Scary Competition

"Scary Competition"

My Job Here is Done™ Transcript (for general use only, machine-generated, and it may not be accurate). 

Dave (00:01) When I was getting started in my career, I was in awe of people who are in those professions that most people can only dream of.

Dave (00:08) You know what I'm talking about?

Kelli (00:09) Yeah, like being an astronaut or the ruler of a small island.

Dave (00:14) Well, if you're rich enough, you can buy a small island and rule it. Do you happen to know anybody who owns a small island?

Kelli (00:21) I know Larry Ellison, who started Oracle.

Dave (00:24) You know Larry Ellison?

Kelli (00:26) No, I know that Larry Ellison, who started Oracle, owns a Hawaiian island called Lanai. I know that.

Dave (00:33) I was hoping for an introduction.

Kelli (00:35) Yeah, be nice, maybe.

Dave (00:36) Well, according to People magazine, so does Leonardo DiCaprio, Johnny Depp, Faith Hill. Yeah, you, too, can own and rule your small island. It's really not all that hard, apparently,

Kelli (00:49) all about a King Dork of Podcast Island. See them at his throne and peel grapes for his enjoyment.

Dave (00:55) Okay.

Kelli (00:56) All right.

Dave (00:57) I'm taking applications for my queen since you clearly have a beheading in your future.

Kelli (01:04) So you were in awe of astronauts?

Dave (01:06) Weren't you?

Dave (01:07) And doctors, lawyers, CEOs of any size company. I was in awe of scientists, airline pilots. I looked at myself and said, there is no way I could ever be one of them.

Kelli (01:19) You know, I think a lot of people think that way. I did, too.

Kelli (01:22) Let me ask you a question. At what age did you feel that way?

Dave (01:25) Oh, easily into 20's and 30's

Kelli (01:28) Really?

Dave (01:29) And then suddenly something changed.

Kelli (01:32) I suspect an AHA moment coming up!

Dave (01:35) No, it was actually more like a WTF moment. And ever since then, I tell anyone who is even a little bit ambitious ... Dude, the competition is not that scary!

INTRO (01:49) Hi, I'm Dave, and I've been starting and running businesses all my life, and I'm Kelli, working for the man like a dog for decades. And you, are YOU! The driven career professional, clawing your way up the ladder of success, maybe running your own business? The next 20 minutes or so is just for you; welcome to:

Chuck Fresh (02:09) My job here is done.

Dave (02:13) Well, hello and welcome. Thanks a lot for taking a break to give us about 20 minutes of your time today. I'm Dave.

Kelli (02:19) And I'm Kelli. And we talk about career success and entrepreneurial business growth on this podcast. Subscribe or follow us on your favorite app. We don't want you to miss any new episodes.

Dave (02:31) ... And you can interact with Kelli and I personally at our website, My Job Here Is Done.com, and on social media at myjob podcast.

Kelli (02:39) This is the one about soaring past that cruiser sitting next to you because you just realized the competition you face is not all that scary ...

Dave (02:49) Or tackling what you grew up to believe, and maybe still do believe, is a job or a career reserved for special people only. Not you.

Dave (03:00) What do astronauts, doctors, and airline pilots all have in common?

Kelli (03:04) I bet you're thinking up words like advanced education, high IQ, maybe rich parents or they're just smarter than me and work harder than I do.

Dave (03:16) Is that true?

Kelli (03:17) Oh, yeah, most of the time, each of those professions requires a lot of education. You do have to be smart and you have to work hard to get there.

Dave (03:26) But you don't have to have rich parents.

Kelli (03:28) No, not really.

Kelli (03:29) Okay, but you know what's not true is that the people who are astronauts, doctors, lawyers, or airline pilots, for example, are superior human beings to you.

Kelli (03:40) It's also not true that just because they're in those positions, they should all - as a group - be revered and respected, without question.

Dave (03:48) Let me jump in. Kelli specifically just said as a group, right?

Kelli (03:52) Right.

Dave (03:53) Because in every profession, doctors, pilots, lawyers, plumbers, salespeople, firefighters, janitors, CEOs, and stay-at-home moms, there are some people who are clearly super amazing.

Dave (04:08) The top of the top, the best of the best. And yes, those few should be held in the highest regard.

Kelli (04:14) And we can learn from those special few. We can try to emulate their habits or patterns to improve our skills. But both Dave and I can tell you for a fact that the people in those professional groups are not at all equal ...

Dave (04:28) ... Or even close at times.

Dave (04:31) You've heard us talk about this before on other episodes, both Kelli and I have experience in healthcare, so we draw on that often. Kelli more so on the administrative and education side of health care.

Dave (04:42) And for me, I took a break years ago from technology to become a volunteer paramedic. Always wanted to do that. Always watched "Emergency" and Johnny and Roy and send some EKG. I just love that.

Dave (04:56) And when I did it, it put me on the clinical side of the medical profession. Clinical meaning that I would be providing direct patient care for people who called 911 for medical emergencies.

