178: Dr. MJC on Make-at-Home Supplies and Medical Updates

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What's next? This is a question we're all having to ask and answer more frequently. I'm Jenny Blake, your host of the Pivot Podcast and author of Pivot. The only move that matters is your next one.

For show notes from this episode, visit pivotmethod.com podcast if Change is the only constant, then let's get better at it. Here we go.

Hello everybody. Welcome back to the Pivot Podcast and our Pivoting Around a Pandemic series. I am joined today by my now good friend, Dr. Michael J. Consuelos. I am so grateful for him. Michael is a Momentum member and also a medical doctor, an expert around pandemic response and emergency preparedness. He runs MJC Solutions, which is a veteran owned small business that provides professional consulting and advisory services to organizations serving the healthcare sector. Now, at this point, for those of you who have been listening daily, Michael needs no introduction. And we've been so grateful to get the notes from many of you who have said that he has been a calming presence for you during this time. And he certainly has for me too. Michael, welcome back to the show.

Hello Jenny. Glad to be back.

These touchpoints, as you called them, they're in a way, podcast journaling.

Yeah, no, it's great. I mean, I honestly look forward to these, not just for the chance to speak to you and your audience, but looking back maybe a year or two or ten years from now, we can pull these up and say, boy, what were we thinking? Or you know, it's nice to hear our voices and kind of in that retrospective view. And then our grandkids can go, hey.

Look what they sounded like. Right? So just like we listen to those like old recordings of those people speaking really stilted English and stuff. So we'll, I'm sure we're saying words will be completely out of style in the next 10, 15, 20 years.

I'm also finding it very interesting to try to grok what's happening in real time. We've been having these weekly at this point and whenever I know we're going to jump on A podcast conversation. It's interesting to try to synthesize in real time as it's all unfolding without having any answers. But what's our perspective and interpretation for me, from a change perspective, you from the medical side and business continuity. We are recording this today on April 1st. So April fools. I know. Like, does anyone have it in them.

To make a. I just totally forgot until you said that. Oh yeah, I should have come up with a good joke. But before the end of this podcast, we're going to come up with going to fool each other at some point.

I guess so. And maybe with this I should have even released some kind of April Fool's podcast, but.

I don't know. My brain doesn't work that way. I would love to start, though, by kicking it over to you for your take on what's happening now on the medical front and also how you're doing, because both of us have been feeling this urge to serve, if you will, and step things up. And I'm curious how you're managing your energy during this time. And the third sort of topic to tee up for today, this April 1st, marks the end of Q1. So, holy cow, all these businesses are going to be doing such a reckoning of the last three months, the first quarter of 2020, and what a wild ride it's been. So why don't we start with what you're seeing on the medical front lines?

Yeah. So I think that the first question and the second question I think are going to be good, going to work together really well. So I think what we're seeing now, as of yesterday's data is I think we're coming to reckoning about the curve and we're getting more and more in data. So I'm going to speak a little bit about probably what people have been seeing in the news, most recently around the possibility of the United States having upwards of 100,000 to 200,000 deaths before the end of the year due to COVID 19. And I think it's important to to stipulate that this is just a projection. These are just models and we can put in the show notes, good reference around the health data around this bed, projections, ICU bed needs ventilators, all that kind of stuff. Right. So these are all projections. And when you look at the data, you'll see looking backwards, when you look in your rearview mirror, you know where you've been. But it's very hard to drive in a direction by looking in your rearview mirror. And what you do is you have modeling Mathematical models that says based on histories and based on certain assumptions. And those are important to delineate because the model is only as good as the assumptions that are made. And just like the weather, people are used to seeing tracks of hurricanes or storms. And you'll see that sort of spaghetti map, right? You see these different tracks that the hurricane is tracking up the coast of Eastern Seaboard or in Florida and the Gulf, Gulf Coast. And because there's different lines, those are all different models taking in different data points and making different assumptions. Not any one is going to be correct, but when you look at all of them, you can get a general idea of the track of the hurricane. The same thing with COVID 19, Jenny, is that what we're seeing? We're seeing the assumptions of these deaths going forward and the need for beds and ICU beds and ventilators based on the modeling. And so what's in the public conversation now is what looks like the potential for upwards of 100,000 deaths in the United States alone. And just yesterday we had almost 800 deaths. And we look like we may be peaking out around 2,500 or so, 2600 deaths. And it looks like April 15, tax day at this point in time due to, again, the models, 15, 16 is going to be our peak for.

