As a perfectionist, I tend to judge my own setbacks harshly. I’m getting better at it, but it is still a thought process I have to resist.

A couple of reading selections that I would like to share with you are helping further illuminate why it’s so important to not get bogged down when things don’t go exactly as planned.

Let’s start with some quotes from the book The CEO Next Door by Elena L. Botelho and Kim R. Powell. The authors advise readers to “make mistakes your laboratory.” In a section of the book where the authors drive home the importance of the words we use, they talk about CEOs intentionally not using the word “failure.”

Avoidance of the word failure isn’t spin for the CEOs. It reflects their true attitude: errors aren’t fearsome embarrassments but inevitabilities that provide the most reliable laboratory for future improvements.

Page 33

This positive thinking goes beyond having a good attitude. In the authors’ interviews and research, they saw a positive correlation to the CEO’s work.

CEO candidates who use the word failure in talking about their mistakes were half as likely to deliver a strong performance in the seat as CEOs who did not.

Page 33

Using the right words and having a positive attitude are certainly not the only factors in strong leadership, but it does make a difference.

Understanding How Successes or Failures Happen

Here’s something I noticed while I was back in business school: every textbook and article had an explanation for why one company succeeded and one failed.

And sometimes that logic was consistent. Other times, articles felt like they were contradicting themselves. The risk that this one group took was prescient because they were able to take advantage of a change in the market. The risk that another group took was absolutely foolish because they missed the change in the market.

The outcome was the only thing that mattered.

To take that a step further, I look at some of the CEOs we are supposed to admire, and I am disappointed in the level of priority they choose to place (or not to place) on their family. Yes, this person is successful if we judge by their business outcomes. Is that really enough?

As is so often the case, I found a book that much better explains some of my frustration with other business studies.

In the book Thinking, Fast and Slow, author Daniel Kahneman delves deeply into the way that we think and the common errors that we make. He focuses on a variety of illusions that we create for ourselves.

The tendency to revise the history of one’s beliefs in light of what actually happened produces a robust cognitive illusion.

Hindsight bias has pernicious effects on the evaluations of decision makers. It leads observers to assess the quality of a decision not by whether the process was sound but by whether its outcome was good or bad.

Page 203

Kahneman went on to describe the negative effects of a leader who makes bold gambles but doesn’t recognize how negatively the outcome could have been. We are all in awe at the courage instead of concerned by the recklessness.

Consumers have a hunger for a clear message about the determinants of success and failure in business, and they need stories that offer a sense of understanding, however illusory.

Page 206

If we naturally have a hard time of classifying success and failure because we rely too strongly on the outcomes, then we need to reassess our feelings towards the results of our efforts. Victories should not be a shining example of how to accomplish each step in a project. There is bad and good within that effort. It’s harder to remember this with setbacks, but we need to look for the bad and good in those efforts, as well.

I have to admit I am still wrapping my head around this cognitive illusion. But overall, I feel more freed by the realization.

Once the outcome is not the only measure, we can focus more on learning and improving each step of the process. Yes, the outcomes still matter, but the rest of it matters, too.

I can feel more comfortable with Reid Hoffman’s antiperfectionist manifesto: “If you aren’t embarrassed by the first version of your product, you shipped too late.”

I challenge you to look back at recently completed work and look for the good and the bad. I’m going through this process now, and I think you will get a lot out of it.

Featured photo by chuttersnap on Unsplash

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When reading non-fiction books a decade after they first came out, it’s interesting to see how much the big ideas have made an impact since publication. In a lot of ways, The Checklist Manifesto: How to Get Things Right by Atul Gawande has impacted healthcare, but the big idea of the book could certainly impact more industries in meaningful ways.

Plainly put, checklists don’t seem like the cool way to get things done. We’re resistant to them.

It runs counter to deeply held beliefs about how the truly great among us—those we aspire to be—handle situations of high-stakes and complexity. The truly great are daring. They improvise. They do not have protocols and checklists.

Maybe our idea of heroism needs updating.

THE CHECKLIST MANIFESTO, PAGE 173

This idea of updated heroism is especially impactful. The mystical ideal of a high-performer that rejects all structure only deludes leaders into thinking that he or she should just trust instinct every time. It also causes other people to feel like they don’t have what it takes to be a real leader, as is pointed out in The CEO Next Door (an upcoming blog post).

