Eat What You Kill: How the Navy Forged a Hospital Leader from a Lost Teen

Discover how Chris Blair transformed from a directionless small-town teenager into a successful hospital administrator through military service, healthcare experience, and exceptional leadership skills.

Chris shares his pivotal moment of clarity when he realized he needed to make a profound choice to change his life trajectory, leading him to join the Navy as a Hospital Corpsman. His military experiences built the foundation for a healthcare career that spans from direct patient care to executive leadership.

The conversation reveals how Chris's unique perspective—having worked at every level from patient care tech to hospital administrator—shapes his people-first leadership philosophy. "Culture eats strategy for breakfast," he explains, demonstrating how focusing on employee engagement turned struggling hospitals around during his career. When he transformed one facility's employee favorability rating from 3.2 to 4.1, the finances naturally improved too.

What makes Chris's approach distinctive is his servant leadership mindset: "I am not in charge of anybody and no one works for me. I work for them." This perspective, combined with his "eat what you kill" entrepreneurial energy, created environments where healthcare teams flourish despite the industry's challenges. His candid insights about healthcare's thin 3% operating margins and the constant balance between quality care and financial sustainability offer rare glimpses into hospital administration realities.

Beyond career insights, Chris discusses meeting his wife while stationed in Guam, earning his MBA with a 4.0 GPA while working through COVID, and his philosophy that failure isn't a person—it's just evidence you're trying. His journey exemplifies how military discipline, healthcare experience, and genuine care for people can create an extraordinary leadership approach. As Chris says, "All gas, no brakes."

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:02):
just a couple of puns all trying to get by.
Just a couple of teens alltrying to survive.
Live to the max, because youdon't live it twice.

Speaker 2 (00:10):
A couple green thumbs all heights welcome back to
another episode of life to themax.
I'm your host with the most,max Gross, and today I have
Chris Blair, which is my friendNick's father, and I'm super

(00:33):
excited to talk to him.
Chris Blair is no stranger whenit comes to the healthcare
system.
He is a hospital administrator.
That's correct, he's a hospitaladministrator and he's done a
lot of other things as well.
So, uh, I'm super excited toget to know you man.
Yeah, me too.
Yeah, too good to talk to you.

(00:54):
Yeah, uh, you probably heard alot about me because of nick,
right yeah yeah, yeah.
So let's just, uh, dive rightinto this.
You ready?
Let's get it okay, all right,so where did?

Speaker 1 (01:07):
you grow up.
I grew up in indiana, northnorth central indiana a little
small town called cicero,another small town person
another, because how was that?

Speaker 2 (01:17):
did you enjoy it?

Speaker 1 (01:18):
I would uh recommend it to anybody, there's just
something about a small town USA, yep.

Speaker 2 (01:26):
Yep, it was amazing.
Yep, yeah.
So when you were growing up inIndiana, what were some of the
hobbies that you enjoyed?

Speaker 1 (01:38):
Sports Sports.
Yeah, we grew up in a blockwith there six of us all in this
within two or three years ofeach other, and so, whatever
season it was, whether it wasbasketball, baseball or football
, we were outside doing it, andso it was.
It was sports sports, sportssports sports, sports.

Speaker 2 (01:56):
It sounds like, it sounds like my childhood.
I love it.
What um?
What sport was your favorite?

Speaker 1 (02:05):
uh, being from indiana, basketball basketball.

Speaker 2 (02:09):
Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, okay, yeah, I understand.
So, um, when uh, you weregrowing up into, like your
adolescence, uh, how like, howwas that like going into high
school and stuff oh yeah, highschool was great Again.

Speaker 1 (02:27):
My graduating class had 160 people, so we grew up
with each other, we knew eachother, and then you had your
subgroups of friends, dependingon what you did, but everybody
knew everybody.
It was just this easytransition from elementary to
junior high to high school.

(02:48):
It just happened, it wasorganic, and you just brought
along the same people that werewith you the whole journey.

Speaker 2 (02:55):
And you guys are all on the stage like putting your
cap and gowns on with the tasselon the different side.

Speaker 1 (03:02):
That's it.

Speaker 2 (03:03):
And they throw you into the world, the tassel on
the different side.
That's it.
And they throw you into theworld.
They cast you into the world.
That's right.
What did you start doing firstwhen you got cast into the world
?
Struggling that was my firstresponse.

Speaker 1 (03:23):
I didn't know what I wanted to do.
I graduated when I was 17,which in retrospect that's too
young.
I mean 17 year olds.
Most 17 year olds have a hardtime picking out what clothes to
wear in the morning to go toschool.
So I thought, natural course,would just go to college, and I
found out very quickly I did nothave the attention span for it,

(03:47):
and so I just tried to find ajob that I felt like would give
me some momentum in life, and itjust it didn't work out.
It just didn't.
It was.
It was dead end after dead endafter dead end.

Speaker 2 (04:01):
What year was this?

Speaker 1 (04:04):
I graduated in 1989.

Speaker 2 (04:09):
1989.

Speaker 1 (04:10):
Yeah, so that's when the soviet union fell.
The stress from the wall camedown.

Speaker 2 (04:12):
When the wall came down, that's right were people
like partying like around hereas well that.

Speaker 1 (04:17):
Well, I I don't remember it happening in 1989
and I I you know you have tounderstand in in 89 the internet
wasn't a thing and so the newsbroadcasts.
It was just different than whatit is today and so I don't
remember it really taking place.
I know it did, it just wasn'tlike a big thing.

(04:37):
It's not here.

Speaker 2 (04:40):
It wasn't a big thing here Right there was a huge
thing there, but not here, rightyeah?
So you got cast out of theworld.
You didn't know what to do.
What was the first job?

Speaker 1 (04:52):
you landed.
I was cutting grass for ateacher.
She had a little small businessin the summer and she would mow
apartment complexes, andactually her daughter's my
girlfriend at the time, and so Istarted doing that small
business in the summer and shewould.
She would mow apartmentcomplexes, and actually her girl
, her daughter's my girlfriendat the time, and so I started
doing that.
Uh, and then, of course, summerends and, um, I worked at a

(05:14):
pizza place for a while, whichis a good experience, um, but
just really nothing that stuck.

Speaker 2 (05:25):
What propels you to get your bearings?

Speaker 1 (05:28):
I woke up.
This is no joke.
I woke up one morning andthought if I don't make a
profound choice in what happensnext, I'm going to wake up every
morning in the same place doingthe same thing.
And I could feel myself gettingcaught in this rut and you know

(05:53):
, they say a rut over timebecomes a grave.
And so I woke up that morningand made a choice that I've got
to do something profound.
And I did.
What was that?
I called the navy recruiter andI said I need to join the navy
today.
How do we do this?

(06:14):
just go to maps, all that readyto go well it didn't happen
quite that fast that, but thatwas, that was the.
Uh, that was that was the.
The motivation like let's do itbefore I change my mind.
Why did you choose the Navy?
My uncle had served in themilitary.
I had a buddy that was ondelayed entry in the Navy, and

(06:36):
so I thought I feel verytriggered right now, Chris.

Speaker 2 (06:41):
I was in the Army myself, so I'm just army man
myself, so like I'm just messingwith you.

Speaker 1 (06:47):
Yeah, if I didn't know that you were in the army I
probably would have had adifferent answer, but out of
respect for your service, Iwithheld the jokes no like we
were just talking about wherehistory buffs in the Navy were
badass in World War II.

Speaker 2 (07:04):
it was crazy the, the battle of medway, the battle of
the pacific, and also like it'slike helping germany, oh,
helping britain with theatlantic yeah like so, like
there's always just like.
I like what used to be like oh,navy maybe.
But then when I see like theseold, old timers, like back then,

(07:26):
I was like, wow, the navy dude,like that's awesome yeah, you
know yeah so that's so.
That's really cool man.
So when you went to the navy,what job were you looking for?

Speaker 1 (07:39):
so when I joined, this was in.
So this was in 1990, septemberof 1990, which is when the
Persian Gulf started escalating,and so, of course, the original
Top Gun had just come out.
And so I went to the recruitersaying I want to fly jets, which

(08:00):
me and about 40,000 otherpeople did the same thing, and I
said so, I want to fly jets.
What do I need to do?
And, of course, as a greatrecruiter, as they always do,
they give you impeccable advice.
They just need you to get toboot camp.
So I actually signed up as anaviation electrician.
That was my initial job that Iwas going to be doing, but that

(08:21):
changed as I got closer to.
I was on delayed entry and itwas like five months, and about
two months into it I'm like thisis not going to work.
I can't wait this out.
So I went back and said what doI need to do to move quicker?
And they have this, they hadthis uh program.
It was a uh, it was a um.
Oh, what the heck?