The COVID 19 based on, again, the assumptions and looking through the rearview mirror, if that makes sense. So it's not gospel, it's not the truth, but it allows scientists, and in this case politicians and everyone else who's working on this to make some assumptions. So hopefully that makes sense in that that's where we. So that could change, given those projections.

There's been so much news, and I know that people are at varying degrees of wanting to ch on the news or not, but those are pretty high numbers, of course. And I know that the US Has, I think, the most rapidly growing cases at this point. You could correct me if I'm wrong, but at least we're up there. Why is that like, you know, other than Trump's comments about opening everything up back Easter on Easter, which he's now rescinded, I mean, it does seem like the critical places have been doing lockdown now for a few weeks. So. So in your professional opinion, what is causing that? Why haven't we flattened the curve more than we have?

Yeah, no, I think Anthony Fauci has probably spoken to this greatly and he had a great quote. So we don't make up the timeline. The virus makes up the timeline. So I think what we were early On, I think certain leaders were imposing their timeline for whatever reasons, many of them economic, and, I don't know, for some reason, Easter came up at some point. Right. But the virus does its thing. So what you're also seeing is that you're seeing different clusters of infection. And let me describe a little bit further. So when you have a person with COVID 19 in a community, they'll infect a certain number of people, and they'll affect a certain number of people, and depending on who those people are. So it's not like not every person is the same. So if you look at the Washington state cluster and the nursing home, we don't know exactly how that nursing home got the COVID 19 cluster started. It could have been a visitor. It could have been a healthcare worker. It could have been one of the patients, whatever it was. But that population in that nursing home and that facility is a pretty permanent population. They're not gonna move around a lot. Right. So now the healthcare workers could be moving in and out, the family moves in and out, but it was anchored in that nursing home. Compare and contrast that to the city of New York or the metropolitan area where you have people on subways, they're walking around. There's lots of international travel, obviously not just from Asia, but from Italy and Spain, who've also been pretty hit pretty hard. So you have maybe not just one or two people with COVID infecting that region, but you have multiple hits. And so if you were to visually look at that, you would see all these little fires that pop up, and then those fires light other fires. Whereas in Washington state, you kind of had one fire that got very, well, kind of put out. And by significantly reducing the movement of folks within that county in that region, they were able to. And if you look at the curbs that are online and in the media, you'll see Washington state really sort of flattening out. It didn't really pop like New York is. So with that in mind, where the concern is is these other areas. Detroit, I mean, we had Mardi Gras just a few weeks ago, Right. So Louisiana is getting hit. There are other cities across for the same reasons. They may be getting multiple little fires, multiple little, little clusters that then infect other populations. So from your question about, you know, where are we still seeing the 100,000 deaths is because of not just the probably lack of restrictions on movement and social isolation, but also the way the clusters were started. It's easy to put a little campfire versus putting out a whole forest Fire. Which is happening on the East Coast.

Yeah, I was going to say New York. Even if you look at the Eastern seaboard, day after day, it's just like a rash. It looks like, literally like a rash, and then a rash that is spreading westward. It's been amazing to see California stay relatively stable. And I look at that because I have family in California. California and Washington actually haven't turned into the giant globe of a circle that you see in the East Coast. And then even now, I'm hearing certain people who don't live on one of those coasts saying, I'm more worried about people's fear than the virus. And I'm thinking to myself, I don't think you get it. I just don't think you're in. It hasn't come to you yet, you know, so, yeah, I mean, that's not to judge or diminish anybody's response, but on a certain level, it's like if you're not in a part of the country yet that is super affected, I think it's easier to think, oh, yeah, this isn't that big of a deal. And yet for so long, people were saying, oh, the flu, don't worry, the flu kills 30 to 40,000 a year anyway, this is just the media, you know, bumping this up. But what you're saying, the projections are going to be significantly higher unless we do take dramatic steps, even more dramatic than we already have, which is almost the whole country sheltering at home.