Training Materials Vs. Task Templates

It’s interesting that Gawande explores just how resistant people are to the idea of checklists. Part of the issue is whether or not people really get the idea of the purpose and the contents of a checklist should be.

It is common to misconceive how checklists function in complex lines of work. They are not comprehensive how-to guides, whether for building a skyscraper or getting a plane out of trouble. They are quick and simple tools aimed to buttress the skills of expert professionals. And by remaining swift and usable and resolutely modest, they are saving thousands upon thousands of lives.

THE CHECKLIST MANIFESTO, PAGE 128

In the company where I work, we have two sources that we commonly use to get specific instructions on work. We have a searchable database with in-depth instructions hosted at Tettra, and we have our specific tasks in ActiveCollab, our task management system.

The exact systems we use are less important than how we use them.

In Tettra, we provide a clear, step-by-step process as to how employees should get a common task done. It gives painstaking detail, and we use it for training. That training may be for a brand new employee, or it could be for an employee or manager who needs to provide back-up for a team member.

We use Tettra on a regular basis for email templates (common replies) and important details. That said, employees shouldn’t be spending most of their day in this system. It’s a reference tool.

In ActiveCollab, we have each team member’s tasks for the day. Depending on the task, we may have used a custom template that includes all of the team member’s steps.

Let me show you a template I recently created for podcast epsiodes:

• Create the show notes
• Record the episode
• Post episode to website
• Notify guest that episode is live
• Post transcript
• Create a quote card
• Post to social media

If you’ve ever created a podcast episode, you’ll notice that I’m missing some key steps in my checklist. For instance, we frequently have guests on our show. I don’t have any steps outlined for recruiting guests and scheduling. All of that is handled in another task.

This task is focused on a specific timeframe, from the time that someone has agreed to come on the show to the time that the social media goes out for the published show.

You’ll also notice that I have nothing here about editing the recording. Our show producer Jared Johnson manages that for us, so we’re able to focus on other steps.

Our checklists intentionally leave out a lot and focus on specific steps. Like Gawande says, effective checklists, or task templates in our case, “provide reminders of only the most critical and important steps–the ones that even the highly skilled professionals using them could miss.”

I’m embarrassed to say that I’ve been slow to remember to notify guests in a timely manner when some new episodes went live. That step went on the checklist to prevent that from happening again.

The real goal with our checklist is making room for us to focus on creating our podcast without forgetting all of the components needed for the content to succeed.

The Value and Limit of Process

When surgeons make sure to wash their hands or to talk to everyone on the team… they improve their outcomes with no increase in skill. That’s what we are doing when we use the checklist.

The checklist Manifesto, page 168

After studying successful companies in my MBA program, I finally understood how important process truly is to a company’s health. Repeatable steps allows teams to find the right tools and the right approaches instead of having to explore on every single aspect of a new job.

As Gawande clarifies multiple times throughout his book, a checklist isn’t going to solve everything. In the case of a checklist, it doesn’t account for every single type of complexity, it simply enables teams to be able to focus on the unusual while knowing that the foundations are covered.

Processes can create a profitable path, but companies can get stuck in the familiar and miss market shifts.

The point here is that we still have to keep adapting. Checklists and processes need updating on a regular basis. Ideally, companies should be able to codify how they’re adapting to change through their checklists and processes.

If you’re looking for a starting point, check out The Checklist Manifesto. The book is every bit as relevant today as it was when it was first published in 2009.

Photo Credit

Featured Photo by Glenn Carstens-Peters on Unsplash

The post Embracing the Checklist to Free Up Our Minds and Creativity appeared first on Michael W. Roberts.

There’s a lot of focus on police brutality, but racism extends far beyond elements within our judicial system.

One of the most eye-opening aspects of the book Give People Money: How a Universal Basic Income Would End Poverty, Revolutionize Work, and Remake the World by Annie Lowrey was a chapter on how race relations impacted social policy in the United States.

Here’s the first passage:

Countries with greater racial diversity tend to put only a small fraction of their GDP to social spending, while nations with a more uniform population spend much more.

Many nations that are “fairly to highly homogenous in terms of race and language” spend approximately 20 percent of their GDP on social programs, according to a study by Alberto Alesina, Edward Glaeser, and Bruce Sacerdote. More diverse countries spend drastically less.

