree here that she kind of looked at me and she's like, this is not happening.

Look around you. Look at the people. But I would go to sleep at night, and I would wake up, really, my eyes would be wide open, and I said, we have to fix this problem. Because I knew that it was a problem. And so there was nothing that was ever going to stop me. Because I knew that if I wanted to come to work every day and I wanted to actually help save some lives, that I would have to actually know how to run a code, know how to know the dose, figure that out. I know how to make my team feel confident that they did the right thing. And it definitely was not an overnight success. But I'm not mad about that anymore because now I understand. Now I see a lot of other people trying to come in with their innovation. Right? And. And a lot of people call me and I'll. I'll do a zoom with anybody, because I really want to help. I just got someone yesterday who invented a new kind of tourniquet. And when I. When I. What I try, I. I listen. I do a lot of listening, and then I try to provide some advice to them. But what I. What I'm. What I understood, what I really kind of begin to recognize is that people don't understand what I mean when I say it's going to be a journey that initially you're going to get a lot of no's because the person who made that invention or the creation, they know in their heart of heart, heart of hearts that this is going to work. They don't recognize is that the arc to try and get people to listen to you, that will let you educate them, that will actually change their mind. The dogma that they understand to be true, that takes at least 10 years. It takes at least 10 years. So there are, there are people now that I've been, you know, kind of helping along the way and now they're hitting their 7 to 10 year mark and now they've finally started to come into their own. And they, and they say to me, I remember when you told me that long time ago, they said, we didn't believe a word that you said. But now we recognize how difficult it is. And so part of, if you're going to do something special in healthcare, you have to have that burning desire and understanding that this is it. And I'm going to, I'm going to do it no matter what. And you also have to understand that doesn't happen overnight. And just to put a, just to put a cherry on top of this, if I gave you the cure for cancer, I said, eric, here's a cure for cancer. Now go try and convince other people that you have the cure for cancer. Nobody would believe you. Right?

Right.

They would, they would all basically throw you out of their office and say you're crazy. Interesting.

The journey. I love this quote. The journey to success is uphill all the way. I've heard that it's all the way. It's in it. Every day is a journey and it's a battle. And you've modeled that for many people listening and it's such an inspiring story. But for the nuggets to pull out of this, everybody, you know, this did not come easy. It was passion that drove you and my goodness, to look at you on the other side of this and to be able to get these nuggets of information is truly gold to us. I wanted to ask you, you have a team of 50 people. Ish. You work with a lot of directors or chiefs. What is your leadership approach?

Now that I can look back and understand, like it took me a long time, Eric, to kind of, to understand who, who I was. What, what was the like my own like superpower or secret sauce type of thing. But if I had to kind of put it all together, I think that the term servant leadership is, is probably the best way to describe the, my style and basically what, what is serving leadership is when. Is when you prioritize serving the greater good, right? So if you look at the, some of the things that you have, there is, you know, empathy. And I think that part of what I, what I've known about myself for a long time is that, you know, I truly feel for others. I feel their pain, I feel their joy. And I, I, I enjoy that connection with people. And so in some areas that could be a fault. But I think in the field that I've chosen, it's definitely something that is a very powerful thing for me. That, that's, you know, having that empathy is what allows me to actually enjoy what I do every single day. The second part of it is listening. I try to be a very good listener. My brother relays a quote from my grandfather, may rest in peace. And he said, the quote goes as follows. He said, God gave you one mouth and two ears. Use them in that ratio. Right? And so that, that was a quote that my grandfather always used to. And you know, he, along with my, my, my parents, my grandfather was a very big part of our lives. And, you know, his journey and his history, it just incredible. I think we kind of, he's, he's cast a little bit of that on. The third thing about servant leadership is stewardship. It's taking the EMS system, taking the company, taking whatever it is that you're leading and trying to focus on the, the, the success of that entity, right. Rather than looking at the success of yourself, you look at the success of the entity. And that's, that's always been something that drives me. For those people who know, who know me, they know that. You know, you mentioned earlier, I get these awards and my kids will tell you that you can't. We just moved to a new office and there's a big brown box somewhere that got the awards in them because I don't, I don't put them up. I don't, I don't look at them every day. Right. That type of thing. And then the last one is the commitment to personal growth of others. I love that. My favorite part of what I do today, whether it be in the fire department or here hen Teddy, is that is to see people who are. Who are diamonds in the rough. Right? I'll give you a quick example. We hired an amazing woman named Jessica. She was a teacher, fifth grade teacher. She used to come home crying every day because of these code red drills and everything. She applied to us, to our company in sales. And we said, you don't have a sales degree, a sales background, right? And she said, she said, but my dad's a salesperson. And I love the mission of the company. I could tell you that she is maybe one of the most incredible people I've ever met. And she's only been here for a year to see what she's done with her life, with her family because of her success here at the company. Like that, that to me is like worth more than anything. So you asked me how I approach leadership. I think that servant leadership kind of really encompasses everything that I try to do. And I only kind of, kind of learned about those four criteria recently. But if I look back, I think those things really, truly describe the way that I try to lead.