(08:47):
It was kind of this where you goin as an undesignated um
recruit and you get out of bootcamp and you go through four
weeks of training and then yougo out to the fleet and then you
figure out what you want to doin the navy and then they bring
you back and take you to schooland do that.
I'm like, fine, I don't care,just get me out of this town, I
just need to go.
Why?

Speaker 2 (09:01):
did you want to get out so?

Speaker 1 (09:03):
bad Because I was going nowhere.
I was just I was going nowherewith life and I didn't see how
staying in that town not thatthe town was bad, there was
nothing, my friends, my greatfriends, the town was bad.
It was just there was nothingthere.
Personally, I could see thatwould play out uh and and have

(09:27):
any profound or positive.
Just want to spread your wingsand fly, that's right.

Speaker 2 (09:32):
Tired of the same old scenery, that's right, okay, so
so they uh excel you to this uhdifferent program.
What a way and what?

Speaker 1 (09:43):
job.
Was that?
So it was?
It was.
Uh, I got it.
I went to boot camp under anon-designated rate, and this
was in january of 91, and I gotthere on the 10th of january.
On the 11th, congress declaredwar and the persian gulf kicked
off desert shield.
Yep and so, or desert storm,then desert shield, one of the

(10:05):
two, I'm not sure which one wasme neither man, yeah, but but
like the same thing, right?

Speaker 2 (10:10):
um yeah.

Speaker 1 (10:11):
So short scoff, yeah.
So when that happened, therewas this big push for corpsman,
hospital, corpsman, the navy,and so our company commander
said we could, if you, if you'reinterested, you can reclass or
you gotta, we gotta, reclass nowand then we can.
You can reclass and you can goto core school.
After boot camp and my stepdadwas a firefighter and I grew up

(10:33):
in the fire department.
I'm like what's a corpsman do?
He explained it.
It sounded like an emt.
I said let me go do that.
So I got reclassified to go tohospital, core school.
So after boot camp I went tocore school.

Speaker 2 (10:45):
Let's talk about boot camp.
What was boot camp like in 1990in the navy?

Speaker 1 (10:52):
so shortly before then they changed a lot of
things.
Couldn't smoke, couldn't smokeat boot camp.
Um, the company commanderscouldn't lay hands on you
Bastards.
Yeah right, I tell you that inmy opinion, that's when the

(11:12):
military started getting soft.
Oh yeah, right.
Oh yeah, when you couldn'tlight up a Marlboro light and
you didn't have to run the riskof getting whacked in the head
from your company.
Commander um bouquet was anamazing.
It's exactly what I needed.
It was.
It provided structure, guidanceand discipline but, also promise

(11:37):
, for there was something afterthis that I could, that I was
going to do, and so it justreally, I reframed my mentality
of how life's going to play outso in the army we go through
like phases, like red phase,blue red phase, white phase,
blue phase and red phases.

Speaker 2 (11:55):
They're in there, your face, like all the time,
like you are not alone, likethey're screaming in your face
and they're breaking you down.
You know what I mean and Iunderstand why they do that now
because you come out a differentperson when you leave boot camp
you really do, and you're like,wow, I didn't realize how

(12:18):
privileged I was after boot camp.
Well, before boot camp, I didn'trealize that, like, oh, candy
bar.
Like, dude, they were sellingcandy bars at my freaking boot
camp for 50.
A candy bar, bro, because itwas contraband and I was like
I'm not having a candy bar, bro,and then 50 dollars coming.

(12:40):
No, but people were buying themfrom the whole lake.
That's it.
Yeah, so when you went to bootcamp, you explained that it
helped you build a foundation.
Basically, was it as hard asyou thought it was going to be?

Speaker 1 (13:01):
No, no, no, no, no, and I think in retrospect it was
hard, but I also understood itwas necessary.
And so when you realize thisevolution is necessary, I think
the magnitude of how hard it isgets diminished, which is how

(13:23):
you're able to get throughthings.
If I focused every day on howhard boot camp was, I would have
been miserable and I probablywould have not stuck around.

Speaker 2 (13:32):
Yeah, yeah.
Well, boot camp was miserablefor me for the first three weeks
, it was just absolutelymiserable.
But then they just start sayinglike okay, hey, hey, you can
read the ranger or you can readthis, and then like they start
leaving you alone, but theystill fuck you up you know what
I mean?
Yep like it's not.

(13:53):
Like it's not like you're offthe hook like right you're not
off the hook until you leave forgraduation.
Man, that's right.
So after the boot camp, you gofor training.
To be a corpsman right Yep, Doyou guys call?

Speaker 1 (14:09):
it AIT, a school, a school, a school.
Okay, yep, now I went to SanDiego for that.
So boot camp in San Diego,corps school in San Diego, and
that was again the level oftraining that you get.
So Army medics it's a littledifferent for corpsmen than Army

(14:30):
medics.
You know Army and I know thisbecause when I worked in
Longstall I worked, you know,shoulder to shoulder with the
Army.
You're a soldier first andforemost.
And then whatever you're trainedto do, that's what you do.
Second, in the military, in theNavy, it's different.
As a corpsman, your primaryrole is to take care of people,

(14:51):
and so we abide by rules likethe Geneva Convention.
And so as a corpsman, I couldonly carry a 9mm, I was
considered a noncombatant, andas corpsman, our job was to take
care of Marines, because wewere the medical for the marines
, and so corpsman would goforward with marines, because
nurses and doctors and pas weretoo expensive and corpsman were

(15:14):
considered expendable, so theywould go front forward with the
marines.
And so if you imagine what thattraining requires understanding
that you're going to be themedical provider for a group of
Marines- Meaning if they have asucking chest wound, you got to
know how to put a chest tube inquickly.
So we had to learn all of thesethings in 12 weeks of core

(15:38):
school and it's it's all gearedaround combat readiness as a
corpsman, yeah.

Speaker 2 (15:43):
I had to do something similar with combat lifesaver
training.
It was only for like six weeks,but, um, I, uh like I had to
learn like how to, like you knowlike uh, improvise, use an mre
bag, mre bag like cut it to likeuh to like seal wound or
something, or to check for exitwound in the back, because you

(16:04):
never know like there's an exitwound, he's bleeding out in the
back and stuff so like.
And of course, the tourniquet.
Tourniquet is number one.

Speaker 1 (16:11):
You probably learned that like the first day right
pretty early on in the training.
Yeah, bleeding is bad, stopyeah, so, um, you wait.

Speaker 2 (16:25):
so first of all, I see.
So you uh went from Indiana.
Where was boot camp?
San Diego, Okay, so what was?
How was like the culture shock,like being in a big city like
San Diego?

Speaker 1 (16:39):
Well, I mean for boot camp there.
I mean, we didn't see the bigcity until.
Liberty Weekend, but you knowyou're sheltered in boot camp.

Speaker 2 (16:48):
I know that I felt like when you went to, of course
, of course.

Speaker 1 (16:53):
So that was different .
I had never encounteredhomeless people in Indiana and I
never encountered people thatknew when you got paid.
I never encountered people thatknew when you got paid and when
the first time I walkeddowntown San Diego on payday
weekend, everybody knew I hadbeen paid and it was almost like

(17:17):
this army of panhandlers, Imean it was.
It was an awkward feeling forme because I'd never experienced
.

Speaker 2 (17:23):
And you know I wanted to.
This was in 1990.
91.
91.
And there was homeless.
I wanted to.
This was in 1990.
91.
91.
And there was homeless peoplethere.

Speaker 1 (17:28):
Oh yeah, oh wow, In San Diego, yeah, yeah, that's so
that was in shape.

Speaker 2 (17:35):
I mean, if anything, it got worse.
That's horrible.
Like when I was in the military, same thing they knew when you
got paid and they called themtag chasers for dog tags.
So we weren't allowed to weardog tags because, like, they
want to like hug us and like, ifthey feel dog tags like, okay,

(17:58):
he's a soldier.

Speaker 1 (17:59):
Yeah, but like they couldn't tell, by your haircut
right?
Yeah, exactly.

