Here’s another example of “Think less, live more” that came up in a coaching conversation this morning.
Back in the old days, when Giles was a doctor in a hospital (another life! 😮) most people during their training would rotate through A&E (Accident & Emergency, or E.R. if you’re on the other side of the pond).
[Things may be very different now… you’re just going to have to accept that this story is coming to you from the late 1900’s.]
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It was scary to start. There were sometimes really sick people who would die pretty sharp-ish, without intervention, and it was our job (the team) to stop that from happening.
As relative newbies, us juniors’d had a bunch of training, learning things from textbooks and lectures, but when it came to the crunch, it was terrifying. I never felt like I knew what I was doing, always felt like I was in the way, and had a lot of thinking about it all, before, during and after these events.
But there were courses that we got sent on, to help with this universal experience: ALS (Advanced Life Support) and ATLS (Advanced Trauma Life Support).
(I love that they both have “advanced” in the title; acknowledging that your bog standard medical training just ain’t gonna cut the mustard here!)
Anyway, you’re encouraged to do these courses, and I dutifully attended both (out of my own pocket, natch – this is the NHS we’re talking about) and as a result I felt better, and performed much better during the life-threatening medical events that I was a part of.
Why?
“Because you learned a whole load of new stuff, Giles, obviously – you dummy!” I hear you cry.
But I don’t think that was it at all.
Here's what I think was going on, and how it's going to help you find solutions to all the seemingly complex problems you face in your life…
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It’s a long time ago now, but I can still remember coming away from both of those courses thinking,
“Well, that was a lot of money to pay for something that didn’t really teach me anything I didn’t already know.” 🤨
It’s not that they were of no value—I’ve just said that they helped me to feel and perform much better—it’s just that there was very little new stuff, in the way of facts.
What they did do brilliantly, and the whole reason people got sent on them, is they organised that information in a way that was less complicated than all the theory we’d learned, and bridged the gap between textbook and real life scenario.
In fact, they helped us to really appreciate the simplicity and structure to these events (certainly as I remember them, anyway). They introduced an easy flow to these often complex medical scenarios, in a way that I now believe was ultimately designed to help everybody…
Which is fascinating, isn’t it? Because the ‘live more’ part of the equation is big and encompasses a LOT… (everything?) … and also includes stuff like treating patients effectively, and better performance.
You can see I’m really leaning into the whole “think less, live more” thing at the moment – I’m seeing just how practical and helpful it is as litmus test, in any given situation.
A valuable guiding light for you!
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Giles
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