Part of the way this plays out in the United States in relation to healthcare started with the move toward private providers. This second passage, quoted in Lowrey’s book comes from writer Vann R. Newkirk II of The Atlantic:

In essence, the United States’s peculiar private-based health-care system exists at least in part because of the country’s commitment to maintaining racial hierarchies. The results were deep racial disparities in almost every major disease, an enduring gap in lifespans and mortality, and the creation of entirely separate medical and public-health infrastructures.

In looking at healthcare today, in light of everything that is going on, it’s all the more important to recognize that things have to change.

I’m honored to have had the chance to speak to several individuals that are fighting for the poor and that are fighting to end racism by finding ways to enable and provide care.

My surprise at the passages above comes from the fact that I didn’t realize how drastically America has stacked the deck against minorities–especially when it comes to issues of health. We’ve seen the results of these disparities here in Louisiana in the midst of the pandemic, but it’s heartbreaking to see how far back these problems go.

We have to make changes in so many areas of our society, including healthcare. Thankfully, people are working to make a difference, but we’ve got a long way to go.

The post Healthcare and the Fight against Racism appeared first on Michael W. Roberts.

Brown specifically contrasts the curious worker to the “knower.” 

The knower in us (our ego) either races to beat everyone in the room with an answer that may or may not address the real issues, or thinks: I don’t want to talk about this because I’m not sure how it’s going to go or how people are going to react.

The knower is a fearful individual that either hides or rushes to cover a lack of depth of expertise. I’ve certainly worked with plenty of knowers, and I’ve acted like a knower at different points in my career.

Now look at the difference between the knower and the person willing to be curious.

Curiosity is an act of vulnerability and courage. Researchers are finding evidence that curiosity is correlated with creativity, intelligence, improved learning and memory, and problem solving.

Having the courage to ask questions is incredibly important for both the worker and the manager. There is, of course, the burden of somebody who ask questions all the time without making any forward momentum on their own. That is also an example of a need for increased confidence in the worker.

Going back to the person who’s willing to ask, managers benefit tremendously when workers don’t simply forge ahead with an assignment without understanding what’s expected of them. Brown makes this point in her book, as well. If a worker gets so far down the wrong pathway without ever checking in, then there is a lot required in order to undo all of that effort.

Let’s take it beyond the inquisitive employee who checks in enough.

What about the person that can anticipate what challenges may arise in a new project? This person can ask questions that are even more helpful. These inquiries open up entirely new ways of thinking for everyone involved in the project.

Taking it a step even further, what if a curious person has time to brainstorm on the full potential of the project? Again, the project can turn into much more than what the initial idea was.

All of this starts with creating an environment in which it is safe to be curious. If an employee can take chances and not be shut down harshly, then there is a much greater chance that the employer will take chances again in the future. This is so necessary in order for companies to keep evolving and for employees and managers to be healthy.

Horizon Conflict

I circled the words “horizon conflict” when I came across them in Brown’s book. She describes horizon conflict as the difference in interests between leaders that are responsible for short-term or long-term needs. If the CEO has to focus several years ahead, then the operations person needs to be focusing on what’s happening today and in the next six months.

This reminds me of the kind of conflict that can happen between sales and marketing teams. Sales teams have to hit their numbers today and for the month while marketing is focusing on positioning. There is a much different expectation for each of these teams, and these expectations can get in the way of one another if not carefully coordinated.

Brown points out that curiosity benefits people in rising conflicts. Ideally, each side of the conflict wonders what the other side needs.

The knower focuses only on what he or she needs and is not concerned with the other side.

More about the Knower

The entire concept of the “knower” reminded me of a book called Flying without a Net: Turn Fear of Change into Fuel for Success by Thomas J. DeLong.

In order to get better at something, we have to go through a process of unlearning that he demonstrates through a series of quadrants. The example I compared it to was improving typing skills from the “hunting and pecking” the right keys approach to learning the more formal way.

There are a lot of mistakes before a person can get really comfortable with a new way of doing things. This process can be incredibly uncomfortable to undertake in a professional setting.

We have a choice. We can deal with the limitations of what we know, or we can engage in the messy steps necessary to learn and to explore.

If you’re in management, you also have the choice of whether or not you will create an environment in which people can go through the messiness of learning. Yes, we have to be concerned about the final deliverable, but we have to keep improving our processes.

Being curious takes courage. Learning takes courage.

I’d argue that the costs of not learning are much higher.

Be courageous. Be curious.

