Special Guest Expert - Greg Jacobson: Video automatically transcribed by Sonix

Special Guest Expert - Greg Jacobson: this mp4 video file was automatically transcribed by Sonix with the best speech-to-text algorithms. This transcript may contain errors.

Brigitta Hoeferle:
Here's the big question. How is it that most entrepreneurs hustle and are always busy and struggle to take just one step forward, only to fall two steps back? They're dedicated, determined and driven, but only a few finally break through and win. This show uncovers those quantum patterns of highly successful people so you can simply model what they do and apply to your future success. That's the question. And the answers are right here. My name is Brigitta Hoeferle and this is the Success Patterns Show. And happy Tuesday, everyone here at the Success Patterns Show. My name is Brigitta Hoeferle. I am the founder of the Success Pattern Movement and the CEO of the center of NLP, where we put the do in learn, do teach. And boy, oh boy, do we have an incredible guest expert. I want to say the doctors in the house today. And before I go into that, I want to, as you are constantly improving, I want to talk a little bit about success and success patterns. Well, the definition of patterns is an example for others to follow. And we're going to give you some great patterns today. And the quality of the success or success all in itself is really an interesting thing as it shapes its meaning within each individual success seeker. And it's not limited to business or personal life or anywhere else that you're looking for success. Success is modeled and strategies, patterns and behavior. And Tony Robbins is known for saying success leaves clues. I say success comes in patterns. And when we can decipher, decode these patterns that led to other people success like our guest experts, then you can actually encode them into your own life so you can have success starting right now, as humans were hardwired for hands on application and and and hands on learning by a living teacher. We're not theoreticians here because they kind of just talk a good game here. Our grand masters at work. And I have, as I said, an incredible guest expert on the show today. He will drop many incredible nuggets. He is a practicing E.R. physician. Told you guys doctors in the house. He has completed an emergency medicine residency at Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville.

Brigitta Hoeferle:
And he was staying on as a faculty member at Vanderbilt. And he observed and researched operational inefficiencies and unrealized continuous improvement opportunities, which ultimately resulted in founding his program and his company that he's going to share more about with us today. It is a this company is called Chi Nexis and is a rapidly growing software company that helps organizations manage and Excel improvement and innovation programs. Their mission clinics is this mission is. To help organizations around the world to spread and scale improvement. Now, if this is not a great fit for the success pattern show, I don't know what is. We're constantly giving you patterns to improve, and we have an incredible doctor in the house to talk exactly about that, so I can't wait to bring him on. Gregg Jacobs, great to have you here on the Success Pattern show. Thank you for taking time.

Greg Jacobson:
Well, thanks so much for having me. I'm I'm looking forward to this. I think we're fun.

Brigitta Hoeferle:
Absolutely. If it's not fun, we're not doing it. So So your doctor going into technology or or turning technology entrepreneur, what the heck happened?

Greg Jacobson:
I obviously took a wrong turn somewhere, right?

Brigitta Hoeferle:
I think you took the right turn, though, did you not?

Greg Jacobson:
Yeah. Yeah. No, I'm very, very grateful for the turn that I took, but I it certainly wasn't a planned turn. I just. I follow my interests, and I was handed a book by Mizuki Am I called Kaizen. And by about page seven, I realized there was an entire discipline and methodology around applying a practice, applying patterns to any system that could help improve it. And I realized, Oh, we could teach our residents this and we could start improving the air that we're in and teach people how to improve the hours that they're going to go to. And so one thing led to another, and after teaching the principles realized trying to manage it in email was a total poop show, as my 11 year old would say. And we're off to the races on building, building technology to help manage all that.

Brigitta Hoeferle:
So I envision you in your free time as an air physician, right? And I learned earlier that your wife is one as well, that you just kind of picked up nonchalantly this Kaizen book and thought, Oh, that's interesting. And as you're reading it, you're going, Oh, you know, I think everyone on the face of this earth should know about this Japanese, not just philosophy. It's much more than just a Japanese philosophy. Talk to us. A How did you get to Kaizen? How did it evolve? And and and what is it?