Kelli (05:08) Today's story helps prove that you can do whatever you want if you apply yourself and that you shouldn't be afraid to try what may seem impossible or out of reach in your career and in other endeavors to propel your career, like going back to school to finish or even start your degree as an adult.

Kelli (05:27) Back to this in a minute.

Kelli (05:29) In my profession, I hear this joke a lot. What do you call the person who graduated 500th in their class of 500 people in medical school?

Dave (05:37) I know the answer: Doctor.

Kelli (05:40) Yes. Right. So think about that for a minute.

Kelli (05:43) What do you call the 500th graduate of a class of 500 people in an MBA program?

Dave (05:49) An MBA.

Kelli (05:51) Right again. Now think about this who would you rather put your trust in? A doctor who graduated at the bottom of their class or a business person who graduated at the bottom of their class?

Dave (06:02) Well, what we're suggesting for you today is that every profession has people who are not equal to each other. And yes, there are people practicing medicine today with legal degrees that absolutely should never have been allowed to do so ... And everywhere in between.

Kelli (06:20) And that's true for airline pilots, electricians, marketing people, salespeople managers, firefighters, and virtually every profession in the world.

Dave (06:29) When I was finished with my paramedic training, I was asked if I wanted to teach in the program. And jeez, what an honor that was, and clearly a huge responsibility.

Dave (06:39) I knew I would be supervised and that the education department would not let me get myself into any kind of situations that would compromise the excellent program that the hospital ran for paramedic training.

Kelli (06:50) This is fairly common.

Kelli (06:51) Many graduate programs would take their highest performing graduates and ask them to help assist in teaching new students. It gives the program a broader perspective, and it's good for students who succeed, to help new students on their journey.

Dave (07:04) So a little background is needed here. In most places in the world, a paramedic is trained to do the exact things that a doctor would do given a type of an emergency.

Dave (07:16) For example, if someone suffers cardiac arrest, which is where the heart stops, a paramedic who has a year of training and a doctor who has eight years of training will follow the exact same set of steps in an attempt to revive the patient.

Kelli (07:33) Think of it like this, there's no difference between a doctor and a paramedic for the first ten steps of providing emergency care. The doctor, however, is trained in the next 100 steps of care, whereas the paramedic is not.

Dave (07:46) So my first revelation in this theme, "the competition is not scary" was realizing that a mere normal, regular guy like me could learn to do exactly what a quote, unquote "doctor" would do in certain situations, and that I could be as good or better at it.

Kelli (08:04) This applies to every career position out there. The person who you're working next to doing the same job as you can either be better at their job than you are, as good as you are, or, as we've seen over the years, probably not close to as good as you are ...

Dave (08:21) Right! (laughing) 

Kelli (08:21) ... or as you can be! Keep that in mind as we finish up the story.

Dave (08:25) So one day I was doing a lecture in the paramedic program. I can't recall what it was about, but I was having a great time, and I really enjoyed the interactions with these new paramedic students.

Dave (08:35) Since I was already a paramedic, I knew what they were going through, and I was confident that I could be a help.

Dave (08:42) I was working for a lady who had been in clinical healthcare for decades, and she was super smart and fun to be around. I walked past her office, and she yelled out - "hey, Dave, got a second?" So I turned around and I walked in, and she said to me, hey, can you do me a favor? One of the other instructors had called in sick, and she asked me if I could run a practical test for her in another room. I said, sure, I have some time, what's the test?

Dave (09:09) She said I needed to run mega codes for about six people.

Kelli (09:14) We're getting a little jargony here. Sorry. Megacodes in healthcare are a practice session for clinicians designed to help stimulate a situation where a person is having a severe heart attack and they keep getting worse.

Kelli (09:27) The idea is to practice so all the steps are done correctly during what always is a very stressful encounter. Even the best of the best sweat like pigs on a hot summer day during these simulations!

Dave (09:39) Oh, you bet. As a paramedic, I was trained to do these megacodes, and I had done a lot of them both in practice, under stimulation, and in the real world. So this was something I was very comfortable with.

Dave (09:52) I asked my manager what this was for and who this was for, and she said, it's a group of resident physicians.

Kelli (09:58) Wow. And I bet this is your WTF moment.

Dave (10:02) You would think so, but no, that's coming up. I told her there was no way I was qualified to be testing doctors ... Because these residents ARE doctors.

Kelli (10:13) Yeah.

Dave (10:14) These people already have eight years of medical education and experience. I'm just going to go in there and look like a fool.

Dave (10:21) And she literally just laughed at me and said, oh, you just wait. Just head on in there and run the megacodes just as you would if they were all paramedics and not doctors.

Kelli (10:34) You had to be sweating bullets.

Dave (10:36) Oh, I was. Here's me, a little over one year of schooling and about six months of real-world experience, and I'm going to judge a pass-fail scenario for six practicing doctors.

Kelli (10:47) Oh, I bet I know where this story is going.

Dave (10:52) So I reluctantly said okay to the manager and I headed to the simulation room. And there they were waiting, six doctors in white coats, and we got started.

Dave (11:02) The first one actually did a pretty good job. She passed. And it kind of made me feel comfortable because I was like, okay, I've just got to run the equipment and step in and out every so often, right? Step in and out every once in a while.