Speaker 2 (18:03):
I'm like thinking like okay, well, I have a high
and tight hair.

Speaker 1 (18:08):
That's not in style.

Speaker 2 (18:13):
So how long was?

Speaker 1 (18:14):
Corbin's school.
Corbin's school was, I think,14 weeks.
I believe 14 weeks.

Speaker 2 (18:20):
And they just threw you out into the world when?

Speaker 1 (18:24):
did you go?
I went to Great Lakes.
I was assigned to the hospitalin Great Lakes, initially just
on a general duty corpsman on amedical floor, learning how to
be a corpsman.
What was that experience like?
It was a good experience, butif you remember back when I

(18:45):
reclassified as a corpsman in mymind I thought I was going to
be like an EMT.
Right, and being on a med-surgfloor is nothing like being an
EMT.
Yeah, it's like being a patientcare tech or a nurse from CNA.
Yeah, yeah yeah, so a littledisappointed.
But also I knew there was a tonI didn't know, and so I just

(19:08):
optimized that time to learn asmuch as I could.
And I also learned in bootcampif you're a high performer, you
get recognized for that and youget special privileges.
And so I thought, well, I'mjust going to continue to be a
high performer and maybesomething good will come out of
it, and and so so your response,your response basically

(19:29):
Anything I can get.
Look, we didn't have theinternet, we didn't have chat,
gpt, they were called books.
We had to, we had to read them,and so I was reading the PDR
physician desk desk reference.
But now you have an app on yourphone.
You can think of the med andit'll pop up on your phone.
Yeah, so I had to read and Ijust anything I could get my

(19:50):
hands on.
I was just in it, yeah.

Speaker 2 (19:53):
That's awesome.
And then, how long were you inthe rear, like would you say?
Like basically that's like therear, like you were on the
stateside, yeah, stateside.
So how long were you stationedthere?

Speaker 1 (20:07):
I was there for two years yeah, two years and then I
eventually moved down to theemergency room, which is really
where I wanted to be, and thenultimately on the ambulance crew
.
So I kind of worked my way intothe best job for corpsman,
which was running all theambulances.
Why did you want to be?

Speaker 2 (20:26):
in that room.

Speaker 1 (20:26):
Well it's because again it goes back to the reason
I wanted to be a corpsman,because I it sounded to me like
I would be an emt and I could.
I could associate with an emtbecause my, my stepfather was a
firefighter and I was around thefire department growing up and
I saw what emts did and I I meanI, looked up to the emts
because they're the ones goingout dragging people out of cars

(20:50):
and, you know, saving people'slives.

Speaker 2 (20:52):
What was like a like a real life moment where you're
like, wow, like I'm actuallylike where I want to be.
Yeah, when was that?

Speaker 1 (21:01):
that was in I.
I think I'd been in the Navy ayear and a half.
I had just gotten on theambulance squad.
Now you have to understand,you're going to calls.
You know the military is a veryyoung demographic, right?
So you're not dealing withheart attacks, things like this,
because it's just a youngdemographic, and so a lot of the

(21:23):
things we picked up weresprained ankles, whatever.
But I remember distinctly acall to boot camp.
We had to drive over to bootcamp and it was, um, we got a
call for uh, well, I'm trying tobe politically correct and how
I probably fire.
No, it was um, the theconfusion.
So this, this recruit wasconfused and it was very vague.

(21:47):
So we get over there and wewalk onto the floor and it,
there's a recruit and he's, he'scovered in his own feces and um
, which isn't normal, by the way, even for boot camp, right,
well, well, I mean, yeah, Iwould agree with you.

Speaker 2 (22:05):
Actually, I had to think about it.
I was like 55, man.
Yeah, that's not normal.

Speaker 1 (22:12):
Even though the food tends to help with that.
So we get there, and this issomething that we're not
accustomed to, because you couldtell this guy's countenance was
there was something off, and sohe's confused.
We finally gave him theambulance away because he was
the other recruits and even thecoming to command.

(22:34):
They thought he was faking itand we just need to get him out
of the environment and figureout what the heck was going on.
So we get him on the ambulanceand people pupils are unequal.
One of them's not reactive, andI'm like something bad's going
on and despite how much I hadread up to that point in 18
months, I didn't know what theheck was going on.
It was scary because I justknew something bad's happening

(22:57):
here, and so I'm like, well,let's just put oxygen on him and
get him to the hospital andfigure it out.
And so it turns out he had a.
He had a brain bleed and, uh,we were able to.
And then, once we diagnosed itat the naval hospital, we
urgently transported him um to ahospital downtown chicago and
he was able to get life-savingcare he needed.

(23:20):
We didn't have that availableat the hospital uh, naval
hospital, yeah, so we had thelife-saving treatment that he
needed and we, we transportedhim down.
And I just remember, driving onthe way back from transporting
to chicago, me and my partner,the conversation, like what in
the heck?
Like how do we?
We got to level up.

(23:40):
I mean we didn't do anythingwrong, but what could we have
done different?

Speaker 2 (23:44):
because, wow, quicker yes, like while we don't see
that here.

Speaker 1 (23:51):
The expectation at some point when we're at a duty
station or with the marines isyou got to figure that out, you
don't have time to him haularound, and so that was a a
wake-up call that this is a.
This is a real job that I havehere.

Speaker 2 (24:05):
Yeah, especially if you're on a battlefield and you
need to perform here on thislike a Marine, you've got to be
on your toes ready to go knowwhat you're doing.
That's right.
Yeah, so that probably was thehumble dude You're like okay,
I'm like lock and load, I'mgoing to dial in, that's it.

(24:27):
So you stay at the Great Lakesfor a couple years, and then
when did you know out?

Speaker 1 (24:43):
of the country so the next yeah, the next uh rotation
you do is stateside, and thenyou do sea duty, which is either
marines, overseas hospital or aship.
And um, the war had ended andthey had an abundance of
corpsmen.
So there were no billets to gowith the marines and I wasn't
really keen on going on a ship.

(25:04):
So I got orders to go to Guam,to the Naval Hospital in Guam,
which is the antithesis of GreatLakes, illinois, complete
opposite.
It's an island.
You could call it an island.
It's a pin drop on a map, iswhat it is, but it's the most
beautiful, one of the mostbeautiful places on earth.

(25:25):
Really, yeah, yeah, no questionabout it.
So when you got the orders to goto Guam, were you pretty stoked
?
I pick them, I took them.
Oh, you picked them Back.
Then you had to call a detailerand say, hey, here's my
rotation date, what do you gotopen?
And he would say here's what'sopen, and I said, well, let me
do guam.
So that was it.
So it was my choice and you did, you know?

Speaker 2 (25:49):
did you know where guam was?

Speaker 1 (25:52):
kind of I knew.

Speaker 2 (25:54):
Yeah, I mean, I knew kind of where it was in the
middle of the google maps oranything.
No, that did not exist.

Speaker 1 (25:59):
it was an atlas map that you folded out, but I knew
it was in the Pacific Oceansomewhere.

Speaker 2 (26:07):
I thought it was in the Caribbean.
Wow, I'm stupid.

Speaker 1 (26:10):
It's west.

Speaker 2 (26:11):
I really got to pull out Google Maps and look where
it is.

Speaker 1 (26:14):
Yeah, If you scan your eyes from Hawaii west and
squint before you hit Japan,you'll see Guam.
Guam was pivotal during theworld war two.
Wow.

Speaker 2 (26:29):
Pivotal.
Yeah, I didn't, I didn't thinkof that.
Yeah, well, cause we wereisland hopping and world war two
, like.
So that was a, that was adifficult war, cause that was a
difficult theater of the warbecause, like we're trying to
like get to japan, there's somany islands in the way and they
got the philippines and guamwas, we probably would put an

(26:53):
airfield there right, there isyep, we, we liberated guam.

Speaker 1 (26:57):
We liberated guam and then took control of the island
because it was occupied by theJapanese.

Speaker 2 (27:06):
You're teaching me something.

Speaker 1 (27:07):
They took Guam on the same day they bombed Pearl
Harbor.
It was coordinated Wow.

Speaker 2 (27:16):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (27:20):
Yeah, it was like there was a very short span of
time that it took place and notenough time back then to convey
the message that Guam had beentaken over in order to react to
it.
And then Pearl Harbor happened.