Greg Jacobson:
Sure. So, so, so I was not the first person to think, Oh, we could apply these manufacturing improvement principles. Oftentimes they're referred to as Kaizen or lean that we could apply them to health care. Actually, Dr. Berwick is credited back almost in the late eighties or early nineties for for kind of making this observation. But I came to the realization in oh four, so still pretty early on in the health care arena, I think you couldn't be in health care today and not hear the words continuous improvement. Now how their practice is is a different story in different places. But it was it was really obvious that you could take these principles of no idea is is too small fix individual problems. Don't sweep them under the rug. If you can save just a second on a process that's worth investigating and putting the the customer or in this case, the patient at the center of the equation, there's there's a whole host of these these principles and disciplines that when you apply them to a system, the outcome of that system is that the system gets better, the system has a higher quality. And and so that's essentially the beginning of this realization that, oh, this is this is going to be the way I can leave a mark on on my patients. And then it obviously snowballed from there.

Brigitta Hoeferle:
So, you know, I'm really grateful that you said that, that we're constantly as as in the field that you have been operating in, no pun intended, that you are constantly looking for improvement for the patient and not just the patient. You know, I like to focus on win, win wins. I like to focus not just on win wins you When I win, I like to focus on you when I win and and whoever's connected to you and I also wins. So there's a greater win in that. And and I applaud you as an ER doctor who I can only imagine the stress and the craziness that you're, that the position brings with it, that you have that drive to constantly improve and to not just constantly improve yourself, but to actually create something much greater than you and teach others.

Greg Jacobson:
Yeah. No. What's so so there's certainly these principles can be applied to yourself when these principles need to be applied to, to a system. It really does take buy in and it takes buy in from leadership. So whether you're applying it to a team and needing the the team leader or an emergency department and needing the leaders of the emergency department or even an entire large organization and needing the C-suite of the organization to to drive organizational change and organizational improvement, It really needs not only just sponsorship by the leadership, but really engagement by the leadership. Now, keep in mind, the CEO of a 20,000 person hospital system is going to engage in improvement work in a very different way than the person leading one of the emergency departments. But it does need it needs their buy in and their participation. So the the idea and the realization that I had that I think kind of brought some nobleness to this is could we use technology and could the technology be flexible enough to go into any system and really decrease the threshold, decrease the barrier with the amount of energy that has to be brought into that system to to do that improvement work? And so that's that's really the the genesis, as I reflect back over the last 20 years, specifically maybe 1015 thinking about kind access. But but how can we make that process easier for an organization to to actualize.

Brigitta Hoeferle:
And then and then it begs the question, so you have the processes and skill, the processes and make them more efficient. And then there's also this human factor that still plays in as humans because there's a human interaction from doctor to patient. In this case, in your case and in any other case where there is human to human contact, how does one improve one's behavior? How does one improve one one's attitude? How does one improves one one's ability to soak in and soak up information that is so rich and so incredibly important as what you bring out?

Greg Jacobson:
That's a that's a really tricky question. I think one of the one of the questions and you said, oh, we have we're going to have some questions that are prepared and we'll probably never get to them. But one of the questions you asked was, what do you value the most? And what's interesting is, is that I answered a different question than the the values and traits that we identified here at Nexis. So it's interesting, about seven years into this journey, we sat around and we're like, oh, we're 20, 25, almost 30 people big. That was a couple of years ago and said, Hey, we don't have any values and traits that we've ever really sat down and identify that. What makes you what makes you successful at kind of success? And one of those was to be kind. We identified that to show empathy, to have growth mindset. Those were some of the things that that we identify. And I think those are all of the things that you need to do. What you're talking about. How do you how do you recognize that perhaps you could improve? How do you how do you recognize that the patient isn't the problem? I like to say that, remember, you're not the one with the pathology. So sometimes you'll be in a room and and you'll. You'll be like, Oh, wait. You start getting embroiled in the the event going on in the room instead of leading and guiding the event, going on in the room and, and in realizing that this isn't the best this isn't the best manifestation of the person that you're seeing. So showing that empathy and leading with kindness can can really help you, I think, be open enough to to show that the kindness that you're mentioning, the ways how can I improve emergency medicine? Doctors have a really high burnout in general. They typically say that your doctor lasts for about 15, 20 years. Now, I'm not going to say that that I've had that exact experience because for much of my career I've done a very small number of shifts. So I'm not going to look at the doctor That's been a full time year doctor for 20 years and say, Oh, well, hey, why are you burnt out?

