#10: Ditching the Drama in Healthcare with Brent Phillips

Hi, I'm Sy Wakeman, and you're listening to No Ego, a podcast where we teach you how to ditch the drama, end entitlement, and drive big results in your workplace and your world place. I am so excited about this episode of the No Eagle Podcast. You know those times where you accidentally get into an awesome conversation and after the fact you wish that somehow you had been able to record it? This time I lucked out and actually did catch what turned out to be a fabulous conversation, and we're bringing it to you in the form of our podcast. I had the good fortune of sitting with Brent Phillips in his office in Rapid City, South Dakota. Now, Brent is the president and CEO of Regional Health. They're a wonderful health system that serves the Black Hills of South Dakota. So you get the opportunity to listen in, in this episode, on the conversation I was having with Brent Phillips. And he and his team of incredible, amazing people have set out to make Regional Health the best place in America to get healthcare, and they are well on their way. So please enjoy with me this conversation caught on tape with Brent in his office recently. Thank you. What country did you do your mission work in?

Zimbabwe.

In Zimbabwe.

Africa is unbelievable. In fact, we have our new caregiver orientation every other Monday. where all the new caregivers that join the organization. Mm-hmm. And so I get to kick that off. And if I'm not here, Paulette will do it. And one of the stories that I'll tell and one of the expectations that I'll speak to them about is about attitude. And the story that I'll tell is this small village that I lived in. And so if you imagine in your mind National Geographic picture where you've got these hillsides in the middle of Africa and you've got small rondavels with grass roofs.

Roofs.

And small kids running around playing and you've got moms out working the gardens and, you know, with goats or whatever. But these are school-age kids and they're not in school. And I asked one of the moms, You know, why aren't the kids in school? And she sort of acted like she didn't understand me, and my Shona wasn't that good, and so she probably couldn't understand me. But we finally were then able to communicate, and she said, I'm not able to afford school uniforms for all the kids, so only half the kids can go to school. And a school uniform costs $2. Unbelievable.

It

was a blue pair of shorts and a blue t-shirt. And so I'll ask the group, and it's usually about 30 to 40 new caregivers every other week. So imagine not being able to send your kids to school because of a barrier that was a $2 barrier. I said, so what emotion does that evoke? And so we'll have a conversation, and it's all sorts of emotion, right? It's frustration, it's anger, it's Hatred, it's denial, it's all of these things, right? And as a 19 or 20-year-old, those emotions were probably front and center on my face. And this mother said to me, "But it's okay. I have this figured out." And I said, "How do you have this figured out?" And she said. Half the kids go to school on Monday. They come home and they teach the other kids.

That's amazing.

Then the other kids go to school on Tuesday.

And they teach?

Then they come home and they teach the other kids what they learned.

That's amazing.

We have it all figured out.

We're fine.

Yeah.

You see it as a barrier and I just have figured out it's really just a reality that I'm gonna figure out.

It's absolutely her reality. And so she figured it out. She figured out how to work around it.

There's even some bizarre upsides to that, in that the kids probably pay even more attention.

Absolutely.

Because they have the responsibility.

They have a significant responsibility.

Of teaching it. And just the fluency that everybody's getting at the same time.

And so then To take it the next step and to say to the caregivers, now think about our reality. Think about the craziness that's going on in Washington today. Yeah. Think about the craziness that's going on with shortage of nurses, shortage of physicians, craziness that's going on with regards to healthcare reform, our own economy, instability that may be going on in our own households. It might snow tomorrow, right? There's crazy drivers, right? There's all these things. All of those things impact our attitude if we allow it to.

Yeah.

This woman growing up on a hillside in the middle of Zimbabwe did not allow something that was pretty significant to impact her attitude. She figured out a way around it and said, this is my reality. We're just going to find a way That's

such a great reality-based story. It's like instead of saying, well, my reality is I don't have money, so half my kids will go uneducated— that's being the victim,

right?

It's like, so my reality is I've got to get pretty creative with the schedule, right? I love that. And you almost jumped into collude with her if she were willing.