Dave (11:15) The next five were variations of 'So bad'.

Dave (11:22) I thought to myself, WTF. This was my WTF moment. These are doctors. How could they possibly come this far in their careers and be so incompetent in a core competency like this?

Kelli (11:38) This is what we're talking about today. Not everyone is great. In fact, most of the people around you in your career space are not nearly as good as you are. You can take advantage of that.

Kelli (11:49) In fact, you may just not realize that you are so much better, so much more ambitious, so much more effective simply because you're grouping those people together into what you've been taught or believed to be a revered profession or role.

Dave (12:04) Well, I left the room of those revered professions and roles and literally ran back to my manager, and I told her about what happened.

Dave (12:12) She looked at me and laughed again and said, "I told you." I asked what I should do because I was going to literally fail five doctors today. And she said, fail them and then show them how to do it. Trust me, they'll respond. And that's exactly what I did. And I did it, with all due respect, as I thought to myself, WTF, I thought all doctors were the same.

Kelli (12:39) Nope.

Kelli (12:40) And you know what's even more intriguing is that in today's world, most people do the bare minimum to succeed -- and that's why we say the competition is not scary.

Kelli (12:50) Back to my comment earlier about not being afraid to try what may seem impossible either in your career or in other endeavors that can propel your career, I've mentioned in previous episodes that I completed my undergraduate degree and then went on to get my MBA as an adult.

Dave (13:07) You must have been really old!

Dave (13:08) Exactly how old were you, by the way, when you did that?

Kelli (13:12) Really, Dave? My kids were in college when I decided to go back. So you do the math?

Dave (13:18) Yeah, okay, carry the 1 and .. (laughing) 

Dave (13:21) All right, you think internally to yourself (laughing) 

Dave (13:24) Even though I was always a good student and a lifelong learner, I was very intimidated to join a cohort of students who were, for the most part, just starting out in their careers. I was the only college student whose kids were also college students.

Dave (13:40) Were you, like, the house mother? Do they have housemothers?

Kelli (13:43) No. Dave -  I was just another student.

Dave (13:46) Bring cookies?

Kelli (13:47) No. You're having a flashback to my nursing school days?

Dave (13:50) Maybe...

Kelli (13:51) Yeah.

Dave (13:51) Okay ... (laughing) 

Kelli (13:52) Anyway, I was worried that since it was so long, like decades since I was in the academic world, things would have changed learning platforms, technology, and teaching methods. And I was afraid I wouldn't be able to adjust. But once I started the program, it didn't take long for me to realize that those fears were unwarranted.

Kelli (14:13) I thrived in this new - to me - learning environment. I loved figuring out the technology, and I appreciated the new teaching methods.

Kelli (14:21) I ended up being recognized for my academic achievements and was selected by my professors to represent all of the business cohorts, not just the one I was attending, and to speak at graduation. It was a huge honor, and something I cherish and I'm very proud of to this day.

Dave (14:38) Well, it was great that you were able to turn up your hearing aid so you could hear all the people in the audience.

Kelli (14:43) Really? Okay. All right.

Dave (14:45) Did you need help getting up on the stage or anything? (laughing) 

Kelli (14:48) I'm ignoring you now. I'm ignoring you.

Dave (14:50) Okay.

Kelli (14:51) The point of that story is this the competition is not scary. Don't be afraid. Go for it.

Dave (14:57) Yeah, go for i!

Dave (14:59) Look around you at work. Look at the people you work with, and I'm not saying in disdain or whatever, just look at them.

Dave (15:08) I bet if you counted ten people, you would say that you think one of them is amazingly good at what they do.

Dave (15:16) Three of them are about as good as you are.

Dave (15:19) Four more are slackers and represent the C team at best.

Dave (15:25) And WTF are those other two even doing here!!

Kelli (15:31) Let us know in the comments if our math is right. But we have seen that the majority of people in business that you're competing with for say that next promotion are not nearly as ambitious, dedicated, smart, or effective as you are.

Dave (15:45) And when you realize that, you get superpowers to use to propel yourself forward because now you're no longer afraid of the competition, be confident in your abilities.

Dave (15:56) You know you're awesome. Don't hide behind fear because that can mask your abilities and hold you back.

Dave (16:04) Really, the competition is not that scary.

Kelli (16:08) Thanks very much for listening today. We hope you enjoyed our competition is not scary stories. More and more people listen each week just because of you spreading the word about our My Job Here is Done podcast, so thank you very much for telling a friend about us.

Dave (16:24) And please tell that friend that they can follow us anywhere and everywhere. Podcasts are available using their favorite app or at our website. My job here is done dot com.

Chuck Fresh (16:35) I'm the announcer guy, and I sound as good as the story you just listened to. My Job here is Done is a podcast production of .2PointOh LLC -  Thank you and your awesome ears for listening. Want to get involved? Have your own special story to share? Tell us all about it, and you might get some airtime, just like me. Browse over to myjobhereisdone.com squish that all together into one word and look for the My Story link. Until next time ...My job here is done.