Yeah. And like. Like Dr. Fauci said, the virus has its own timeline. The virus doesn't understand boundaries. So, you know, it's just because it's happening in New York City, the virus doesn't care. It's going to travel. Right. And so what we've seen, so sort of also in the news is people leaving New York City and going to other states. I think Rhode Island's driving around looking at license plates and making sure people have New York license plates. They stay, you know, they sort of do the isolation at home. So shelter in place. So, yeah, so it's going to happen. Obviously, there's other areas due to less travel, lost population density, but the one thing that everyone can do is like we talked about a million times here on your podcast, wash our hands. Social isolation, distancing, shelter in place practices are all very important. Not just not to get it, but you could have it. You could be an asymptomatic carrier of COVID 19, and you could be infecting your loved ones or your neighbors. So that brings up the next thing that has been recently talked about, which is wearing masks. And so that mask wearing for the general public, obviously you want to make sure all the masks are available for healthcare workers. But the reason we're starting to hear about why should the public wear masks, it's not necessarily for your own protection, but it's so that in case you have it, you don't accidentally touch your face, cough, sneeze onto surfaces. So you're actually reducing your ability to transmit because you could be a carrier or actively infected and just not aware of it. And it's not just still flu season a little bit, but it's also allergy season, so people's allergies are kicking in. So anyway, so what's your take on.

What's your take on makeshift masks? So I know medical professionals, bless them all, are doing anything and everything that they can. We both saw the recent John Oliver where he talked about how terrifying, like someone's in a Halloween costume because it's the only mask they have. Even my dad got very creative, made a mask out of a coffee filter that he liked, a circle of cardstock, and then taped a coffee filter to it and then poked holes in the sides. Can those make, make at home masks basically be effective, or does it need to be officially produced medical mask?

So I think for medical professionals, for, for obvious reasons, because of how small the particulates are, and if you're in a highly infectious environment, those probably aren't going to be as effective. But for the general public, again, it's protecting yourself to some degree because you're a couple of things that's going to happen. You're not going to touch your face. And most of what happens is most of this time is we kind of touch our nose, our mouth, we lick our lips, we smack our lips and that kind of stuff. So having a mask on your face is sort of like, you know, it's a barrier. So just the natural barrier is going to keep you from putting that sort of hand to mouth, hand to nose contact as you're touching things. So that will help.

The really small particles. It's obviously not going to help completely, but it will help something that's a little bit larger. So I would say if people who are listening to this podcast, if they feel safer wearing a mask, wear a mask. Again, realize that it's not like you're Superman or superwoman, you're not bulletproof. You still need to do the other things. Hopefully that makes sense. So for your dad, it's, I think it's worth doing that. But it's also make sure that he's still socially isolation, isolating, distancing himself from others and washing his hands. All those things still. It's just part of the armamentarium of how to keep yourself more healthy.

I had also purchased gloves like the kind that medical professionals wear.

Yeah.

And I got them. I can't remember when I placed the order several weeks ago and it kept getting postponed. They finally arrived. What's your take on wearing gloves and ordering gloves? Is that also something we should leave for the medical professionals who need them? Are they. How's the production going on that. And then I was thinking, of course, when I'm walking the dog and sometimes we open a fence to go in the dog park and touch the leash, touch the toes. There's a lot that we're touching. But even grocery shopping, I was thinking why not wear gloves? But. And of course still with the hand washing. What's your take on gloves for the average layperson?

Yeah, average laser person. I think our glove shortage is not nearly as bad as our mask shortage and our hand sanitizer shortage. So if you have gloves or can get accident, it's probably not a bad idea when you leave your home to do the things that you're describing, which is contacting multiple things with your hands and just not being able to. Literally every time you touch up whatever it is, a fence or something, that you're constantly using up your sanitizer. So that could be useful. Just a couple of caveats is that as you're touching things, you're also spreading them around. Right. So if you're touching this, touching that, touching this, you're actually. If there is virus on your hand, you're moving it around wherever your hands touch. So probably not the best thing. Now you're protecting yourself, so that's helpful. So I would say for limited periods of time, if you know you're going to be in environment, um, to wear the gloves, dispose of them. The other thing is that we. The way you dispose of them will go. So you want to turn them inside out. Right. So if you've ever seen a medical professional remove gloves in an office or during a. The next episode of Chicago Med or whatever.