Speaker 2 (27:32):
That's.
That's.
That's.
Thank you for teaching me thatman.
Usually, usually I got likeusually I'm smart when it comes
to history, but I've been, I'vebeen fumbling the bag lately.
So you like you said you got toget the hell out of Indiana,
then you go to Guam.

Speaker 1 (27:51):
What was that?
Like Guam was incredible,incredible.
You know golf beach all thetime.
I mean, if you want to go tothe beach, it wasn't a big plan
because at its widest point it'sabout five miles wide.
Uh, so every road you're on youcan see the ocean for the most

(28:16):
do you ever stay there?
I do.
I'm trying to figure out whatpart of the story I want to tell
you.
So we get there to check in.
We get there in the middle ofthe night to check in.
It's been 24 hours we've beenflying.
We flew to Tokyo direct 18hours on a smoking flight.

(28:38):
Yeah, which was wonderful.
So we get there in the middleof the night to Guam and we
check in at the quarter desk,the quarter deck, and they don't
have any records.
And I, as a buddy, and I wenttogether, um, uh, and they don't
have a record of us coming,like, oh, we didn't know you
guys are going to be here, likereally, of course, again, no

(29:00):
internet, you know that happens.
So they didn't have a barrack,the barracks room for us.
So they're like we're gonnaship you over to the naval air
station.
There's, there's barracks overthere, what they meant by that.
There's a storage building youcan stay in, and so that was our
introduction.
But we were you know, I was akid man.
I'm like we wake up nextmorning like we're going to the

(29:20):
beach.
Now I'm from indiana and youcan tell my complexion not real
dark, complected.
So we go to the beach and, uh,I'm not gonna use sunscreen
because I gotta, I gotta get mybronze on man I gotta look good
and I wake up in the middle ofthe night that next night
itching, like my entire body wasitching.
I'm like what the heck I get inthe shower can't?

(29:43):
Next morning I wake up terribleno rash, just itching.
So I go to the hospital and Irun into one of the nurse and I
said what the heck's going on?
I wasn't really sunburnt bad atall and she said how long you
been here.
I said about 36 hours.
She goes.
Did you go to the beach?
Yeah, she's got sun poisoning.
It happens to everybody whenthey first get here.

(30:04):
Take some ben Benadryl, you'llbe fine.
So I took Benadryl and I wasfine and I never had an issue
after that.
But it was the most miserable12 hours of my life.

Speaker 2 (30:13):
I can imagine.
I think when I was at boot campI got sick from all the shots
they gave me or whatever.
I had to do a peanut buttershot, which is right in the
right ass cheek.
So I was like, and then like,after that, the night after, I'm
just sick.

(30:33):
But they're like no, you'regetting up, you're still doing
this like you're, and I'm justlike.
So I totally can understandthat.
What was it like when you gotto your first station in Guam?

Speaker 1 (30:50):
So I worked in the ICU.
I went from this hospital inGreat Lakes, which was really
just taking care of the youngpopulation, to Guam, of the
young population to Guam, which,even at the time, even if they
were a federal employee, so wehad locals that were federal

(31:12):
employees that could accesshealthcare at the hospital, and
so it was a completely differentdemographic and it was there
were some sick people there, andso I I was working the icu and
now I'm exposed to sick people.
Uh, lots of trauma, and I wasable to hone a lot of skills
during that that tour there alot of trauma, like from what so

(31:37):
?
the road, the base of the roads?
When they mix the roads up, youthink about.
You know, here we use graveland these things to to form the
asphalt.
Well, there there's no gravel,so they they just they ground up
the coral, but when it rains,the oil from the coral rises to
the top and makes the road slick.
And because they have typhoons,they don't have wooden

(31:59):
telephone poles, they have theseconcrete poles that are about
10 foot in diameter.
So people have a tendency toslide off the road and smash
into these things on a regularbasis.
And then it's an island, so youhave people that are getting
sucked on, riptides out, gettingcaught underneath the reef.
Um, you know, it's a heavypopulated jungle, so people go

(32:21):
on boonie stomps and fall offcliffs and, yeah, lots of, uh,
lots of that, those types ofinjuries.
And then there's the gunshotsand the stabbings and things
like that, so were you helpingcivilians

Speaker 2 (32:32):
both, yeah, so you're helping civilians and soldiers.
Yeah, I didn't know that.
I thought like when I I feltlike like at fort camp, like we
only take care of the military.

Speaker 1 (32:44):
Yeah, so with Guam being a territory, there was a
civilian hospital on the island.
But there was an agreement thatif there was an injury in the
community and an ambulanceresponded, that we would bring
whomever needed care to theclosest hospital, which could
have been the Naval Hospital.
We would stabilize and care forthem and then at some point, if

(33:06):
they were stable enough totransport, we would transport
them over to the local hospital.
But you know, it was just oneof those humanitarian agreements
we had on a small island, youknow.

Speaker 2 (33:17):
Again.
What is the craziest thingyou've seen in Guam besides the
guy?

Speaker 1 (33:24):
at boot camp.
So, guam, I would say, uh, I,we saw a.
I saw a guy, um, so when wewould have traumas that would
come in, they, if we were slowerin the icu, we would always all
go down to the er and help outfor traumas.
And so, uh, we had a.
There was a guy that waschopping down um, mangoes it was

(33:48):
mangoes with a machete and hewhacked a power line and so the
entrance came through themachete and came out his side
and just it looked like itdidn't look real, like the exit
wound was his entire left sideof his body.
Just, yeah.
So you went down there and like, where do you put the chest

(34:09):
tube?
It's, yeah, it was pretty.
It was pretty.
I mean, mean, it just gave youtrue appreciate for the power of
electricity.
Yeah, there was no, yeah, yeah,that was probably the most one
of those interesting things Isaw in guam, for sure besides
your wife, right, I met her.

Speaker 2 (34:27):
Yeah, yeah, exactly my wife, yeah, she was uh, we.

Speaker 1 (34:30):
She came um.
She came to guam.
Uh, she had orders as a, youknow, she was a nurse corps
officer and she got thereprobably six months before I was
supposed to leave and she wasassigned to the icu and, you
know, once she laid eyes on meit was all over.
Man, I mean, that's all I mean.

Speaker 2 (34:48):
You can see, look at me, you guys just have like arms
and like helping patients andstuff.
You got blood all over yourlock eyes, just like the movies
look man, I I outkicked mycoverage.

Speaker 1 (35:04):
I had, 29 years later I'm thinking jiminy christmas.
Poor thing, she had no ideawhat she was getting into.

Speaker 2 (35:11):
It's really done.
I just interviewed her, likeliterally like an hour ago.
Yeah, no, she has an amazingstory.
So, like I, I can't wait foryou to be able to hear that.
Yeah, yeah, well, you probablyhave heard it.
Obviously for her to tell it.
It's an amazing story.
But let let's stick to yourguys' story.

(35:33):
So you met your significantother, then wife, and how did
that?

Speaker 1 (35:41):
progress.
It was challenging.
You get it as a military member.
Officers and enlisted aren'tsupposed to frat and eyes, but
when you work we're a small unit, but, dude, you're a stud.
Well, there's no unfortunately,there's nothing written in the

(36:01):
uh uniform code of justice thatsay, if you're a stud, that
disqualifies you from the rulesbecause you're a stud.
I mean that would create anational problem, I think now,
um, what was the question?

Speaker 2 (36:16):
I was like how did you, how did it progress?

Speaker 1 (36:17):
oh, how to progress you threw me off, man, uh.
So so we were, we worked in theicu together and it was a small
group of people and you knowthose groups of people would do
life together outside of work.
Yeah, and we, just we were, wewere at events together and
within the department and weworked a lot together and just
we just something just clicked,I mean and so here's the thing.

(36:43):
You get this and you canappreciate this as a military
member.
Maybe it's changed, but I I canonly report what I know from
this is probably 1994.
There's not a lot of goodlooking women in the military.

Speaker 2 (36:59):
Would you agree with this?

Speaker 1 (37:01):
That's why there's two scales.
Right, you know that's twoscales.
There's the military and thecivilian scale.
It's like what would she be ifshe was a civilian?
She was, she was a 10, like,not even military.
And I was like where in theworld did this woman come from?
Like I, you just neverexperienced anything like that
being in the military.
You just see, these did you did.

Speaker 2 (37:21):
You salute her before you got down on one knee there
was some saluting that tookplace appropriately.