Featured photo by Joe Green

The post The Value of Curiosity in the Workplace appeared first on Michael W. Roberts.

This quote comes from a conversation we had with John Gorman of Nightingale partners.

Coronavirus is really sort of the microscope that really shows us, you know, how inequality and even systemic racism has really impacted our healthcare system. I mean, you need only look at the death rates of African Americans from COVID to really see that people of color, especially low-income people of color with other chronic conditions that typically plague those populations like cardiovascular disease, obesity, diabetes, are all the folks at greatest risk of contracting COVID and dying from it.

In fact, in Louisiana, Michigan, Illinois, many other states, we’re seeing African Americans die from coronavirus at a rate of two to four times what they are represented in the population. So, you know, I posted recently on LinkedIn that coronavirus is racist as hell, and its lethal comorbidity is poverty. When you have these two things together, it’s an excessively lethal combination especially for people of color.

In our interview with John, he also mentioned the desire to see a universal basic income become a reality. I had a book sitting on the shelf about the topic of universal basic income, and I just finished reading it after our conversation.

Universal Basic Income

The book is Give People Money by Annie Lowrey. It’s a fantastic explanation of what universal basic income is and how it is already playing out in a variety of tests being done around the world. Though the author is clearly in favor of the idea, I appreciate her being willing to point out the potential downfalls of this new policy.

Just as importantly, the author takes the time to show how inequality around the world and in the United States impacts wealth and physical well-being. Lowrey’s focus is to demonstrate all of the reasons why we may need to rethink the concept of the safety net. Her ability to weave in important aspects of history to explain how some cultures are more privileged than others is critical to getting the true picture across.

I’m sure there are other books that delve more deeply into the causes and impact of racism and classism throughout our history. That said, this information resonated within me especially because of the conversation we had had with Gorman.

I live in Louisiana. We’ve seen higher rates of African Americans dying due to COVID-19. The entire concept of social determinants of health is coming into stark relief when I see how a terrible disease is hitting our community.

Moving Past the Label of “Them”

As I was thinking through this, I also did some cleaning through my bookshelves. I came across a book called More or Less by Jeff Shinabarger.

Check out the subtitle. It’s Choosing a Lifestyle of Excessive Generosity.

Looking back to the book, one of the parts of the story that really impacted me is how directly the author came into contact with a new homeless neighbor. This neighbor was a fixture in their area, and the author had conversations with his neighbor and hired him for various tasks around the house. The experience of interacting so directly and at such length with this new neighbor change the author’s perspective on what it means to give and to be aware of those around him.

I bring this up because I believe that seeing a group of people in a different situation becomes much more real when it’s an individual we’re talking about. Instead of a group of “them” we are talking about a real human being. It’s not “the poor;” it’s “my neighbor.”

There is hope. People are doing what they can to change how we react to and even do our best to prevent health crises.

This is obviously much different than bringing about some sort of sweeping new policy for the entire country, but it at least shows positive movement while policy may be mired in gridlock.

The Safety Net and the Use of Telehealth

On the podcast, we also spoke with  Dr. Daren Anderson, the director at ConferMED. He does a lot of work with “safety net” practices, and he described it this way:

The safety net is a term that describes a loose network of different types of healthcare facilities around the country, federally-qualified health centers, other category called free clinics, as well as often immediate health service, migrant farm workers clinics, and healthcare for the homeless sites.

Within the context of safety net practices, Dr. Anderson and his team have been working on a telehealth solution to meet a very specific need.

They’re providing asynchronous telehealth, often called eConsults, where primary care providers can “submit consult questions, content from their electronic health record, and send them to be reviewed by a specialist.” The specialist can then provide guidance on how the primary care provider can help the patient.

This provides a huge help in creating more access for patients and specialists, particularly for rural locations and inner-city clinics. As Dr. Anderson describes it, “When I need a specialist to give me advice, information, make suggestions about a particular medicine, or advise me on a lab test, but I don’t need them to see or lay hands on the patient.”

The better use of communication tools allows practices to keep their patients from having to go to multiple facilities and keeps costs down. Both of these factors are incredibly important during a time of higher health risk.

Investing in the Community

John Gorman’s Nightingale Partners are actually working on a project just down the road from New Orleans.

We are working on a big one right now in Baton Rouge that we’re getting very excited about where LSU has basically donated its old Memorial Stadium to us and a team of developers that we’re working with led by Roy Austin, that we are going to build Memorial Stadium into a ginormous healthcare campus for underserved populations in West Baton Rouge.