Absolutely.

To sympathize. Like, that's ridiculous. We should raise money for—

It's all 30 years ago. 30 years ago, I still remember that. And so every other Monday, new caregivers hear that story.

I love that.

It's, you know, a theme that's come through.

It is control of our attitude. And the theme that's come through a lot today in talking in all the different places that we've talked to is the power of story. The power of story to get us out of, you know, our heads and back into our hearts, which is where we do a much better job

Yeah.

You know, caring, because our heads will always default to why we can't, and our hearts are like, but we need to. It's all about how we could.

Yeah.

It's like we've got to figure it out. I mean, there's the— not giving care in this region is not an option. We got to figure it out. I love that. That's a great story. It's a great story. So I know there's another story, and we don't necessarily have to include it or exclude it, but I talked with Stephanie, who had been through the Lakota lands. Thank you, by the way, for the invitation. And yeah, maybe

next year.

Yeah, if you guys can let me know the dates, and I'm glad to fund my own way, but I would give anything to go on that learning journey. It's

fantastic.

Would just love it. You know, one of the things I've been asking people about on the podcast that we just started and other things is about those moments where you were on the border, you could have gone into ego, Or no ego, like those best moments of your life where you just kind of went away from ego and you came up with a great solution. You know, those, those times as a leader where you just go, you know, that was sacred work. That wasn't just, you know, me orchestrating it. And, um, I just, I want to hear from you some of those stories. And I think one story that fits that category, you don't have to tell, or you can tell, is just about after you arrived here where There was just a very unfortunate incident where a caregiver was so frustrated that he or she, you know, publicly made some statements that just were really unacceptable judgments towards some patients. And so I know that kind of kicked off a series of events here for you.

Yeah, a few months after I joined Regional Health, we had a nurse who worked for us who posted something on Facebook, a video that was about 13 seconds long that was a series of racial slurs about African Americans and Native Americans. Hmm. And it was very derogatory and really incited hundreds of people here in Rapid City to organize and Within a matter of hours, there were 700 people signed up for a race riot here in Rapid City in front of the hospital.

Wow.

Now, about 7 years ago, there was a riot at the hospital where Native Americans with shotguns were in front of the hospital because of a racial disturbance. And the FBI was called in, and there were sharpshooters on top of the hospital and the Catholic Cathedral across the street. So, this was pretty fresh.

Yeah.

As to what this could all turn out to be. And I was traveling back and forth from Milwaukee. My family was still in Milwaukee. I'd just been here about 3 months at the time and got the call in the Minneapolis airport, actually. And was told this just happened. This was early Monday morning. The post had happened on Sunday. And there was already 700 people supposedly signed up to be at this rally that was going to be Tuesday morning. And I said, verify that this nurse works for us. Verify that this post is actually this nurse. And if in fact it is our employee and it's her, Then Terminator. And get me the name of the person who's organizing the protest. And when I landed in Milwaukee, I had on my phone a text of Cody Hall and his phone number. And I called Cody Hall, who was the organizer of the protest, or the— yeah, the protest. And I introduced myself. Mm-hmm. And I said, I'd like to talk to you about this protest. And he said, if you're calling me to ask me to not hold this protest, I'm not going to. In fact, we're sick and tired of these—

Types of incidences.

These events and these situations and this type of behavior. And I said, I completely agree with you. I'm equally opposed and disgusted by this behavior. In fact, I want you to hold the protest, but I don't want you to call it a protest. I want you to call it a unity rally, and I want to stand with you.

I love that.

So let's do this together.

That's such a no-ego moment where that spark could have just flamed, but it's like, nope, I'm gonna walk across and we're gonna look at this together. That's powerful.

You know, to be honest with you—

What was his reaction?

It was silence on the phone for a little bit.

Totally mind-boggling for him, I bet. Not usual, not the usual response.