Speaker 1 (37:27):
Yeah, I mean, it's standard, uh, and it just
happened, know, like we had alot of the same interests, even
though she was from Texas and Iwas from Indiana.
We had a lot of this, we hadthe same humor, it's what it
sounds.
I'm telling you, and I wouldtell you it was the three amigos
that did it.
It was the three amigos.
We watched the three amigostogether and that was like it.

Speaker 2 (37:56):
You watched?
The three amigos together andthat was like it.

Speaker 1 (37:57):
We you watched the three amigos together.
Yeah, that's what did it.
That's that's kind of what litthe fire, like we were like
could tell that that we therewas an attraction, and then I'm
just like, look, let's go, let'swatch it here's.
Let me tell you the story withthe three amigos.
If you've never seen it, yougot to watch it.
It's a classic.

Speaker 2 (38:16):
I've seen three.
No, actually not.
I'm thinking of those guys thathurt each other.
No, that's not the three amigos.

Speaker 1 (38:26):
That's the opposite of the three amigos.
Three amigos had Steve, uh,steve martin, chevy chase and
martin short.
So anyway, uh, we were workingdays and you know, you know how
there's that you really likesomebody and but there's that
awkwardness, like man, I justwhen do you put it out there?

(38:47):
And so we were talking and uh,she goes when are we to watch
the three amigos together?
And I said, well, let's watchit tonight.
She's like okay, watch tonight,I'll come over after work,
we'll watch three amigos.
I'm like perfect.
Well, she didn't know.
I didn't have a VCR, nor did Iown the movie.
So I got off early, I had to goto my buddy's house to borrow a

(39:15):
VCR and then I had to go downto the video store and buy the
three Amigos.
They didn't have streaming.
This was in 1994.

Speaker 2 (39:21):
I know, I know, I know, I know, I know they didn't
have streaming at all.

Speaker 1 (39:28):
That would have made it easy.

Speaker 2 (39:29):
It would have made it way easier.
But that's cool, you put yourmind to it.
You're like okay.
I got to do this.
Maybe she didn't know that.
Did you tell her?

Speaker 1 (39:40):
I may have told her after the fact, but she didn't
need to know that it wasn't inher business.

Speaker 2 (39:46):
Yeah she didn't.
She just needed to know that Ihad a VCR the three Amigos,
that's it.
And for everybody listening outthere all those kids get a girl
watch three Amigos.
That's it.
Let's get your res up.
That's it, okay.

Speaker 1 (40:08):
We've had and our kids have, they've watched it,
and so we've got these, allthese three Amigo lines that we,
that we have now become, thesefamily jokes and family sayings.
It's been kind of cool howthat's.
We've just taken that moment inour lives, how we met and we've

(40:29):
just stretched that across 30years and and included the kids,
and, and, and they're all.
They've been a, they've been apart of of that.

Speaker 2 (40:37):
Yeah and you know your life's been uh crazy.
From one of her, like you know,like um and I, I kind of want
to like accelerate a little bit,like so, like you know, like a
fast forward, it's kind of that.
So you marry Michelle, right?
And when did Nick come into thepicture?

Speaker 1 (40:59):
So Nick was before we got married Okay.

Speaker 2 (41:02):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (41:03):
Nick was before Michelle and I got married Okay.

Speaker 2 (41:05):
Yeah, all right.
Well, he's the reason whyyou're here.
Well, he's not really here thereason why he's here.
Actually, I'm thinking thewrong way but um something like
that.

Speaker 1 (41:18):
So how long were you in the Navy until you got out?

Speaker 2 (41:21):
uh, just shy of five years yeah, five years, okay,
and then uh you where did you gonext?

Speaker 1 (41:30):
so Michelle was still in and Nick was born, and so
michelle took orders to greatlakes so we could be close to
nick that's exactly what shesaid to me on my podcast.
Oh good we got our storystraight, yeah no, that's.

Speaker 2 (41:48):
that's beautiful that she did thought Nick's an
awesome person.
I was super excited that yousaid you were down to do this
and I have to ask you a question.
So, like Nick told me that youwere devastated when he quit
baseball.

Speaker 1 (42:09):
Devastated.

Speaker 2 (42:10):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (42:11):
Here's the good news I was in Germany when he called
me.
It's probably good for him, butit was devastating.
But of course, looking back, Imean he was so talented.
The kid could do anything hewanted to do, it didn't matter.

(42:32):
And when I first saw him ridinghis bike, because that's what
could do, anything he wanted todo it didn't matter.
And when I first saw him ridinghis bike, because that's what
he told me he wanted to do.

Speaker 2 (42:37):
He's like oh, I want to ride my bike.

Speaker 1 (42:38):
I'm like you can ride your bike in the off season.
They're going to pay for yourcollege.
You got to throw a ball andswing a piece of wood.
What's the problem?
I want to ride my bike.
I want, would.
What's the problem?
I want to ride my bike.
I want to ride my bike.
Ride it in the off season.
Now I want to do bmx.
I knew I wasn't going to talkhim out of it because he was a

(42:58):
lot like me he is.

Speaker 2 (43:00):
He is like you from what we're talking.
Like you, you guys, can you getbored pretty easily.
That's why he wanted to be onthe er floor yep, yep, so yeah,
but I wouldn't change it.

Speaker 1 (43:13):
I mean, he's, he figured it out.

Speaker 2 (43:15):
Yeah, uh, he wanted me to tell you that.
Uh, there was this one timewhere, uh, you're like you're
not gonna make any money out ofthis, you're not gonna do
anything with this.
And then, um, he's uh makingmoney at the circus and you're
like, god damn, this son, thisguy freaking, got me.

(43:36):
I know exactly what he'stalking about, man.
So when he called me.

Speaker 1 (43:39):
I'm like you're not gonna make a nickel riding your
bike, you're not gonna do it.
And then fast forward to thevery first time we went to watch
him perform.
Afterwards I'm like, do youremember when I said that he and
he goes?
Yeah, I'm like, yeah, I waswrong, you proved me wrong, and
I think that was like theconfirmation, like, yeah, he's,
he's definitely a lot like me.
I should stop trying to swimupstream and fight it.

(44:02):
Just let him go.
You know?
Yeah, oh, yes.

Speaker 2 (44:05):
He's a super uh and we're, we're.
We're into the same things too,Like books and stuff like that.
But yeah, just a little shortclip I wanted to do with Nick.
We also had him on the podcastlike a year ago.
It was amazing.
He's a good friend of mine,he's a growing family and I'm

(44:27):
super proud of him.

Speaker 1 (44:30):
You're probably proud of him as well.

Speaker 2 (44:31):
Oh yeah, yeah, no question about it yeah, so let's
get uh back to you, though.
So I uh, so you guys um movedto great lakes again, right, and
then um what?

Speaker 1 (44:47):
happened after that?
Um, so michelle got out of thenavy, got off of active duty,
and, um, I graduated fromnursing school and so so you
went to nursing, I went tonursing school.
Yeah, yeah, I went to nursingschool.
Once we got back to Illinoisand we were here for five or six
years and then I don't know ifyou realize this Illinois is an

(45:12):
expensive place to live reallyat least it was back in 1996.
I did not know that.
So this was 2002 and we at thispoint, you know, we had Nick
and we had all four kids at thispoint, and I had to move kids
at this point, yeah, and I hadto move someplace where I could

(45:37):
afford to take care of a family.
And so, michelle being fromTexas, we started looking into
Texas and so we ended up movingto Texas, to East Texas, near
Tyler.
I took a job at a trauma centera level one trauma center there
, okay, east texas, near tyler.
I took a job in a trauma centera level one trauma center there
, um, and bought a little houseand started raising kids and

(45:58):
trying to figure out life as anadult.
You stayed in texas rightthrough and through.

Speaker 2 (46:05):
We stayed in texas, yeah yeah for yeah, for a little
while I said through andthrough yeah, just like where,
where'd you go next?

Speaker 1 (46:14):
yeah, um, after texas we went to well, you know,
trying to think, made it.
So we went to indiana for abrief stint.
We bought restaurants.

Speaker 2 (46:25):
That's a whole other story I know, I know this story
yeah, I got it, I got it right.

Speaker 1 (46:30):
I got the story, so we were in indiana for a brief
amount of time back to Texas.
Great pizza, by the way.
I would argue it's probably thebest pizza that's ever existed
in the United States, in theUnited.

Speaker 2 (46:44):
States.
Okay, Italy has some prettygood pizza.