I wrote those down. If you saw me taking notes, I love that example. And you had mentioned something in that answer that I wanted to ask you about. When we were talking about this podcast, you know, several weeks ago, you had mentioned something to me that I had never heard before. And you said superpowers. And you mentioned it and I was fascinated. In my summary, and I want you to explain on this, is that you said that you've been able to identify your superpowers. And then you said to me, you said you have superpowers. And we talked about that, but I wanted to share with you how much that meant to me is we went on a little trip with our daughter, son in law and my son and my wife and we were all together over dinner and I asked them that question, what do you think your superpowers are? And we let everyone ask or we let everyone tell what we thought the person's superpowers were. And basically we were giving them confidence about what we saw in them. And it was a very emotional conversation with being able to lift somebody up. But I need you to talk about this superpower thing because it's so real, and tell us about when you identified them and what they are for you and then what do you do with that knowledge?

Wow. That further. I love that story. While that gave me the chills, I'm going to take you back to a place that I don't talk about often, but it was two of the best years of my life. You know, I, when I first tried to get into medical school, I got a, I got a bunch of rejection letters. I remember going to the mailbox and rejection, rejection, rejection. And I said, I said, screw this. I'm, I'm going, I'm gonna go somewhere. And I applied to a Little island in the Caribbean called Grenada. St. George's University School of Medicine People thought I was crazy. I went there and now you're remember. So here I have a lot of family members. You're always around. You're kind of like always in your shell. And maybe there wasn't a lot of opportunity because I was. I was young compared to my cousins and my brothers and everything. But now I'm. I'm by myself and now I'm. I'm on an island and I'm in medical school having a grand old time. It was amazing. And then, you know, I find myself doing these things and I was just doing them, and I'm not going to go into all of them. I'll give you the one good example is this was before we had email. That's how old I am. Because the island was kind of behind the times. And they had a big mail room. And in the mail room you'd have buckets of mail that was all tied together with rubber band. And we would come back from class at around noon for lunch break, and we go to the mailroom. And there was like one guy working in the mail room, and he would say, name is it Peter Anteby? And then he'd go through like 15 boxes looking for the one letter from my mom. I said, what's going on here? So I went to the head of the school, and the school was built out of an old motel right on the water. It was a very old motel, but beautiful scenery. And there was one very dilapidated room. I said, we're not using that room. He said, no. I said, do me a favor. Can we break down the outside wall, Put a glass that has an opening thing here? We'll get a copy machine. We'll make. We'll make little slots that everyone's got their own little mailbox. And we'll hire all the. All the spouses of the students who have nothing to do all day long. And we'll charge money for faxes and, you know, all that kind of stuff. And literally within a week, they broke down the wall. They made the thing. We're selling coffee, we're doing all that stuff all, all out of the mail. And like, for me, it was like, it just. I just did it. Right.

Yeah.

And, and you know that. So that's kind of one example that I, I found myself coming up with these ideas, okay? And, and, and just kind of making them happen. I became. I became the class president of my medical school. People said, hey, you should run for president, okay? And they voted for me.

So.

I had no idea what I was doing at the time. But what I recognized is that I could take these concepts or ideas, and I can make them very simple for people to understand, and I could convince some people to do some things. And so that's kind of what I realized is my superpower. I could take a very complicated problem, whether it be pediatric, pediatric, medication dosing, pediatric resuscitation, whatever that is, and I can kind of create something or create a knowledge base so that people said, I can do that and. Or, hey, I'll help you fix that mail room right now. I wasn't the one building the mail room. I'm not the one building the company. I'm not the one running the fire department. But my. My superpower is to. Is to take. Is to. Is to have to give people inspiration that they can do those things, that you can treat a pediatric patient, that we can build an application that will give you all that so that you can stay on theme. And so that. That's. That. That's what I. There's very few things that I do very well, and then I do a lot of things really badly. So I would say that is one of my superpowers, that. That I understand I need to be in that lane, and now I don't go out of that lane. I stay right where I need to be, and everyone around me understands that, and they keep me in that lane. That's how. That's how we go. That's how we roll.