And he says, are you serious? And I said, I'm absolutely serious. And I said, let's not call it a protest, let's call it a unity rally. Let's do this together. You and I, let's do this together. And so the next morning we met at the hospital, never met him before, and we had A news conference inside the hospital with probably 10 news cameras and some print media and he and I. And he stood at the podium first and gave a 2 or 3 minute speech in front of the cameras. And it was a pretty typical speech for someone who was representing the Native community that had been hurt.

Yeah.

It was pretty passionate. Not unity-based, but pretty passionate. And I frankly can't blame him. And I stood up and talked about, we're here to try to build bridges. Spoke for just maybe 30 seconds. And as we walked from there outside where the big crowd was, and there was a podium, I said to Cody, We have an opportunity here to actually build bridges and start something different. But it depends on you trusting me and it really depends on the words you say. And he looked at me and he said, can I trust you? And I said, you can trust me.

What a powerful question.

I said, we can do this. I said, let's start this. And so, he got up to the podium and he knocked it out of the park. He did such a fantastic job. spoke from his heart. I spoke, and then in Lakota tradition, it's open mic. And so anyone from the audience can speak, which when you're a bit, you know, when you're a bit of a control nut, that's a bit— That's got to be—

that's a no ego moment. Like, there's no ego moment where you said, let's make it a unity rally. His no ego moment where he's like, can I trust you? Yeah. And then that open mic, you had to completely put your ego—

Hundreds of people and you have no idea because you're dealing with 125 years.

I was just going to say hundreds of people and 125 years of hurt.

Right. And now there's an open mic and there's an audience and there's cameras rolling. And you know, it's open mic time. And there was probably 5 or 6 people that came up to the mic and everyone spoke positive. They're all Native American. Every single person spoke positive about what was occurring and about this bridge and about this notion of building a brighter future for our kids.

I love that.

And we then took a walk around campus hand in hand, had lunch together, and it started this what we refer to as community conversations where In the evenings, we hold meetings throughout the community, at the hospital, and other places where we sit down and we have a meal and we just talk about relations and issues and challenges. And it's really launched some fantastic breakthroughs.

That's amazing. And is that where some of the Lakota Lands Experience, or what's the proper title for that?

So the Lakota Lands Tour Was funded from the Bush Foundation. So the Bush Foundation funded it here in Rapid City. I participated in it my very first year here.

Okay.

And then I was so impressed with it, I actually the next year— it was funded for 2 years. I was in the second year and then the funding was over. And so then I wanted to keep it going because I was so impressed And so we then, Regional Health, funded it going forward.

I love that.

And

so it was another thing in addition to the community conversations, just to continue to build.

So we have Lakota, Lakota, non-Lakota, community business leaders, school teachers, our own caregivers, really a good diverse mix of people from across the community and throughout the Black Hills. We had mayors from some of our communities, city council members, business owners, our own caregivers, physicians. We had board members, a very diverse, eclectic group of people that went on the tour.

And you know what I love about the— when you talk about the, you know, community, you know, the conversations that you're having, is when people do get together, they get very intentional with their language and very careful in a good way to try and be more expansive, like more neutral in their language, and that just creates space. It's like language is so important to me, so people really kind of watch, you know, how they talk. I just— I've been in some of those conversations where people just slow down, they're more thoughtful about what they say, they really make sure that what they say is what they really feel and what they mean, and not just kind of the, the thing they've always said or always thought. Yeah. So it really gets people self-reflective. And, you know, anytime we can drive self-reflection is the first step in accountability. I just, I love that story because it's such an example of no ego. There's a quote from Rumi, poet long ago, and he said something like, there is a field out beyond right and wrong. I'll meet you there. Hmm. And to me, there's like this field out beyond ego. I'll meet you there. That's where all good things can happen. And it's what you did, but it's also what Cody was able to do.

Yeah.

It was like no ego moment after no ego moment after no ego moment began some real change. Not just words, not just, you know, oh, we got through that crisis, you know, back to status quo. It's like those things began real change. I love that. Love that story. So you've then moved away from that a few years. Are you seeing measurable and real change in relations between, you know, not just the Native Americans and non-Native Americans, but there's lots of diversity here in the Hills?