Speaker 1 (46:50):
And then we went to Germany and then back to texas
and then to arkansas.
Where's germany?
Like incredible, incredible,you could travel easily.
Um, you could travelinexpensively and you could see
buildings that were older thanthe united states, that were
still functional.
Yeah, they built things to lastin germany, yeah it was a great

(47:10):
experience.

Speaker 2 (47:10):
it was you, probably, as a history buff, went to go
see all the history as well.
Things to last in Germany.
Yeah, it was a great experience.
It was you, probably, as ahistory buff, went to go see all
the history books as well.

Speaker 1 (47:16):
Yeah, I think MacArthur's buried in Luxembourg
, and so he's the only general,american general buried in a
non-American soil.
You may have to look that up.
If I'm wrong, just edit it, butI think it's MacArthur.
No, I'm not editing it out.

Speaker 2 (47:34):
You're like, look at this jerk, he doesn't know
anything.
See, he's dumb.

Speaker 1 (47:39):
But no, I think it's MacArthur that's born in
Luxembourg, so go over and seehis grave.
That was impressive Then youknow, then you have the
concentration camps and yeah,with the Auschwitz and Poland
and stuff, yeah.

Speaker 2 (47:56):
So sad stuff, but let's stay on it.
Good, now right?
Yeah, let's just depart fromthat, yeah, yeah so so so you
gotta be a like working fulltime and it was a 4.0, is that

(48:17):
correct?

Speaker 1 (48:18):
That's what they tell me.
That's what they tell you.
Yeah, yeah, I was.
It was during COVID, by the way.
So I was the manager of a largeinpatient unit we were the
COVID containment unit, and Ihad just started my MBA prior to
this.
And so what were my options?

(48:38):
I could I could quit and waittill the dust settles.
I could suck it up and pushthrough it, and that's what I
did.
I learned when I went tonursing school.
Now, I was on the GI bill.
However, I consider I paid forthat right Because I was the one

(48:59):
that had to serve to get thebenefit of the GI bill.
So that was my time.
So I learned then that I'mgoing to hold the instructors to
a high level because I'm payingfor it out of my own pocket.
And number two, I'm going to,I'm going to be a high performer
and I'm not going to acceptanything less than the top 4.0.

(49:21):
And so I got a 4.0 and mymaster's my mba program you were
working at the same time.
I had a full, probably a one andone and a half times, because
again, it was covid.
So it was about 60 hours a weekrespect man, that's awesome,
that's.

Speaker 2 (49:38):
That's really cool.
I'm thinking about going backto school as well, um, just just
like for the knowledge you know.
Like it's just knowledge ispower and I love that.
And um, one thing I did want toask you is, like you went from
nurse to like more on like theexecutive part of like the
hospital and uh, I kind ofwanted to get through that again

(50:01):
, get into that because of uh,like your hospital administrator
and uh, nick told me you werein charge of like three
hospitals now and uh, I justwant to see how that progressed
like from your mba to likeknowing hospitals.

Speaker 1 (50:17):
Yeah, uh, so, um.
So I was, like I said I was,the manager of this large floor
is one of the largest floors inthe hospital and then covet hit
um and, in a time where nursingstaffing was exceedingly
challenging, I had an incredibleteam of nurses that were

(50:41):
committed to taking care ofpeople and my job was to lead
them in doing that.
And there's a lot of metricsthat we look at that determines
how well you're performing, andall those important metrics were
flying off the charts, and it'sbecause of the team I had.

(51:02):
And the president at thehospital at the time reached out
to me and said what are youdoing up there?
I mean, how are you?
And I said I'm just leading abunch of high-performing,
super-intelligent nurses.
Is all I'm doing.
They're making me look good.
He said well, we need to getyou influencing more people than

(51:24):
just the handful of people youhave up there, and so, with my
experience in restaurants, Ihave an affinity for
entrepreneurial and operations.
And when you get to that point,I had to either make a decision

(51:45):
do I go leadership up thenursing route, where I become
the nursing executive, or do Igo up the other side, on the
operations side, and then Ibecome part of the operations
and strategy of the hospital.
I just was so much bettersuited for the operation side,
and so he became my mentor andum hired me into a position, uh,

(52:06):
as a director of businessdevelopment for the hospital
where was?
This?
This was in 2000 or 2020, whyare you?

Speaker 2 (52:16):
asking me dates.

Speaker 1 (52:17):
You know, because I want, because I, I don't see the
progression, man I'm sorry, Idon't know, I, I, I, I say that
because I think once you're 50,you shouldn't have to give dates
.
So, sorry, no, it's okay.
It just takes me a second tothink because I, I gotta, I
gotta, I gotta see the thing inmy head.
So 2021, 2021 is when I gotpromoted into the director of

(52:41):
business development for thishospital and, um, here was my
orientation.
I reported directly to thepresident.
I said what, what?
What's my job?
What do I do?
He said you eat what you kill.
Go out and get business andbuild relationships and just do
what you do.
What does that mean?
Um, eat what?
So it's a different philosophywhen you own, when you own your

(53:04):
own business.
So let's, let's just take astep back.
When I own the pizza places,yeah, my, everything that I was
responsible for my wife, my kids, all my bills relied on the, my
ability to sell pepperoni pizza.
And if I didn't sell pepperonipizza, I was gonna have problems

(53:25):
.
And so you have a differentapproach to how you do business,
and there's this kill what youeat mentality.
You go get it, yeah, right, youjust go get it all.
Gas, no brakes, yep.
So I carry that.
I carry that into health care.
Same mentality, because healthcare is competitive everywhere
you go, and I carry that samementality into the, the

(53:50):
leadership side.
Uh, and health care of all gas,no breaks.
Eat what you kill, go get it.
And we had some successes in ashort amount of time in that
role.
I was in that role for a yearand then I was recruited to go
take over a hospital in arkansaswhere, where were you?

(54:10):
uh, the for the texas, texas,texas yeah, all this, the, the
covid, the nursing manager roleeverything was in texas, okay,
and then I get recruited to goto arkansas to take over a small
hospital in arkansas by thesame guy.
He had been recruited to takeover the market in arkansas and
pulled me, have to take overthis hospital and, uh, it was

(54:33):
the same thing.
That year was in 23.
It was very challenging comingout of COVID A lot of challenges
for healthcare organizations, alot of funding for COVID was
pulled back and so a lot ofmanaging of expenses had to take
place.
At the same time, you stillhave to maintain a culture and
you still have to deliver highquality care, of course.

(54:55):
So we the hospital was not inbad shape, but there were some.
There were some headwinds, andso we were able to get over
those really quickly and kind ofpoint, that hospital yeah so
when you look at a hospital'sperformance, there's things you
look at.
You look at quality severalquality metrics that you look at
that you, as a consumer, expect.
You expect to be delivered highquality care.

(55:17):
You don't look for a mediocrehospital to go get your care for
them.
So there are metrics that youcan look at to tell you how well
a hospital performs.
One of the things that you canlook at is the Center for
Medicare has star ratings.
The things that you can look atis uh, the center for medicare
has star ratings.
The highest starting is a fivestar, which something like two

(55:37):
or three percent of thehospitals.
It's very, very elite.
The hospital I was in went froma three star to a four star, and
it's all based on a number ofdifferent metrics quality
metrics, patient experiencemetrics, how safe is your
hospital, and so that was one ofthe things we were able to do.
More importantly and this iskind of my leadership style is

(56:02):
what does the culture of yourhospital look like, and how do
you tell?
How can you tell what ahospital culture looks like?
Well, you do what we callemployee engagement surveys.
Let the employees tell us howthey feel about where they work
and as a leader.
That feedback is gold, becauseit tells you what are you doing
well, what are you doingmediocre, and what do you suck

(56:22):
at.
And if you don't have a team atthe table to figure out how to
fix where you suck, the hospitalculture is going to fall apart.
There's one quote I've stood byCulture eats strategy for
breakfast've stood by cultureeats strategy for breakfast.
And without culture strategyisn't what the paper is written
on.
So the um, the culture was alittle bit challenging.

(56:44):
Uh, the engagement was a littlebit challenging, but that's
right up my alley.
I dove in head first, startedengaging, engaging the team.
I started showing up, beingvisible, uh, removing barriers.

Speaker 2 (56:57):
Was that, uh, different for the team than
where they're used to as a?