Right.

Anatomy Grey's Anatomy. Right. You'll see them. Yeah, you'll see them to carefully. What they do is they basically try to pinch part of the glove and then. Because if you take your thumb, a lot of people when they take their gloves off, they put their thumb inside the glove and rip it off. Right. Well, if your thumb is dirty, you just got your hands dirty. So you kind of have to pinch it, roll it inside out. And then while the. That glove hand, you can also take that. Well, it's not completely off. Take what's still gloved, if that makes sense, and then pull off the other gloves. Now you have partially gloved hand, the other glove, and then you just kind of throw both at the same time.

I'm sensing a bonus YouTube video from you on this.

Yeah, it's probably been out there already, but so, yeah, sorry, we're getting technical here. But it's so it's. Yeah, if you use the gloves wrong, it doesn't, it doesn't make a difference if you're not. If you're taking them off and then dirtying your hands in the process, it doesn't make a difference.

And then what's your take? Oh, sorry, go ahead.

No, no, go ahead.

Well, what's your take for an average person? Because this is actually very helpful. And how many of us know how to take medical gloves off? None. So I'm actually really glad that you're saying this. I mean, none, unless you work in a medical profession. What about washing and. Or reusing gloves? Because I was already thinking these are going to go pretty quickly and that seems like a lot of waste. But then again, washing and reusing might not be that smart either.

So that's a great question. Don't hold me to this, but it makes sense that you could use hand sanitizer on the gloves or wash them like you would anything else. You could also do things to them to make the virus not happy. So I don't know the data on this. I don't know how well the virus holds up to, for example, freezing temperatures. Obviously can't heat gloves up because they'll melt. So that's something interesting. I'll have to look that up when they're not putting them in the freezer or something like that would destroy the virus. Don't hold me to that. But I definitely think washing them, if you're at the point where you're in your last set of gloves to wash them, that is happening for masks, though, too. So.

People are. Especially the cloth masks, you're gonna have to wash them or people are actually spraying some sort of sanitizing liquid on the mask, hanging them overnight, and trying to reduce what's on the outside of masks. So that's the other thing. People are going to run out of masks. There are ways. I think there are some. There is some information from The CDC and some other groups that I have not looked at recently that tells healthcare workers how to properly sterilize and reuse masks.

You know, speaking of the freezer, I had a friend once tell me you can throw jeans in the freezer. That if you don't want to overly wash your jeans and age them prematurely, you could just stick your jeans in the freezer for a couple hours or a day and the. They're actually like, they stay relatively clean. I don't. Anyway, try it. Try this at home.

I'll try this at home. Yeah.

Yeah. That's how he washes his jeans. Less. I've done it, actually. It does, it does help. I will say it helps.

I'm curious, Michael. There's so much we could talk about and I'm always grateful for your expertise. You've stepped up so much during this time and I'm always grateful that we get to connect and have these calls and, and I know how much you are doing, doing webinars, consulting with your clients, stepping up in any and every way that you can. A lot of the talk is around managing energy and burnout, even within the medical community and people on the front lines. And I'd say you're real close. Maybe you're not in the hospital at the moment. How are you navigating your energy and how are you finding this from a navigating burnout perspective? Because you also have now your whole family at home.