And it’s gonna have a core set of services that we know lower-income communities are in desperate need of like a walk-in clinic and access to primary care. We’re gonna have a community pharmacy there. We’re going to have an adult and child daycare center that’ll be multigenerational. We’re going to have a hub there for community health workers and community pharmacists to train and do their residency through LSU’s College of Pharmacy. And we’re basically going to begin a campaign with Roy and his team to convert these types of public spaces or work public spaces into healthcare hubs that better address the needs of medically underserved populations as we see in western Baton Rouge.

Obviously, getting the chance to interact with a large school like Louisiana State University is a huge undertaking that requires a ton of coordination. That said, it’s not just the universities that are making things work.

I’ll harken back to the BUILD Health Challenge that Dan Dunlop mentioned on our show as another example of people bringing big ideas to meeting healthcare needs in exciting new ways and in a variety of contexts.

There are several stories of hope, despite everything that’s happening in the world.

Fighting against negative social determinants of health is not entirely dependent on the government. We can make an impact through new business ventures, new coordination with educational institutes, or even through health systems and non-profits coming together.

Featured Photo by Jose Martin Ramirez C

The post Social Determinants of Health through the Lens of a Pandemic appeared first on Michael W. Roberts.

Healthcare has an amazing opportunity to be more than just “sick care.”

Don’t get me wrong. We still need sick care, and we always will.

“Sickness” is related to a variety of factors: improper nutrition, exercise patterns over the years, and a ton of other matters. Sickness can even come as a genetic factor at no fault of the person suffering from the effects.

In order to combat these contributing factors, healthcare must be more proactive.

We’re Not Going to Wait for Reactive Care

As we’ve done more episodes of the podcast, we were really starting to define the paradigm shift happening in healthcare as the consumerization taking place.

While consumerization is happening, the world has been blindsided by yet another massive shift: the COVID-19 pandemic. Now, there are two major changes that are upending healthcare, and change is happening everywhere.

We spoke with Mike Biselli about this change:

I think our providers need to start paying attention to [the shifts bought on by millennial patients] and get in front of it. Reactionary care is not something that is sustainable anymore, especially as we continue to navigate towards value-based care.

An Academic Exercise

While getting my master’s degree, I had the chance to study a variety of the components that make up today’s healthcare scene in America. My class project focused on for-profit hospital systems and what could be done to create new business oppotunities.

Short of getting more people sick deliberately, there’s only so much a health system can do.

Yes, it can open more locations and focus on creating more specialized, smaller facilities. New efficiencies create cost-saving opportunities, which can turn into profits if carefully managed.

Still, the whole idea of getting outside of sick care fascinated me.

Since that class, I am seeing health systems expand in some of the ways I wrote about for my project. I’m also seeing and hearing about groups doing even more exciting things.

Stories in the Real World

Because of the Paradigm Shift of Healthcare podcast, we get the opportunity to talk to a variety of folks in healthcare.

Here are a few encouraging stories of how people are jumping in and figuring it out now.

Approaching Health as a Major Healthcare System

Debra Stevens of Arizona Care Network shared with us the way that the health system is getting ahead of patient needs.

Some of the issues can be resolved with better communication or with better patient management. Other needs are bigger than what a hospital would traditionally solve on its own.

Debra explains that “the primary patients that we’re reaching out to right now are those who need additional assistance outside their doctor’s appointment to achieve their best health.”

The Care Coordination Team

Beyond the medical staff that one might expect at a hospital, Arizona Care Network has a team devoted to care coordination. The team includes RNs, navigators, behavioral health coaches, a population health pharmacist, and social workers.

Here’s the benefit of how an organization as large as Arizona Care Network can deliver care.

Debra told us a story of a patient who had mental health issues and who was also homeless.

Debra said, “The gentleman had been to the office a couple of times, needed to come back for some follow up care. And the doctor said, “He doesn’t have a home. I don’t know where he lives, but here’s where he told me he hangs out.”

“Our social workers, two of them went together to an underpass in the middle of this heat to find this gentleman. They found him, they helped him get access to the services that he’s already entitled to because of his income and his status.

“In investigating all this so that they found him a place to live, they got him back to the doctor’s office, and in the process of the research that they did for him they found he had $20,000 of federal benefits available to him. He didn’t know it. Nobody knew it.”