Yeah, it continues to improve. I mean, it's, it's, it's a slow process of— It's

a lot of forgetting and a lot of learning.

Right. Building trust takes time. Yeah, no question. You know, the work that Wes is leading in the healing environments I think is also going to help a great deal.

Oh.

In, in the constructing of our healing environments and recognizing the diversity within our patient population and having healing environments that recognize the spiritual needs of Native Americans as well as Judeo-Christian patients and And they are different. And how do we accommodate, you know, singing and drums and smudging as well as praying and quiet time? Those are very different experiences.

Some are more solitude and some are like higher group levels. It's like there's— they're oppositional in a lot of ways.

Right. And when the goal of a Lakota person is to be a great family member. That is the goal of a Lakota person. And so when someone is sick, they come together as a family. They're here for them. And so it could be 10 or 15 or 20 people gathered together. That, that spiritual center, that room becomes critically important.

It does.

Because they come together.

And presence is medicine. I mean, that's all— they bring medicine.

Right. So it's a different healing experience than it is for different people. And so we need to accommodate that.

And what I look forward to, and I, I think excites me when I think about that, is I also think that even though you're accommodating the healing needs of different groups, that accommodation is going to let different groups experience in a much healthier way the healing methods of others. So I know for me, not being a member of the Hills or growing up here, I grew up with just this huge admiration. Oh, I wanted to mention too, a leader told me, everybody will ask 3 questions of you. One of my first leaders, he said, you've gotta be able to answer these and you gotta be able to answer 'em straight up. And the 3 questions are, One, do you care about me? And you have to be able to tell— your people have to know you care about them. The second question is, can I trust you? You have to be able to look them in the eye and be able to say, yes, you can. And the third one is, are you committed to excellence? And that's where you keep your standards high. Even though I've written so much on leadership and I've researched it, when I go back and people say, like, if you had to keep this really simple, what was, like, your first learning? The best leader I ever had said 3 questions: show them you care, make them know they can trust you, and that you're committed to excellence. And that's all you need. So I love that Cody's question was like, can I trust you? It's like a core question that people need to know.

Yeah.

And we don't think about that. We think about plans and good schemes and operating goals and margins. And but we don't often think about like, can I look somebody in the eye and say, yeah, you can trust me?

That's right. Right.

I'm in this. And the thing that people can't trust is when you're on the fence. And that's why when I talk about buy-in, it's so important to go all in, because I can't trust you if you're part in, or you're in with conditions, or you're not. Like, how can I trust that? I need to trust somebody who, you know, said, I'll go first, I'm in. It's like, if I think it's so easy, I'll be the first one in. And that, then people can pile on to. So I love that. I love that story.

You know, it's one of the reasons, you know, when we're creating in this year as we go through this transformation process and we have selected right now about 6 major transformation projects. And the teams are about 4 to 5 members on the team and we're keeping the teams relatively small for a very specific reason. Now, if they have to bring a guest in because there's a particular subject matter expert that's needed, So be it. But the teams are kept small for a reason. So everyone around the table must speak and participate.

Oh, I love that.

Teams—

no hiding out.

Right. Teams get so big that you can become anonymous. And when you become anonymous, you don't have to speak. And when you don't speak, I don't know if you're really all in because you don't ever speak. Yeah, it's easy to hide out. Are you with us?

Yeah, you never publicly declare.

That's exactly right.

I don't have to publicly declare.

That's right.

And also, when teams get big, there's a lot of ambiguity and lack of clarity, and that's where people start to personalize. But, and keeping— I love the idea of keeping it lean, where you are 1/4 of this group. That's not going to be a silent position.

Yeah.

Yeah. And what it does too is a lot of times people do support us, but without speaking up and advocating, you never know it. And so it strengthens the group when you hear everybody's voice.

Yeah, if we were carrying this table and there were 4 of us, it's pretty obvious we're all going to grab a corner. But if there's 15 of us, 5 of us will just stand back and watch the other 10 carry that table.