Yeah, it's been tough. Thanks for asking that question. And so it's just changing the way I do my work. I'm used to interacting with people and I think we talked on the last podcast. One of the things I've learned is I'm a strong E, so I usually really gain a lot of energy with being people. So I've switched up that energy from in person contact to sort of what we're doing today, which is being able to connect via audio. And I try to push the video thing also because I think it's nicer to at least more getting in touch with someone and seeing their facial expressions and talking about what they're wearing or what, whatever, you know what time of day it is there. Otherwise it's sort of this, this voice in your head. I think it's been helpful to just get outside. That's been really helpful. I know folks that's been issue, especially if you live in a place like New York City. But even if you can get to your balcony. I have a friend who works for, who is one of my roommates from College at Princeton. And we actually had our class reunion. Supposedly this will age me. This May was going to be our 30th reunion for Princeton. And so we actually had a class kind of mini reunion on the 90th day because we're class of 90, the 90th day of 2020. To sort of just to talk about what you're talking about, just, hey, how you guys doing? And our reunion got canceled. And just a little update on that. And back to my friend Jonathan. He works. He'd been working from home quite a bit. And he just goes to his fire escape. Right. I thought, oh, that's a great idea. Right. So you don't need necessarily to physically walk outside. You can open a window. You can. And so for me, back to your question. To me is, for me, getting outside is huge. Is at least two or three times a day, block out some time in my constant webinar seminar phone call schedule and just go, I got to go outside for 15, 20 minutes, walk the dog, take a walk with one of my kids or my wife if she's at home. That's been a huge sort of insertion of normality at some level. But also just being in nature, I think just calms you greatly.

Also blocking out and just sort of setting up boundaries. It's like, okay, at this time I'm not gonna look at my emails, I'm not gonna respond, right? And then, because as you know, I live on a large farm, actually, my wife Kelly and a couple of her folks that she works with after work tonight, they're going to come after work and they're going to park their cars. We have a fairly large area to park cars. And we're going to do a group walk, socially distancing during the whole time so we at least hear each other's voices. But just that little precious moment that we're going to have later on tonight is also just something you look forward to, because I think if you're always looking forward to just wake up, do your work, eat.

Watch some tv, watch Tiger King, and then go to bed, rinse and repeat, it gets very monotonous. So throwing in, for me, actively throwing in connections to my college friends, to my family, to neighbors, just throwing little darts into that balloon of despair to pop. It just really helps. I don't know. What have you been doing? I mean, you've.

Well, I love.

No, you've.

No, no, no. I was handed to you. How are you doing this? Because it's got to be harder in New York City.

Yeah, I love Hearing about the distanced walk that you're doing, that just sounds like such a creative, nourishing idea and thing to do, similar to you getting outside. For me, it's been about once a day, maybe more. But usually I am on calls, especially Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursdays I do have. That's when I stack all my calls and meetings. But getting outside to do the dog walk, there's always other dog owners that I interact with. So that is a sense of normalcy. Although sometimes I'm so tired from just talking all day that I'd rather listen to a podcast. And that feels really good. Just be outside and walking and playing with the dog and listening to something.

And then. What was the other thing I was going to say? Oh, and I also found the last few weeks there's been so much energy, and I mean collective energy. There's a real buzz in the air, like the tapping into sort of the collective consciousness. There is so much content being put out online. I'm enjoying a lot of it, I really am. And I'm enjoying creating a lot of it as well. As we said right in the intro, I feel a call to step up during this time. It's not to make anybody feel bad. I know some people are feeling the pressure to be productive, and that's very unhelpful. So. So I would never put that pressure on anyone else. I just feel an authentic call from the inside. At the same time, by the time it gets to the weekend, I collapse. So don't get it twisted. Like, if you're listening to this podcast, you're seeing it come out daily. I am finding that by Friday, Saturday, Sunday, I need to do nothing. I need to be a pile of mush. And so I'm still navigating the balance of that, but allowing myself to feel like that, especially on the weekends. And then even today, we're recording this again. April 1st, it's a Wednesday.

Whenever I wake up, whether it's 5:00am, 6:00am, I usually sprint out of bed. I love the mornings. I love to get up, go downstairs, get the newspaper, read a little bit. I look forward to that. Today I just stayed in bed as if it was a Saturday morning. So I don't even think I got out of bed until 8am, 8:30, which is super late for me. And it felt so good to just give myself that permission to not sprint out of bed, even for the routines that I love. Just relax. And what did I sacrifice? Getting to my computer an hour or two early to do emails? Because I'm very behind. I apologize if anyone has emailed me in the last two months. I owe you a response. But I. I'm just letting that go right now because resting and being prepared for the day, especially the long days, feels really important.