That's true leadership. But I love that, because that drove you to. What you're doing today is to take complicated, and that's true leadership, to take something complicated and make it simple. And that is natural to you in being able to work a team, work with a team that completes you. And I appreciate that. That made a profound impact in my life. I've thought about it and I've used it, and it. It is great. So I. I appreciate those. Those certainly those insights. I wanted to ask you. Yeah, go ahead.

I. I want to say one more thing, because I. You talk about your family is that, you know, I have three boys and my wife. I told you, she has incredible superpowers. And I look at my kids, and, you know, one is a really good student, right? And nowadays, everyone says, oh, great SAT score, great gpa, gonna be a success, right? Then I got my middle kid, who, he's okay at school, doesn't really like school, but he has a whole nother superpower where he is the life of the party. He will make people feel good. He's a great writer. He actually is a good business person. He has his own little software thing going on and Grand Theft Auto. And so I realize now that this whole path of make great grades, do really good on your sat, go to a great college, that's all a bunch of B.S. you know, we have to have our kids understand that we're all unique. And if you were never meant to be a doctor, but you go to medical school, you're going to fail. Right. You could be super, super duper smart and be a failure or not be happy in your life because you're not doing what you're meant to do. So I guess part of the superpower conversation with my children is figure out what you're really good at and then do that rather than do what you love. This concept of doing what you love, I'm not such a big believer in. I think you should do what your superpower is, and then the world opens up for you. So that's. I wanted to end with that part because that's how I talk to my kids about it.

Yeah. That's some of the best advice I think I've ever heard. And many of the people that are listening are parents, too.

We have been taught by society and by media about what it means to be successful. But I think you've given permission to know that everybody's superpower is different, and we all have a place we all don't have to have a certain title. And my goodness, what an incredible insight for everybody to listen and. And to hear. I was going to ask you about the advice that you would give aspiring entrepreneurs and leaders that look up to you. Would you say it covered the answer that you did, or is there something else specifically for entrepreneurs that are like, man, I really feel like I can do something more. Or in addition, as a second company, is there anything that you would share with them, you know, based on the experience that you have learned along the way?

Yeah, I would say the most important thing. Eric, it's a great question. I would say that whatever you do, it's got to come from the heart. You shouldn't do something for the money. You shouldn't do something for what we call. They call vanity metrics. You know, where. Oh, look, I, you know, I. I got this award, or I'm going to this conference, and I'm speaking at the conference, so my company must be successful because they're speaking at a conference. No, you. You have to. In my opinion, that the people who have.

That, that's something that they have to solve because it's personal. Right? So if I came to you and I said, eric, I have this great thing, it's in marketing technology where you can get people to click on more ads on Google and you can make $10 million tomorrow, right? After about a week, you'll look at me and be like, I'm done. I don't, I don't want to do this ever again. Right, Right. But so it's gotta be something personal to you that drives you every single day. And part of it does connect with what your superpower is because you end up kind of trending towards the things that mean something to you, that matter to you. So I would just say that if you're doing something just because you want to be on the COVID of a magazine or you want to make a couple extra bucks, those are destined to fail. Everything else, I would say if you're doing it because you love it, it will work. And the other thing I would say to you is, early on, if you find that thing, you say yes to everything. And you go to every conference and you answer every single phone call, and you, you, you do, you do, you do, you do. Because in the beginning, no one's going to treat you well. No one's gonna. So you just have to be that type of person who you're just putting good at into the world. And the one, the one thing that I wanted to say here was. There was a. There was a meeting I went to at the, at the business school here. They invited me in and they kept saying this term that didn't sit well with me. And they said, he. They said, here in this, in this space, we give to get. And I said, okay, and we give to get like you give, because ultimately you will get back. Like the expectation. And I, and I, I don't believe that to be true. I think the way that I like to live is you give to give, period. You don't, you don't get whatever without the expectations of getting back. Because at the end of the day, if you want to be a good person, you give to help others. You be there for other people in their time of great need, and whatever happens in your life will happen to you. But don't just go do things with the expectation that you're going to get something in return, either money or, or fame or whatever. So if you know what your superpower is, you love what you're doing and you just give either content, write a blog post, do videos, make A podcast, right? You, you are not doing this podcast because you're looking to have the same and acclaim. You're doing it because you're, you're Eric and that's what you do. Right? You and Lee are doing this because you're special people and you want to teach others about, you know, how important leadership is. So it's a long way of saying, just do what you love and then you'll get to the promised land. At the end of the day, there.