Greg Jacobson:
You should bring greater awareness to your job. But those are the things that that help someone to to kind of show up in the best manifestation of themselves, which was my top value to. Go back to that. I wrote down what the question was What do you value the most done actualizing potential and actualizing potential. Yeah. So so think about that because it's not saying, oh, I want I want my my daughter to make A's or I want us to reach the goal of a number at the end of the year. It's really if you could be omniscient and just kind of know what someone's full potential is, which obviously is unknowable. And that's part of the the juxtaposition there and then try to help people actualize that. I think it is it's just a beautiful thing. It's actually why I'm doing this now. People are like, why are you still doing this? And just to be able to work with people and give them opportunities and see them blossom Is it is it is remarkable. It's really remarkable.

Brigitta Hoeferle:
So you definitely have this huge kind heart that you have shared with us earlier to help people. Now you're helping them in a different way with a lot of knowledge. I wonder what was little Greg like? Like were you were you always this driven? And, you know, I'm here to help people. Tell us a little bit about that upbringing of little Greg.

Greg Jacobson:
Yeah, no, I don't I don't really know 100%. I'll tell you, the the I grew up in a small business world environment. We would call it entrepreneurs now. And other than my uncle, no one was in health care for my family. And so I went into health care, but I just had this entrepreneurial side of me. And there was a period of time in med school where I didn't know if I wanted to finish it, and I got involved in real estate. So I even have this whole other tract of real estate that that I focus my time on as well. But, and, and so I, I, but I'll tell you, even there was never a time in my life where I could remember that I didn't think wanting to be a doctor was at least on the table. And so kind of going into college, it was I loved science, I loved learning. And then I love teaching. And I started to be a TA and tutor for my different biology classes. And. And how do you how do you I think a physician at its core is someone that teaches constantly and someone that teaches and needs to teach at a lot of different levels. You go from one room where that might be someone that a non English speaker, maybe another person. You go to another room and they're the CEO of a, you know, a 1000 person company, and you go to the next room and they're a blue collar worker and you kind of meet people where they're at. And so it's it's really rewarding.

Brigitta Hoeferle:
You meet people where they're at. I'm I'm pretty sure that is a strategy that you learn many times over in the E.R. because you had no other chance to meet them. Where they're at with all of their aches and pains is probably putting it mildly. In your opinion, what is the number one thing that a person is looking for when they are looking to be successful?

Greg Jacobson:
Yeah, well, so. I think if if if you're if you're thinking of being an entrepreneur and that's that's the big audience that we're talking about here. There has to be an intense amount of grit. I think that's the one thing I would say is probably there has to be a tenacity to reach a goal and that. Kind of solution to reach that goal is unknown and there is no promise of success at the end. And the the idea of grit also kind of encompasses the realization that if the the goal is unattainable, I'm just going to make it up. If you had grit to, like, develop a transporter, like in Star Trek, right? I mean, it just let's just say that that's an unattainable goal, right? I think to have grit also, it infers and it somehow means that there is some appreciation for understanding that the goal is attainable with the resources that you have as well. And there were many times in the past, and there's still probably many times a day where where you think, I don't quite know how I'm going to get to B from A, but I know I have to just take the step and. And so in order to have that motivation, I think that that I'll bet if you do a psychological tests on on entrepreneurs in general their their level of grit is high and maybe the entrepreneurs that are more successful, their level of grit is even higher.