Uncovering the Health Needs of Nevada

When Suzanne Hendery expressed the vision of Renown Health CEO Dr. Tony Slonim, she said, “Can you imagine if we put hospitals out of business? Wouldn’t that be the most wonderful thing?”

Renown Health drives the Healthy Nevada Project to help residents get genetic testing done so that researchers can help identify statewide health needs. The project is off to a huge start, and it continues to gain steam.

In addition to the genetic testing, Renown Health is “a nonprofit healthcare organization who spends millions of dollars back in community benefit to support over 90 other organizations in the city and across the region to do what they do best, which is health and outreach.”

Through partnering with other organizations, Renown is helping improve behavioral health, supporting community-health workers, and helping food banks provide “low-salt alternatives and things that patients with diabetes can take advantage of in terms of their food.”

Small Organizations Finding Ways to Bridge the Gaps

Dan Dunlop is a passionate advocate of population health matters, and I found him a fascinating source of knowledge on the subject.

He spoke about the BUILD Health Challenge, a grant program where hospitals and community organizations could send in grant applications for some population health projects. This work has resulted in several fascinating efforts.

Here in New Orleans, a new “health mobility” initiative brought together health systems and public transit to ensure patients had a way to get to their appointments. Talk about a fascinating way to move beyond just the clinical experience!

Taking the First Step to Gather Community Leaders

Dan also told the story of a small hospital taking the initiative to invite representatives from several community organizations. These folks all contributed to a blog sponsored by the hospital that directly addressed population health issues.

Someone had to step up to begin that process of getting community leaders. In this case, it was the marketing team at a small hospital.

Health in New Settings

With all of the major advances in telehealth over the last few months since the pandemic hit the United States, we are understanding healthcare beyond the hospital walls better than ever.

There’s actual clinical care, and then there’s the contributions to society that help change what clinical care is actually needed.

Change is here.

The post Healthcare Successfully Moving Beyond the Hospital appeared first on Michael W. Roberts.

If I have any important takeaways to pass on from my unemployment, it would be the following:

• You are not alone.
• It’s not your fault this happened.
• Don’t sit still. Look for new income, and then look for new opportunities.

The Beginning of the Great Recession

In 2007, I was in a job that I thought would be my dream job, but it turned out that it was not a good fit for me.

The Great Recession was just starting, and Charlotte, NC was one of the first areas to be hit hard. I work for a nonprofit at the time, and the organization started losing some of its funding.

My full-time job got cut to a part-time job, so this was the time for me to leave. I was trying to find the courage to move on anyway, and now the safety net of staying was gone.

I had no idea how hard it would be to find my next job.

I had moved on from another job a few years prior, and I was able to land temp work relatively quickly. I thought this time would be the same.

The difference this time was that many other people in the city were also out of work. Temp jobs were all filled, and I’m sure there were actually less jobs available.
Because I worked for a nonprofit with tax-exempt status, I was not eligible for unemployment benefits.

I tried applying to several different types of jobs.  I thought, at first, that this was my opportunity to jump over into a new career field directly. I would do something like writing for a video game or going into the news industry. No such luck.

As a new father, I was getting desperate to land something.  I ended up working at a sandwich shop just to have some money coming in.

We were considering moving from Charlotte to potentially stay with family in the short-term to see if we could find a market that had jobs.

Southeastern Louisiana was still in recovery from Hurricane Katrina, which had hit two years prior. The area was rebuilding, and the need for workers there meant that the area never took on the full brunt of the recession.

Still, when we first moved, I could not easily get a job. By this point, I had been out of work for months. A stint of unemployment really does make a difference to hiring managers.

Finally, I  landed a job at a company with an extremely high turnover rate. It was not a great job, but I was so grateful to finally have work again.

Moving Past the Stopgap Job

By the time that I finally got the job, I had come to the conclusion that my skill sets were not very marketable in a down economy. I had a college degree, but I did not have experience that made me a natural fit for some of the jobs that were out there.
I bought a book on how to code HTML, and I started practicing.

In the early morning, I would practice coding for three hours, and then I would go to work during the day. I had started my job in the fall, and it was nearly Christmas at this point. The company I worked for told us that we all had to take an unpaid day off during this time because they had less business demand. This was their standard way of controlling costs. (I’m still shocked that they thought this was a good idea, and it further reinforced why they had such high turnover.)