Speaker 1 (57:01):
woman Completely, yeah, completely.
Um, um, the guy I replaced Idon't know the guy.
I never met him.
If he walked in the room, Iwouldn't know he was here.
He's right behind you, I know.
I saw the shadow and I'msitting there.
Oh God, he just showed up.

(57:24):
He was very financially focused,and when you're a leader and
you're financially focused, youforget about the people that are
driving the finances.
And I'm the opposite.
I focus on the peopleunderstanding if, if I meet the
needs of the team, they're goingto drive the performance of the

(57:46):
hospital and I'm not going tohave to worry about finances
because they're going to deliverthe highest quality care and
it's going to be a place wherepeople want to come to get their
care and people want to come todeliver their care.
So I had a completely oppositephilosophy and so I just dove in
head first, like with theleadership team what can I do to
make your life better when youcome to work?
And we just started buildingrelationships, number one in the

(58:12):
hospital, number two in thecommunity, because the community
confidence was a little low,and not with the hospital.
So I just I got out in thecommunity and got in front of
people and talked about thegreat things we do at the
hospital and so our employeeengagement.
Really, the one line thatmatters is favorability.
Like how do you rate yourfavorability of your job right
now?
One to five, five being thebest one, one being I wish I

(58:33):
wasn't here and we were at 3.2.
When I took over the hospital,we were at 4.1, the last survey
that we took before I moved on.
And guess what?
The finances correctedthemselves.
The performance of the financescorrected themselves.
The performance of the hospitalcorrected themselves.
You could walk in and there wasa palpable feeling that this

(58:56):
place was different um, it'samazing man yeah, yeah, and then
I did so good.
He said well, I want you to goto this other hospital in the
system in arkansas and do thesame thing, and that was a bit
challenging.
It was um, it was, it was inbad shape.

Speaker 2 (59:15):
There's it was decades of multiple ceos coming
through with different visionsand then not having the
longevity and then leaving canyou explain like a day in life,
like like being like first, uh,the hospital that's, like you
know, like in bad shape, likethe plan that you had, and then,

(59:39):
like you know, the reward,obviously after?

Speaker 1 (59:42):
yeah, um.
Well, again, you got to knowwhere the fire's at.
Yeah, right, and so that wasthe first thing I needed to do
was figure out what's burningdown and where we need to focus
first, and you can historicallylook back at performance, and so
I was able to look back at theemployee engagements and realize
this is probably the firstplace we need to focus is to

(01:00:06):
engage the team, and it's really.
Healthcare is such a hard job,I don't care what.
So I've been in healthcare froma patient care tech to a ward
clerk, to a phlebotomist, to anurse, to the CEO.
I mean I've been in every role.
I can tell you there's not aneasy role in healthcare.
I've served radiology, I'veserved lab.

(01:00:29):
There is not an easy job inhealthcare.
And I think, having thatbackground and living in those
roles, I have a greaterunderstanding what people go
through when they come to workevery day.
And I don't pass any judgment.
I don't walk on a floor andtake a snapshot and create a

(01:00:52):
reality.
I just don't do that.
It's unsafe for you.
You can very quickly developconfirmation bias if you, if
that's the way you carryyourself and um you don't want
to look like an aristocrat,basically right, you look like
an empty suit.
Yeah, and there's nothing worsefor a healthcare professional to

(01:01:16):
have a leader that looks likean empty suit.

Speaker 2 (01:01:19):
Yeah, and you just killed it.
And I still don't understand.
Are you in charge of thedoctors and the nurses, or are
you in charge of the doctors andthe nurses?
Are you in charge of, like,down to the janitor?

Speaker 1 (01:01:34):
So it depends on the role, and I say this with
complete sincerity.
I am not in charge of anybodyand no one works for me.
I work for them Because if Idon't have them, I don't have a
job, and so it's my job to workfor them, to figure out how I

(01:01:58):
can remove their barriers, getthem what they need.
Now to answer your question,the answer is yes.
There are roles I've been inwhere I've been over everybody,
doctors to the janitors.
There's roles where I've beenover service lines.
So it just depends.

Speaker 2 (01:02:15):
Currently, um, it's mainly service lines that I'm
over, um, but I've I've been inroles where it's been everybody
so, like, first of all,congratulations with all you've
done in the past few years,because this is recent, I

(01:02:36):
thought this wasn't recent and Ican only see you being like
this.
That's amazing that you wereable to that.
The people were amazing enoughto make you better.
People were amazing enough tomake you better Because, like,
what I say in the military is,there's no such thing as bad
soldiers, it's bad leaders, andyou were in the military too.

(01:03:01):
So, like I mean, like I justgot mad respect that you went
for that and I was going gonnasay something.

Speaker 1 (01:03:11):
Uh, I was gonna like see how, like you think about
health care, like being in thehealth care's like you know,
like job yeah, health care ishard, uh, and it doesn't matter
where you're at in healthcarewhether you're a provider or a
consumer, healthcare is hard.

(01:03:32):
There's so many moving partsand challenges to the delivery
of healthcare that is not seenby the consumer and,
unfortunately, it's very easy tocast an incorrect or inaccurate
perception of health care intothe general public based on an

(01:03:57):
incident or an isolated incident.
And that's the biggestchallenge is how do you deliver
care compassionate, quality carein such a way that is still
profitable?
People hate that Healthcareshouldn't be profitable, right?

(01:04:19):
I don't know how you can't beprofitable.
And here's what I'll tell youindustry secret Hospitals
operate about a 3% margin 3%.
So that's small If you're notreally business-minded.
What does that mean?
That's small?
It means 3% of what you'vegenerated in revenue is

(01:04:42):
considered profit, and that'sthe money you have to upgrade
your delivery system.
That's the money you have forraises.
That's the money you have forCAT scans.
That's the money you have forraises.
That's the money you have forCAT scans.
That's the money you have forMRIs.
And, by the way, if you need anew CAT scan in your hospital,
you might as well figure you'regoing to spend a couple million
bucks on it.
So that's that 3% that you haveto figure out.

(01:05:03):
How do you improve the deliveryof care with such a small,
narrow margin?

Speaker 2 (01:05:10):
It's astonishing that you were able to turn around
all these hospitals andobviously you said it was for
the people around you.
But it's also you, man, it'syour character.
You're not like all high andmighty when you walk on the
floor.
You're like what's's up, man,like are you having a good day?

(01:05:32):
Is everything okay?
You know, and um, to to makethese uh people like, not to
make them better, but to to helpthem get better, you know, and
have a better experience at work.
That's the best thing.
That's what I try to do for mynurses all the time and uh, and
they, they love it here, becauseI try not to give them like,

(01:05:56):
like, be like pouty and upset,like, oh, like.
I hate my life, this that youknow.
You just gotta live life to themax.
That's why we uh started thepodcast, you know, to get a
voice out.

Speaker 1 (01:06:08):
Of course, I've had my demons and like the problems
that I've had, but like there'sa.

Speaker 2 (01:06:15):
It's a crazy experience from going from like
a nurse to like a mba covid andyou jump from hospital, hospital
, hospital and you're um just uh, killing it and uh, I was gonna
ask you, uh something.
So when I got injured and Iknow you don't know a lot about

(01:06:38):
insurance, but when I gotinjured, uh, I was under dry
care, obviously, and uh, I, um,I uh the recruiter told me the
Army's always going to have myback, the Army's always going to
have my back.
And I got injured in a caraccident.

(01:06:58):
Everyone thinks I got shot.
No, I got injured in a caraccident.
I wasn't driving, I was goingto see my family for my birthday
.
It was three days after mybirthday, my 20th.
It was about nine years ago, onMarch 24th 2016.
So I got injured and I'm likejust focusing on myself and I'm

(01:07:21):
thinking like, damn, I'm notgoing overseas anymore, I'm not
going to be this soldier, youknow, and like I get out and I
learn, I learn, like all thethings they tell me, like
because it was a paradox, man,like my life was flipped upside
down, like it's.
Like you, like black was white,white was black.

(01:07:42):
You know it was so surreal andwith you being like into health
care, healthcare I got slappedwith a 1.6 million dollar bill
and I didn't know what to do.
I was like, wow, $250,000 tostay at Rehabilitation Institute

(01:08:06):
of Chicago.
So I know you worked at thesehospitals.
Like I was just wondering, like, do you have any like insight
on that?
Why, like the Army didn't havemy back or the insurance company
didn't do anything?