And critique. I wouldn't have done it that way. I would have like, yeah, I would have bent with my knees. And that's really important because, you know, there's In fact, there's research behind that, the exercise. I think we did it with your group where if you don't go through and get individual commitments from each person, no one will really step up and do it. And so it's just like in the airplane when somebody comes by and asks you, I need a verbal yes, you're in the exit row, will you open the door? And I think that is the dumbest question. If this plane crashes and I'm alive, I'll open the door. It's right next to me. Yeah. They ask you for a verbal yes because the research suggests that without that clarity in that moment where it really is, you know, do or die, that it will not dawn on you that it's your responsibility unless you've had that interaction, which is like, it's me, I will do this. And so it's just that priming of the pump that ensures action. In fact, I think they said it makes it 200 times more likely that somebody will act Which is a lot of insurance policy. So, well,

I think there really is— I mean, there's 2 pieces to this. One of the things that we've tried to instill here at Regional Health is there's the empowerment and there's the accountability for results.

I love that.

Right? So, so we are empowered. Every single person is empowered, but we are also equally accountable for results. Results to deliver excellence to our patients, to families, and to our communities.

So I'm going to give you that freedom and these resources, and with it comes great responsibility.

That's right, that's right. To drive results.

Yeah,

not just to, you know, just do whatever you want. It's to drive results, to drive this, this vision to be the best, to drive excellence for patients, for families, for the community. And so, I mean, we had just had a fantastic experience over Thanksgiving. I was at the hospital and I was rounding through the hospital just thanking people for being there on Thanksgiving morning. And I was up on the cancer floor and it was about 11:30 and I had promised my wife I'd be home by 2 o'clock to cut the turkey so we could eat. We had people over. But it was about 11:30 and I was just past the waiting room and there was a family in the waiting room. They were kind of huddled together. You could tell it was on the cancer floor. A family was kind of huddled together. You could sort of put two and two together. You start to pick up. There was a lot of, a lot of emotion, a lot of thought going on, maybe prayer. I poked my head in and I said, you know, if you want to take a break for a few minutes, we're serving Thanksgiving dinner all day. If you'd like to go downstairs, you know, help yourself. It's free. And I just carried on rounding. Because we were serving Thanksgiving dinner for all the caregivers and the physicians in the hospital, and it was free. Now, it wasn't free for patients and families, but it was for the caregivers and the docs. And I had just told them it was free. A little while later, I realized it wasn't free for patients and families. Okay. And I realized that and I thought, oh man, they're gonna get to the checkout and they're gonna say, well, some guy upstairs said it was free. And the cashier say, well, I don't know who you talked to. And we were gonna have a kerfuffle. So I ran down the back stairs and I went up to the cashier and they were just about 10 feet from the cashier getting ready with their trays, right? And I walked up behind her. She didn't see me, and I walked up behind her and just put my hand on her shoulder, and she didn't know who I was because I was behind her. And I, and I said, "That family right in front of you, their meal, I'll pay for it." And I didn't even want to explain to her. I told them it was free. I just said, "I'll pay for it." And she turned around to me, and I don't even think she really realized who I was. She just kind of turned halfway, kind of turned her shoulder to me, and she said. I've already empowered myself. It's Thanksgiving. Everybody eats free today. Isn't that awesome? You know, she had— and I was so happy.

That's awesome. It's like, I have already got this.

That's right. She already had it covered. And I walked through that.

And that takes the fear away of like, I can make a commitment and my team member isn't going to be thinking in the same way and back me on this. I mean, that's the ultimate fear. And what a glorious feeling it is when you're in that think zone where it's not that we all groupthink together, but when it comes to serving patients or customers, we all are clear that we're just gonna do good things, we're gonna do great things.

And it was, it was awesome.

That is awesome. And the environment that comes when you have everybody all in doing the best they can is phenomenal. I have a smaller, much smaller business, but right now I'm experiencing that when I have Everybody just firing on all cylinders, working for the benefit of each other, and, you know, busting tail for our clients. It's thrilling. It's thrilling to just, as a leader, kind of— once you get that going, it's thrilling just to sit back and kind of watch that. Work yourself out of a job. We don't need you to.