On my unpaid day off, I was able to line up an interview at a small nonprofit media company. I had found the job opportunity on Craigslist, and I interviewed for the position of “webmaster.”

I was not that qualified,  but they could not afford somebody that was all that qualified. So I got my first opportunity. It paid very little, but it started me down the career path I’m currently on. That was 10 years ago.

I don’t tell you my story to show how to handle unemployment correctly. If I could make a change, I would have started learning code far earlier than I did.

I share this story to say that you’re not alone.

It’s not fun to get to that point when you realize you just have to have income. It’s really frightening, actually. And if you’re able to find that job that will at least give you some cash, you’re not at a point where you can just settle.

There’s a weird mix of patience and relentless ambition that has to come together in hard times like these. It is an emotional journey. To everyone who is on it, I pray for your strength. You can do this.

It’s not fair you have to do this, and I hope we get better systems in place to help our world cope. But don’t give up. You can do this.

The Featured Photo

A word about the photo selected for this post. Mishal Ibrahim did a fantastic job here of capturing the sentiment I felt for a good part of 2007. I imagine many others may be feeling the same way right now.

Take hope. Your present stress will not last forever.

The post My Unemployment Story from 2007 appeared first on Michael W. Roberts.

The question is, how do you edit it afterwards?

If you just need to trim the beginning and end of the clip, then that’s not too difficult to find the right tool. When you need to start combining clips, that’s where you have to start making decisions.

Let’s take a look at some free options for your laptop or desktop.

The “Easy” Options

iMovie

My family and I are using iMovie right now to put together our “Family Showcase” videos as a way to keep entertained and to communicate with family and friends during the quarantine.

My wife and kids had not used any video editors before a few weeks ago, and they produced their own segments in the following video.

We’re using an old iMac, so you don’t have to have the latest and greatest in Mac products. Still, iMovie is an Apple-only product.

Windows Photos

Don’t get thrown by the name of the program. It handles videos, too.

As we’ve created our family videos, we’ve heard questions about what programs people can use on their Windows computer. I found out from this article that Windows still has an option for video editing.

The plus and minus is that Windows’ version is very simple to use. It skips over some functionality and detail to create an extremely straightforward editor.

Here’s a quick overview of Microsoft Photos and a quick look at YouTube’s current editor:

For more on YouTube’s editor, check out the Google Support page on the topic.

The “Not-So-Easy” or “You Really Have to Know Editing” Options

Here are the programs that I’ll be aspiring to learn over the coming months. These programs push well past the beginner-level and require some real knowledge.

Two programs really stood out for me in an article on alternatives to Adobe Premier Pro: HitFilm Express & DaVinci Resolve.

HitFilm Express

I strongly considered making a video for beginners for this editor. Getting started with the basics in HitFilm Express is very doable, but there’s enough to the program that I feel it can still be intimidating.

Now, while a beginner might look at this program as too much, that means that this program has enough features for others.

I was able to get in and start assembling a video, but I’d be lying if I said that I understood all the options available to me.

DaVinci Resolve

I haven’t jumped in to DaVinci Resolve yet, but the new “Cut Page” looks like a great way to be able to assemble videos.

This program intimidates me more than HitFilm Express, and I feel like I should be moving straight to this program or Final Cut (the paid Mac program) whenever I max out my capabilities with iMovie.

Both programs have the full depth of what I’d like to be able to do with video editing.

I’ll be using video more here on the website, so I’ll keep you posted with the tools I’m learning along the way.

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We’ve seen stories about people finding out how expensive it is to get treated for COVID-19 with no insurance. What about those who will be surprised at how much they still owe? After all, they have insurance… just not enough of it.

Debt Relievers

One of my favorite episodes that we had the chance to record was with Craig Antico of RIP Medical Debt. Craig is the co-founder of a non-profit that focuses on eliminating bad medical debt. This is the debt that would normally be turned over to a collections agency from a hospital or a healthcare organization.

RIP Medical Debt looks for the debt of those who have little chance of being able to pay it off. The non-profit then buys that debt from healthcare systems.

It’s quite the change from Craig’s former job of working in debt collection! The following quote from his interview makes me smile every time I see it:

Craig Antico on the Underinsured

Craig taught me a lot about how people think about debt and how we have such an issue with medical debt in our country.

During the conversation, he introduced me to the concept of “the underinsured.” I’ll use his words to explain.