Speaker 1 (01:08:26):
That's where I'm confused, because you should
have been covered by Tricare andTricare unless where you were
at was not in network forTricare.
It's messy, I'm telling you.
We'd have to have a series ofpodcasts to go over insurance.

(01:08:49):
Okay, so it's so messy.
Yeah, but unless tricare was,if that wasn't an in-network
provider of your care, meaning,or maybe they didn't accept
tricare and I'll tell you so.
Government payers, tricare,medicare, medicaid they pay the
lowest, they reimburse thelowest to the health care

(01:09:10):
providers, right?
So?
So if they have a contract,they're going to tell the
provider.
Here's what we're going to payyou, based on the diagnosis code
or the cpt code, which probablydoesn't mean anything to you.
But so the organizationunderstands what the
reimbursement is, and and thenwhat they do is they issue the
bill to tricare and tricare paysthe bill.

(01:09:33):
Yeah, but what I don't know iswhy did tricare didn't pay your
bill unless it wasn't, unlessthe organization didn't accept
tricare as your insurance?
Now you become a self-pay,which is sounds like what.
What has happened?

Speaker 2 (01:09:46):
yeah.
So, like we were, I was at theicu and I woke up and my
family's around me, the art, thearmy this guy stood at my, my,
my platoon sergeant stood at mydoor for 48 hours until I woke
up, which was like you know,like, like, amazingly, I, I
didn't know, I was that like,like I didn't know, like I meant

(01:10:08):
that much to them, you know.
And when I got there they saidyou're going to Walter Reed and
that's not a spinal cord injuryplace at all.
And they're like, okay, well,maybe Atlanta, like, but my
family's like literally the besthospital is in Chicago for

(01:10:28):
spinal cord injury.
I'm like.
So my family fought tooth andnail with Department of Defense
and then they said okay fine,you can go to RIC.
So maybe that's where they werelike, yeah, like, but we're
going to be like, like we're notgoing to tell you that.
We're not paying for it.
So it was a pretty uh crazyexperience at like 21 to hear

(01:10:53):
that I owed that much money to ahospital just because I was
going to see my friends andfamily for my birthday, you know
yeah, yeah, and so do you.

Speaker 1 (01:11:06):
Did track your pay any of it?

Speaker 2 (01:11:08):
They did.
So I'll explain more when weget off the podcast, but I want
to add this on a good note LikeI said, you jumped from hospital
to hospital to hospital and youhad this mentor, this president
of the hospital, that keepsbringing you with and telling

(01:11:30):
you where to go and stuff.
I have a mentor, just like that.
I always recommend this bookeveryone.
It's a broken record, but Iread, I read, uh, mastery by
robert green and uh, it explains.
Like like, uh, you find amaster.
You're like, okay, I want to belike that guy and you become an

(01:11:52):
apprentice.
It usually takes about sevenyears and then you like start
becoming a master.
You know, and it seems likeyou're mastering this pretty
quickly.
Man, like you're understanding.
Like you know, it's about thepeople.
It's not about the money, it'sabout the hospital, it's about
the people that are coming in.
They get quality care andthat's why you're getting, like,

(01:12:14):
all these opportunities.
You went to green bay, right,that was your next place green
bay.

Speaker 1 (01:12:19):
Uh, yeah, well, ryan lander, it's.

Speaker 2 (01:12:21):
It's um the north woods of wisconsin, four hours
yeah and uh, you're just likekilling it, man, like for
everybody out there that'slistening, because you probably
are listening, because it's nota, it's a podcast, but, uh, if
you have something that you wantto do and you put your mind to

(01:12:43):
it, freaking, do it seriously.
If this guy went through duringcovid did a job like, uh, like
time, time and a half of workand he got his mba, don't be
crying about going to school ortrying to figure out a career.
There's anything.

(01:13:05):
Eat what you kill, exactly, eatwhat you kill.
That's a beautiful saying, youknow.
And then, like, I like mysaying as well.
I'm not going to trump yoursaying, but, like you know,
there's no such thing as badsoldiers or bad leaders.
So, now that you're in thisarea and you kind of found your

(01:13:29):
calling, in a way, it you kindof found your calling.
It's kind of weird, like youwent bankrupt with a pizza place
and now you're like overseeingthe line of a hospital.

Speaker 1 (01:13:45):
Yeah, I think that's important, that if you haven't
failed at anything, it's becauseyou haven't tried anything
right?
I've failed I've failed, but Iunderstand failure.

(01:14:06):
Failure is not a person and um,to me, if you fail, that means
you're trying.
So you get up and you keeptrying because, yeah, yeah, when
, when you stop trying you'renot going to accomplish anything
, you're going to becomecomplacent, and then the world

(01:14:27):
doesn't need another complacentperson.
There's plenty of them outthere.
Yeah, right, of course, thebeautiful thing is the bar in
the world is not very high rightnow.
I mean, really, it takes verylittle effort to rise above the
median.
And you know, I, I just I gotto say this is sitting across

(01:14:49):
from you, um, and you know, I,just I got to say this sitting
across from you.
People can bitch and moan allday about their life, and then I
sit across from you and hearingyour story and knowing what
you've gone through, and I saymy back hurts.
Who gives a shit?
Your back hurts, suck it upright.

(01:15:10):
Because I sit across from youand your life was turned upside
down.
And this is another saying thatI love.
It's when you change the way youlook at things.
The things you look at changeand you, whether you know it or
not, you've done that and it'sit's.

(01:15:30):
I have a very dear friend thathas a very similar story to
yours, minus the trauma, and I'mtrying to.
He gets those moments and I'msure you've gone through it.
We get those moments whereyou're motivated and you're
going to conquer the world, andthe next minute you're like what
am I even doing?
Yeah, and so I try tocontinually motivate this guy,
like today is just another day.

(01:15:52):
You have to get up and you'vegot to figure out how you're
going to be better today thanyou were yesterday.
Cause I go back to, there'senough mediocre people in the
world that we don't need more ofthem, but we got to have people
that are willing to rise up andlead for the greater of the
good.
And that's what you're doing.
And lead for the greater of thegood 100%.
That's what you're doing.

(01:16:13):
You're doing exactly that.

Speaker 2 (01:16:17):
I mean, like I could have accepted the like.
So the one thing is like withDAPTA, I don't accept the injury
.
I'm going to keep going, keepdoing everything possible to
where I can do it, to where Ican get out of this chair, which
is what I do.
And on top of it, I do thispodcast because I want to

(01:16:40):
motivate people out there andtell them hey, if you're having
a problem, dude, you can gooutside and have a nice.
You can go outside andliterally take a breath.
Like I can't, like I can't dothat.
I miss that so much.
So sometimes I like say, like Iwas saying, like, take a breath
for me, because, like, becauseliterally that's what you can do

(01:17:02):
.
You are, I did not know.
I did not know that it is aprivilege to be able to breathe
and not write.
I did not know that until thishappened.
So you learn from the mistakesand then you get through it.
And talking to you today, man,I guess that's the theme of this

(01:17:22):
podcast we learn through ourmistakes.
So that's how we prevailed andpersevered, got through it, and
it's just been like you know,prevailed and you know
persevered, got through it, andit's just.
It's been amazing talking toyou, chris Blair.
Chris Blair, it's been amazingtalking to you and I'm happy you
were able to make some time tocome out here.

(01:17:43):
I know you got a busy scheduleand you got any last words for
anybody out there.

Speaker 1 (01:17:51):
Yeah for you.
You had made a comment earlierabout you.
You've been thinking aboutgoing to school.
When do you stop thinking andstart doing?
All gas, no brakes, max.
All gas, no brakes.
All gas, no brakes, baby.
That's all I got to say, man.

Speaker 2 (01:18:12):
If you guys liked this video, please subscribe.
Turn that red button into gray.
You'll love it.
We're going to keep pushing outvlogs.
We're going to keep pushing outpodcasts.
I'm paralyzed from a neck-downbreathe-through machine, but
that doesn't stop me fromfollowing my dreams and doing
what I love to do.

(01:18:33):
I don't got an excuse, andneither should you.
We'll see you all in the nextone.
Still good, it's just adifferent vibe, just a couple of
puns all trying to get by.

Speaker 1 (01:18:49):
Just a couple of teens all trying to survive.
Live to the max, cause youdon't live it twice.
Couple green thumbs all heightsokay, just a couple.