Good Tired

As I drove home from the CIR National Convention tonight the following quote from Harry Chapin came to my mind.

"There's two kinds of tired. There's good tired and there's bad tired.

Ironically enough, bad tired can be a day that you won. But you won other people's battles, you lived other people's days, other people's agendas, other people's dreams, and when it's all over there was very little you in there. And when you hit the hay at night somehow you toss and turn, you don't settle easy.

Good tired, ironically enough, can be a day that you lost. But you won't even have to tell yourself, because you knew you fought your battles, you chased your dreams, you lived your days. And when you hit the hay at night, you settle easy, you sleep the sleep of the just, and you can say, 'Take me away'."

Tonight I am good tired. Deb and I got to spend the day sharing the vision of Connor's House with an amazing group of delegates, organizers, staff and the executive committee from CIR. I could not be more pleased with how everything went. The CIR staff were amazing. From top to bottom they went way out of their way to help and support us. The doctors we met, mostly 1st and 2nd year residents, give me great hope for the future of medicine in our country. They were receptive, engaged, thoughtful and passionate about making a difference in the lives of their patients and how the health care system works.

It was a long day and I am tired. But tonight I am good tired.

Servant or Self-Serving

What type of leader are you? A servant leader or a self-serving leader? Both can be effective but only one is loved. Both can make you feel needed and important but one will forget about you once they have gotten what they needed. Both will sometimes fail but only one will accept responsibility. Both will ask you for your ideas but only one will give you the credit.

What type of leader are you? What type of leader do your co-workers or subordinates think you are?

This is how I want to live

I attended a conference last week where Kevin Carroll was one of the speakers. I first became aware of Kevin many years ago when he spoke at a business meeting I attended. During his talk last week he shared the following quote from James Michener:

“The master in the art of living makes little distinction between his work and his play, his labor and his leisure, his mind and his body, his information and his recreation, his love and his religion. He hardly knows which is which. He simply pursues his vision of excellence at whatever he does, leaving others to decide whether he is working or playing. To him he's always doing both.”

This is the type of integrated life that I want to live. Some days I feel like I am getting closer to this goal but lately I feel like it is getting further away. Must be time to think about making some adjustments.

How about you?

New Resources Now Available

The Connor’s House Team is committed to helping improve the health care system for children with complex health care needs by providing educational resources for medical professionals and families. In preparation for the CIR National Convention this weekend in Philadelphia we are excited to be releasing our first three educational articles. The following articles are now available for download.

Practical Lessons: Patient- and Family- Centered Care
Palliative Care: Confronting the Elephant in the Room
What is a Respite House?

Connor's House Display Board

Just got the new display board back from the printer (it looks really good 4 feet wide). We will be using this to help us tell the Connor's House story at conferences and speaking engagements. It will get it's public debut this coming weekend at the CIR National Convention.

We will also be publishing three new educational articles for the conference that I will post over the next couple of days.

Faith, Courage or Stupidity

Several times over the past 9 months or so Deb and I have had a discussion about one or both of us quitting our jobs to focus full time on developing Connor's House. The conversations, so far, eventually come to some version of the same conclusion; it would be too risky at this point in time to follow that course of action.

I'm never 100% convinced. Dreams have a tendency to blur the line between faith, courage and stupidity. One of the bloggers I follow, Ben Arment, announced today that he is making just this sort of leap. I admire his (and his families) faith/courage and wish them the best.

Long Branch Half Marathon