Are so many nuggets on here is incredible. Thank you. That is perfect advice. And, you know, for those that are in healthcare, there's a lot of people that listen to this that are not in healthcare. But that's sort of our motto. You know, when we go on a call at 3:00 in the morning, we're doing it because that's what we're. We get nothing in return. It may be the person intoxicated that's having a bad day. We still serve, so we're using the same philosophy to do the same thing in business. And man, that's a great, great insight. Great insight. I wanted to ask you. So you are, you're a busy guy. You love what you do. It's obvious. I heard you even make a comment that if there were 24 hours a day of sunlight, you would be working 24 hours so that you're just driving. But how do you balance with, you know, your success of a business and your family? Like, is that tough? What are some strategies that you've used that may be able to help us?

100%? It's tough. You know, I always prioritize my family first, so people, people know I'm a very private person. My wife and I left be at the house together with the kids. We don't go out much and we do prioritize our children. So now my older son drives, but I take my children to school every morning and either me or my wife pick them up. So just before the podcast, they had a happy day. Today. I picked them up from school and I brought them home.

Yes, yes. I'm busier than I've ever been. I have more energy than I've ever had. But I'm very fortunate and I'll tell you why. And this I, I told you guys a story earlier about, about my wife and how she, I was very blessed that he came to that lecture and she helped basically create. We have today as far as scaling the company, et cetera. But, you know, I see a lot of spouses and couples that, that, that, that don't work together or one is working and the other one is, is not. As an example. And what happens is, is that, and I've seen this with other people is that if you have. For example, if I was traveling all the time and I come home and my wife is at home and she says, where, where have you been? I've been waiting for you to come back home, it would start to get tough because like I am either on the phone all the time or I'm traveling or I'm at one of my fire departments, et cetera. And so if you don't have a spouse at home, that, that you respect that who respects you back, who understands and trying to build something together with you, it becomes very difficult. I'm very blessed that Allison and I are doing this together and we couldn't do it without each other because she is so talented in so many different ways and I have zero skill set with a lot of things. On the other hand, he doesn't know much about the medicine and so he completely trusts me with all of that aspect. So we're very fortunate to work together that way. Our children are very involved because at the dinner table every single night there's conversations about, you know, something happening in our day to day. Every Friday night we have my, my, my brothers and my mom, my dad unfortunately passed away, may rest in peace. We meet at one of the houses every Friday night. And so Friday night is like sacrosanct, like nothing happens on Friday. No one goes anywhere else. We don't go to concerts or nothing. And Friday night is always a family day. And then on the weekends we visit my father in law, which we did this weekend, my mother in law, which we did this weekend. We do things within the community. We did a foundation that we're involved with this past Saturday morning. So we, we live and breathe our, our community. We live and breathe our family. And that is really at the center of who we are, what we do. And we, we kind of don't let work be who defines us. Right. I don't want to be defined as the guy who created a system. I want to be defined as a person, as a human being who cared for others, who try to address a lot of big complicated problems like stroke and resuscitation for adults and strokes that we've done here across the state of Florida. So I'm trying to just continue to follow my passion, what I'm good at, and involve the family and keep family the number 1, 2, 3 priority. All the Time. That's what we try to do.

That's some of the best advice personally that I've ever heard and just a reminder of what is important and to prioritize that you control that. Don't let external. And there was a, another podcast with one of our physicians that we work with and he said that every single thing he puts on his calendar and he puts that time to protect it in his priorities and in his family, which is in line with what you're saying. But I think it's so easy to become distracted. But you're right. When the journey is over, we're going to look up and we're going to be surrounded hopefully by our family and not have regrets. And that is incredibly inspiring. Really is.

