Career Transition

It was always a three body problem.

"What do you want to do when you grow up?"

Common question, right?

My Dad is a doctor, so growing up the answer was always "doctor". But beneath that, there was always another drive.

A drive to help.

In university, I didn't have the grades to get into med school. My Dad said "What about pharmacy? It's a good career". I didn't know what a pharmacist did. but it was healthcare It was a vehicle where I could help people.

So I became a pharmacist.

That early path started to crystallize. I was going to work in the community. Work my way up to getting my own store. I could help lots of people.

The reality was somewhere in between. In Canada, seeing a doctor is covered by the government, but medication coverage was not covered for everyone. So it was a weird landscape to navigate. How do you help someone when they couldn't pay?

Healthcare is a business. There's always money floating around somewhere. Money isn't the problem. Value exchange is required. The problem is focus. If you only look at the value you receive to decide what value you provide, it creates a disconnect. Not between the value provided and the value received, but from the hidden third body in the system - the provider.

It's not impossible to care in the system. I know because that's the only way that I could engage. What did the patient need? What were the constraints? How could I work around them?

Three body systems create uncertainty. In uncertainty there is space.

When you're in it, it's hard to see the space.

But if you know it's there you can use it.

So I lived in the spaces. I played in the margins. I helped create space for my team mates and employees. We needed space too. It wasn't only about helping patients and making money. I needed to make sure that we could do all this while staying afloat. Preferably standing on steady ground.

It's amazing what a little bit of organization can do. Cleaning out a packed backroom to find a hidden counter for dedicated space to make blister packs. Putting in drawer organizers so the narcotic safe wasn't a mess of baskets and drugs. Synchronizing medications with an excel sheet and a formula so patients with multiple medications wouldn't be calling every other day to refill a different prescription. Creating space for the team helped make space to impact patients.

When you build in the margins, you have to be careful about who sees you. Everything is fine if your value is clear. If your value helps the system, the organization, and the people in it. The people are the key ingredient. No matter how much an organization has process and a system has a function, the people are the ones who decide how it actually works.

People always have an agenda. Sometimes it serves others. Sometimes it serves themselves. Knowing that is key to knowing how to show up, and to know the risk of showing up in a certain way. I spent years playing in the margins to avoid scrutiny. It's comfortable enough, but it limited my impact. When I was ready to step out, I did it. But stepping out draws attention.

There was a time when I thought I would work for one company for my whole life. Come hell or high water, I would see it through. When you know you could draw the wrong kind of attention, you have to be ready for the consequences when you step out.

Unplanned business meetings without an agenda are never a good sign. I knew what it could mean. It was one of two things.

Good news or bad news.

Like I said, never a good sign.

I was ready though. I remember sitting at the kitchen table waiting on my laptop. I listened to Life Goes On by BTS right before the meeting started. I sent a picture to a group chat with my colleagues too. I could tell they were concerned for me but I told them not to worry. I knew that the tension of misalignment was always there.

Looking back, I can say now that this was an inevitable outcome.

Like I said, people matter. Sometimes you do something for the right person that benefitted them in some way where they put you on notice instead of firing you outright.

That notice was the signal.

From the Shore

Money as a concept is weird. It's a concept but it's so coveted. It's undeniable that having money makes life easier, and I'm in a privileged position to be able to say all this. My question is why money has this power in our system. I'm not informed enough on the nuances and history to debate this, but the quote "money is the root of all evil" comes to mind.

Surprisingly, on a quick google search, it turns out the actual quote is "the love of money is the root of all kinds of evil". And even more surprising to me is that it comes from the Bible (1 Timothy 6:10).

Which now sends me thinking about other common quotes that are misquoted. The one that comes to mind right now is "blood is thicker than water".

Surprisingly, on another quick google search, it turns out the original quote IS "blood is thicker than water", but a modern reinterpretation throws it on it's head.

"The blood of the covenant is thicker than the water of the womb".

The meaning changes considerably. Who's to say which quote is right? It's another three body problem isn't it? Two different meanings, but the person in the middle is the one who must decide what the meaning is.

Messy.

Career decisions can feel that way too. How do you know you are in your forever job? What is keeping you stuck? When will you know it's time to move?

The truth is you won't know until you decide it's time to move. Deciding to move or to stay are active decisions.

Loyalty to a company, organization, or institution is a funny thing. We're human, so we relate on a human level. But these monoliths are not human. They have no memory, they have no loyalty. Again, it comes back to the people that make up the monolith. There are always people there.

You've likely had a process or rule propped up in front of you and pointed to as an unchangeable fact. There's benefit and purpose for these things but it's hard to defend when the process doesn't serve anyone or the process is not followed.

Relationships drive action. Money is a good indicator of how the relationships are flowing, especially in a business context. If you can follow the money, you can understand the relationships.

It's like Animal Farm, All money is equal, but some money is more equal than others.

So it didn't matter that I doubled revenue and 10x profit. Some money speaks louder than others.

Your Move

What are you asking permission for?

Life Goes On by BTS https://open.spotify.com/track/5FVbvttjEvQ8r2BgUcJgNg?si=ac8d1e2cec4749a8