I mean, it was just— it was great. She was— she— I mean, I don't even think she realized who I was, right? Because she just sort of turned and said, I've already empowered myself. Everybody's eating free today. It's Thanksgiving, you know. Go away.

Unneeded.

Yeah, I don't even think she realized who I was. I love that. Great. And there was a little boy sitting over at a table over here, and he had 3 pieces of pie, and he was just, you know, he was eating away.

Best day of his life.

Yeah. And it was just like—

And what a better memory to have of a hospital on Thanksgiving is the 3 pieces of pie I had rather than My parents had to take me to, you know, yeah.

Yeah, exactly.

You know, and everything I hear you doing is challenging conventional wisdom. And of course, you know, I've made a career out of challenging conventional wisdom, but just questioning, like, do hospitals need to be like this? Does it need to feel like this? Does the way we interact need to always be with tension rather than with understanding? It's like, I think there's a key here when I think about You know, my top 10 list of great leaders, and you're on it, is the willingness just to question everything. If it's not awesome, let's question it. Seems to be kind of your view. Like, if there's waste involved, let's question it. Let's rid that. If it doesn't feel great to be here, if people aren't wanting to come, if they aren't leaving here feeling completely satisfied, whether it's Thanksgiving or that they got the answers they needed, or even in the unfortunate event that we help someone You know, die with dignity. It's like they didn't get what they needed. It's like I hear you questioning, like, how could it be different? And it doesn't have to be this way. I love that.

My grandfather passed away a long, long time ago, but when I was a little boy, he told me, he said, time passes no matter what, which is rather obvious, but time passes no matter what. So he said, why not I

love that. Time passes no matter what, why not be great?

Yeah, so he says you can't repeat the day. So he says—

You're going through it anyway.

That's right.

Might as well make it amazing.

That's right.

And I think that, you know, I love that word great, and that's one of my favorite questions when I ask people, like, what would great look like? If you're going to be the best, like, what would the best look like?

Yeah.

And because I really want, you know, you having some targets here. And I think the best thing we can do for each other— it's hard to be great on your own and keep yourself in this fresh, evergreen, let's be great mode— is those calls back and forth to each other, like calls to greatness. And that's what I think happens, like, in these small groups you're creating for strategy or for transformation, is Einstein said, together we're genius. I would add to that, only if we're calling each other to greatness. Mm-hmm. And so I think we all have the capability as a group to be genius. You know, as one, we're genius, but not if we're not in behavior of really just questioning what we think, questioning why things are the way they are. Right. And drama definitely is variability because the minute we're in drama, we're the victim of our circumstances, and circumstances vary. And the way I get a reliable organization is I deliver in spite of my circumstances. I'm the great shock absorber, so no matter how circumstances change, I have calibrated and adjusted so that the ride for the patient or the ride for the client, the experience is the same. And so a lot of people don't understand that it's not your circumstances that drives your results, right? Your circumstances aren't the reasons you can't succeed. They're the reality in which you must succeed. But I had this experience where I was asked to, as an assignment, I was at a retreat and they said, go to dinner and when you have conversation really be careful, no judgment, no evaluation. And the point was to show us how often we're evaluating. Sure. So we don't just say chair, we say brown chair, pretty comfortable, kind of cool. Like, we're always— even if it's positive, we're always adding a storyline. So we went out to dinner and there's about 6 of us at the table and we were being positive, but somebody started out and they said, oh my gosh, the stars are beautiful. And somebody in the group said, well, actually, that's evaluation. There's approximately 1.2 trillion stars visible to the naked eye or something. And I said, well, the chicken's really good. And somebody joked and they said, well, you're eating chicken. And then somebody else said, well, the chef says it's chicken. Like, we, we got clear on how quickly we evaluate what's going on. So when we stopped evaluating, the table got completely silent. There was nothing to talk about. There was little to say. Somebody walked by and her outfit didn't match and I almost exploded. I'm like, I wanted to go, those boots and those— that dress should never be worn together. So we sat there in quiet, and it was kind of embarrassing because now we all were just sitting with this fact of how much we assign meaning to the world and motive and judgment. Then out of the quiet came a conversation about the only thing left to talk about: what we wanted to create in the future. That was the only fair game. So this guy said, you know, I am retiring next year, and I really want to focus on clean water in the world. He said, He said, I got stuck in the Grand Canyon and I was without water for 2 days. And he said, I kind of made a deal with God, like, if I survived that, I know what it's like to be thirsty. I'm going to work this way. I want to work on clean water. And he said that dream and everybody at the table jumped in to help him. I know somebody from the Bill Gates Foundation. I know a person who works on that very issue. Here's their number. And somebody else said, you know, mine's not that great, but it's like, I want to Make my kid's room a gym when he leaves so that I have this workout. And somebody said, oh, I have the perfect trainer and he'll tell you what to buy and he'll even set it up for you. And what we noticed after the drama was gone and the judgment is our natural state was setting great visions and helping each other achieve them. And we got really innovative and it just hit me like everything we want people to be good at— collaboration, helping each other out, focusing on the vision. is who we naturally were. We didn't even have to learn it once the drama was gone. And so I kind of think like, was it Michelangelo? They asked him about the statues that he carves, and he said, I don't carve them. He goes, I remove the waste and I basically free them up. Yeah. And so I think a leader's role isn't about getting people to do all these things. I think it's about removing all the waste and drama So that people are in their natural state of innovation and accountability and, and those things. I don't think it will happen just by accident. I mean, these are muscles and mental processes that we have to make sure people are using. But I really think it's easier than we think when you get to that higher level of consciousness. It's like more effortless than we think, and I think it's self-sustaining. So I'm excited about what you're doing here.