Wow. I'm just going to say we try to model that for our children too because with all the social media and other part. I didn't, I didn't say that religion is very important to me. You know, I'm not a very religious person. But again, I'm trying to show our children that in this day and age of everyone wants this pair of shoes and this car and you know, like none of that matters when they, when they bury us six feet under the ground. We're going to have none of those things with us. And it's very important for me and for Allison to teach our children that you will not be defined by the car you drive by the house you live in. You'll be defined by the person that you were and how you impacted other people. And that, that to us, to both Alison and I, is that we try really hard to make our children understand that you're, you are to give back. So every Saturday my dad had Alzheimer's, my son, my 15 year old son, every Saturday goes to. There's a place very close to the house called Artist. And he spends hours with them every Saturday and he goes and he, and he, he does bingo with them and he does memory games with them and so forth. And that's part of what we try to do for our children is to hopefully make them those into that type of an adult as well. That's our global. Hopefully it works well.

There's no doubt. I hope everybody listening to this locks into what you just said. And that's, that's what it's about, the success and oh my goodness, it's unbelievable about what you're saying and the nuggets that we're learning from you. And I know we're getting close to the end. I wanted to ask you the Last question, if you don't mind, is looking back on your journey, is there anything you would have done differently?

Now that I look back and I see that I started in pediatrics, then went to pediatric emergency medicine. And my parents, when I was younger, I come from a very independent family. What do I mean by that? Is that no one in my family ever worked for somebody else. When I was younger, my parents always told me, you should never work for somebody else. And I never understood what they meant. And then when I was becoming a doctor, my. My mom was saying to me, like, you realize that you can be working for other people. And I said, but I. Mom, I just. What I want to do, I love what I'm doing. And. But I never would have predicted that. That the place in the world for me was an ems, right? I never would have predicted that. And. But without my background in pediatrics and pediatric emergency medicine, without my experience in making the mistakes that I made.

I never would have kind of ended up where I did. Right? So I would say that would I have done anything differently? I. I probably would have done it all the same if I knew that it would turn out the way that it's turning out. But because I do think that.

The struggle is important. And I go back and I recognize that. I look at my grandfather.

He.

He, you know, he. He left Israel at. When, you know, he was. He was supposed to be a wealthy person. They said he was wealthy. He came to America, lost everything. Why does someone who has everything leave, come to America, move his entire family? He was a builder, started building a building, and they ended up losing all the money on that building. Was broke. Zero. Instead of crying about it, being upset about it, he taught himself how to become an upholsterer. And that's what. That's where my dad. My dad ended up becoming an upholsterer. And he ended up just going and building, building, building back, and he built back. You know, we were middle class growing up, and when I look back on what he did and all the struggles that's. We ended up learning so much from my parents and from my grandparents because of what they went through. And then we also struggled. We mentioned some of the struggles here today, and now we've become so much stronger because of that. Quite frankly, Eric, I worry about my kids because they don't have the same struggles that we had. And I'm a firm believer in that A leadership journey is not one that just a linear line upward that's very smooth, it's jagged, it turns, you fall.

You know, you try to build trust. What happened to me was there was one gentleman who, who is not around anymore, but he, he tried to, he, he didn't know who I was, but I was, I was getting the job at one of the fire departments instead of him. So he, he decided to go ahead and start just blander my name across the community. Can I tell you that trust takes years to build, but you can lose it in one conversation. Someone can come and say something about you to somebody else, and in an instant, that trust that you built up for years is gone. And it would take you years to build it back up. That happened to me. And for years I said to myself, why is this happening to me? Why? But what I did was I just, I just kept on keeping on. That guy exited the picture ultimately thankfully, and, and now years later, I, I, I realized how hard that struggle was, but how that struggle helped me be the person that I am today. So I wouldn't change the struggle that I had because that's what made me who I am today. And I've been very fortunate that we've, I've come to where we are today. But I, I, I have a very long career to go and I hope to continue to do things that help other people into the future. So long answer. Wow. But that great question, that's amazing.

And I cannot believe our hour is up already. And I'm, I'm grateful for the, that we spent today and for everybody that is tuning in with us and you know, as we close the podcast, and it's something that I have said many times before. You're a perfect example that the most important person that you ever lead is you. And Dr. Ani, you modeled that. And we are grateful for your time today. Thank you so much.

Eric.

Thank you. And I so happy to see what you're doing. And I, I'll come back on your podcast anytime, but I want you to come back to South Florida to help us to help our community become better leaders. Thank you so much.

You can count on me. Thank you so much.