Yeah, no, I completely agree with you. And I think also a little bit of that, just changing things up, I think also helps the fact that if right in the middle of the week you're like, I'm just going to sleep in today because I can. I think that's also giving yourself permission to that. I think that is also helpful because I think there is that sense of the entire world just spinning up and trying to survive. And as one of the questions you asked earlier about my needs or my sense of serving, obviously I'm hopefully serving folks on this podcast. But I am torn between my consulting work and my advisory work that I'm doing for companies and doing things that sort of a scale of trying to help large organizations versus just saddling it up, heading to the hospital, gowning and putting my PPE on and seeing patients. And I think it may come to that. But I am torn on a regular basis of where I should be spending my time. So right now my brain is. I can provide the greatest support and direction by trying to think clearly, trying to digest what's happening in the world and providing assistance from that perspective. Because everyone else is such a. We talked about grass tops last time. It's such at the grass tops that I feel that I can try to help people bring them back out of that and give them a bigger picture and also a sense of optimism and hope. So we get dark a couple times when we talk about this, you know, different things that are happening with COVID 19 but I try on the professional side, I try to have an optimistic sort of cycle of learning what could we get out of this, that third door conversation, get people pull people out of the muck and goo of their daily work and try to give them some space to think a little bit differently. So I don't know where I was going with that, but maybe it makes me think about sort of Maslow's hierarchy of needs. And that's something that has been what I've been talking to people about is right now we're also concentrated because of what's happening with this scarcity of what's happening in the grocery stores and toilet paper. Everybody's at that sort of very bottom part of Maslow's hierarchy of needs. And the safety part, which is the next part up, is also big. So everybody's concentrating on those first two blocks, the bottom parts of Maslow's. And that is so important.

Yes. But we forget about the other parts, that sort of love and friendship and self esteem and self actualization. And I think let's concentrate on the bottom while we can. But there's this need to do the stuff near the top once in a while. And so I think about, okay, if people are doing the stuff at the bottom, how can I pull them out of that and provide some sense of community, some sense of confidence around what they're doing in their work, creativity, those other pieces. Because I'm not sure we're getting enough of that in our daily lives because we're so concentrated at the very bottom.

What you just said reminds me of something I heard Dan Sullivan say. He's the founder of Strategic Coach and and he said especially for entrepreneurs, because Michael, you are, yes, you have medical expertise and you're now at this intersection of business owner, consultant and entrepreneur. And you have been now this is the pivot that you've just made. And he said that the one thing entrepreneurs have is calm and chaos, because that's just the nature of entrepreneurship for the most part, unless you're really not enjoying it, it requires you to build those muscles of calm, competence, even some amount of confidence when navigating change. And so I'll just echo what you said that I do think you're providing something really important during this time, which is a blend of medical and business perspective with optimism and calm and competence thrown in. And I think for me too, I don't feel panicked. I feel alert, I feel aware. But I have to say, yeah, this is pretty massive. Let me, I will say three fourths of my income just got wiped out. So. But I've been there before. Weirdly enough, I've had my business where I didn't know how I was going to pay rent in two weeks or I'm building up credit cards and I don't know how I'm going to solve it. So although this is the first global pandemic and massive economic shutdown that I've experienced while self employed because I was working at Google during 2008.

Many of these moments are familiar with that. Let's close out here for part one of this week's conversation.

Let's do it.

And for those of you who are listening, I encourage you to tune back in tomorrow. We're going to talk about the business hierarchy of needs from Mike Michalowicz, who was just recently on the Pivot podcast and has written some very influential books. So Part two Make sure you're subscribed to Pivot Podcast and Michael and I are going to continue this conversation on business continuity and Mike Michalowicz's Business Hierarchy of Needs. And we'll also talk about the insane Q1 that we've just closed the books on. Stay tuned. And Michael, thank you so much for being here for part one.

Yes, see you in Part two everybody.

Thanks so much for listening to this episode of the Pivot Podcast. Make sure you don't miss an episode or my insider tips and templates by signing up for PivotList, a curated twice monthly newsletter where I share the inside scoop on what I'm reading, watching, listening to and the latest tools I'm geeking out on. Sign up@pivotmethod.com pivotlist get show notes from the episode@pivotmethod.com podcast and connect with me on Twitter @jennyblake.

Remember, build first, then your courage will follow. Hasn't it always.