I think you see that. I, I really like that. I really like that story. I think we see the Same in athletics. So, what is it that denotes other than genetics an Olympic athlete versus the rest of us? I think there's parallels to innovation actually because I think innovation, when you think about eliminating variability and eliminating waste, an Olympic athlete eliminates variability and waste.

Oh, cool. In their form and in their—

Out of their life. Completely out of their life. They just start removing it out of their diet, they remove it out of their time, they remove it out of their everything, right? I mean, think about your involuntary body functions. Thank goodness we have one that keeps our heart beating and our eyes blinking and our digestive system running because if it didn't happen, we couldn't function. Our brain would have to keep those things and we would just sit on the couch all day.

Yeah.

But we have it and then highly functioning people, they have their diet regimented so they don't have to worry about their choices. Make choices.

Right?

Yeah.

I even know some of the best people, the most effective people like wear like a uniform like even they have like 5 blue suits. Yeah.

And I mean, so they've hardwired their diet and then they hardwire their exercise routine and Then they hardwire. Now, maybe we could call them uptight. But, you know, they hardwire these—

It's the power of habits.

So, then what they've done is they free up brain capacity—

For great innovation.

To be creative and innovative. For the Olympic athlete, I believe it frees up that space for them to then excel and be— and I think in the business world, as we Identify best practice and we hardwire them into our systems, it allows us as leaders to create time because every leader I talk to, you know, what is it? It's time, right? I'm out of time. I run out of time.

Just see the standardized, standardized, standardized and take it off the shelf like just delegate it not just to people but just delegate it by—

Make it an involuntary body function.

Exactly. I adore you. Thank you for letting me partner with you. I'm glad I came, and thanks for giving me—

Absolutely.

The training team. I hope that you enjoyed the conversation you just heard as much as I did. I can't tell you what an honor it is to be partnered with Brent Phillips and Paulette Davidson and incredibly innovative team at Regional Health. They really are making magic in the Hills. Take away all of his wonderful insights, not only on innovation, but on reflecting on those pieces and times in our lives that really were life-altering. Until next time, please keep ditching the drama. Thank you so much for joining the episode today. If you're loving this podcast, just make sure that you check me out on Facebook and Instagram and especially YouTube.