The biggest problem that we’re having now, because people have insurance, is that they’ve now become uninsured or under-insured, because as the deductibles increased, they now take on the first dollar up to maybe $3,000.

So you might be uninsured, it’s very easy to tell those people, but underinsured means “is your deductible equal to 5% of your gross income?”, and that can happen pretty quickly.

You make $50,000, it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to say all I have to have is a deductible of $2,500 to be under-insured. So there’s 68 million of those people that are either uninsured or under-insured, and those are the people that are the highest at risk.

Craig Antico

We recorded this episode before the pandemic really became a major ordeal here in the United States. I’m worried to know what the number of uninsured or under-insured is right now.

First-Hand Experience

My family dealt with a massive amount of data compared to our level of income when my wife and I first got married. We never thought that we would deal with major medical bills while we were still so young and healthy.

In my first job out of college, I was making $18,000 annually at a non-profit. Our deductible was $5,000 a year, and I was proud of myself because we had insurance.

Before I continue this fun tale, let’s check our math. A $5,000 deductible for an income of $18,000 means that my deductible was equal to 27.78% of my income. I was 5x over the line of being underinsured.

In those first few years, I crashed spectacularly while mountain biking and shattered my clavicle. I paid on that surgery for years–first to the hospital and then to a collections agency.

What’s Next?

There are no easy fixes here. When I look back on my experience with medical bills, I’m grateful that I at least had some sort of insurance. That bill could have been much higher.

Still, the financial burden that people take on unexpectedly can be crushing.

If you’re in a place where you’re wondering how you can help, I invite you to consider RIP Medical Debt. Each dollar donated can relieve $100 in medical debt for someone else.

I love that this charity exists, and I love seeing people think in new ways to solve our country’s healthcare problems.

Featured Photo by Roan Lavery on Unsplash

The post The Underinsured appeared first on Michael W. Roberts.

Man, what a crazy month.

The COVID-19 pandemic is in full swing, and various parts of the world are under orders to stay home, including my home state of Louisiana.

Healthcare workers around the world are going through a tremendous ordeal, yet the reality of the situation seems not to always click. I live in the New Orleans area, and we’ve had several thousand cases. Still, there are some days where I don’t think of what’s going on for hours at a time.

I worked from home intermittently before the governor told folks to stay home, so it wasn’t that big a transition. We even homeschool, so it’s not unusual to have the kids around.

Still, this is not “normal” life. “Business as usual” is done for a while, and we have to adjust in every arena.

Context-Aware

Think about how you’re interacting with family and friends right now. Does any phone or online conversation you have not somehow bring up the context of the pandemic’s impact on our society or economy?

Whether your part of the world is staying home right now or is just having trouble finding items that you never thought would be an issue, your life is somewhat different.

Even the basic pace of my business interactions are changing. Every conversation I have right now takes time to focus on how everyone’s doing. The project or task or request that was the reason for the meeting takes a back seat while we check in and make sure everyone’s okay.

That’s happening on all my calls, and it needs to happen in all of my interactions.

My mental checklist goes something like this:

• Ask, “how are you?”
• Listen. No, really. Take time to listen.
• Talk through the business need that needs to be discussed.
• Be ready for the extra detours in the conversation.

How Your Business Communicates Right Now

I’m not saying that you need to name the virus in every headline or subject line. Still, there have been fewer times in my life than now where the need for sensitivity towards the people we serve has been more important.

Lots of other people have brought this up in the past few weeks, but there’s a weird sort of fatigue and relaxation that’s developed towards this scenario. If you’re fortunate enough not to have the COVID-19 virus in your house, then you may be doing what you can to limit your intake of information about the disease for the sake of your mental health. (I know I am!)

As we do this dance of trying to stay informed but not obsessive, we try to set the pandemic to the side to go on with the rest of our day. That “mental distancing” is where we can get ourselves in trouble.

People’s lives are being turned upside down for a whole host of reasons. Every industry is impacted. We may not need to name the virus, but we must be aware of people’s current challenges. More importantly, is there a way that we can help people where they are today?

That’s the message we have to focus on. That’s what we need to get across.

It starts with a lot of listening, and it may mean thinking in very new ways. I’m already encouraged by so many wonderful stories of businesses and communities figuring out new ways to contribute. I look forward to hearing your story.

Featured Photo by ConvertKit on Unsplash

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