Brigitta Hoeferle:
And would you say the resourcefulness is even stronger than the resources that they have available?

Greg Jacobson:
Yeah, great, Great point. I mean, we we as a company, we are A SAS, B to B enterprise level and most companies have raised ten X more than we have raised to date. And so figuring out where your strong suits are and kind of double down on those and my strong suits early on I was not raising money. I didn't understand how investors and entrepreneurs and venture capital couldn't make a decision right away. I was in the yard and I was making a decision.

Brigitta Hoeferle:
Immediately.

Greg Jacobson:
With very little information to figure out how to proceed. And I found the entire process back in the beginning of talking to venture capital, just incredibly circular, incredibly, like just can you not just say yes or no and let's let's move on. And and so so we doubled down on things we were good at, which was talking to talking to potential customers, figuring out the problems and figuring out how can we solve them and getting people to use the product and incorporating their feedback and making it better. And if you just keep working at the things that you're good at, then you'll end up in a good place. So I don't know if that kind of answers your question, but I think if you're if you can align, I think I've seen the Venn diagram. It's like, what do you make money at? What are you passionate about, What do you like or something? And it's like, figure out those things and do that thing in the middle and try to do that as much as possible, especially if it helps you obtain the goal of where you're trying to get. Then lots of things that are easier said than done.

Brigitta Hoeferle:
So yeah, I appreciate that answer. And, and I agree with you that that that sweet spot in the middle is go for that and that's easier said than done. Now, speaking of easier said than done, I bet there are times where as a doctor, as an entrepreneur, as a dad, as just as Greg all together, that there are times where you're like, you know what if that I just I just want to go lay down and pull the covers over my head and then you, and then you are, you know, tapping into that tenacity, into that grit. Where do you take that energy from? How do you overcome that challenge of I don't want to.

Greg Jacobson:
I. I don't I don't know. I very rarely struggle with with that in any kind of long term. And certainly in the moment, maybe I've gotten into a habit of working out in the morning. And so that's that's something that we I kind of mentioned in the pre-show. My fascination with habits and I used to not have a pattern or a habit of working out. And so I started this. And right when this was right when this was starting, I was reading Clears Atomic Habits. I had already read Do Higgs The Power of Habit, and I've now read Fogg's tiny habits. And I think what we're really talking about here is doing doing things almost in an automated way where kind of the choice of what you're going to do has been already made for you because you've identified yourself and you've created your identity around some principle. So if that principle is a guy that works out every morning, then you don't really have the choice when you wake up, even if it really sucks. And for the first 10 minutes it's going to suck. And sometimes the whole time it sucks. But at the end of it you feel great about it. It's the same thing with an entrepreneur. You don't really have a choice in what you're going to do. I do think it's balanced because I think if you're everyday waking up or whatever frequency and you're thinking, Wow, I don't want to do this, eventually you probably should ask yourself, maybe, maybe you really shouldn't be doing this. Because as near as I can tell, we've got one one chance at our life. Maybe. Maybe we reincarnate, but let's just say we got one chance and we're finding ourselves beating our heads against the wall and not enjoying ourselves. Maybe we should be doing something different. Certainly we should be doing something in a different way. But I think if if we're talking about just the 20% or the 30%, how do you motivate yourself? I think I think habits are a in developing and really tapping into the science of habits really help you do what you're talking about because then you're not really having to make a choice. You're just doing the action.

Brigitta Hoeferle:
Yes. And I am all for habits and rituals. Now, how do habits and rituals let's just go with habits, because you mentioned habits earlier. How do habits get in the way of continuous improvement? Because it's something that we do over and over and over and over. And then we we we at one point hopefully going to the gym, it becomes easy and we do it on autopilot.

Greg Jacobson:
That's a super interesting. And that's really interesting. I hadn't thought, because I think you're right. If you are building habits in which you're getting yourself into a rut, if you will, like maybe you're not doing the right kind of workout or maybe you are injuring yourself. I think that's where. So I, I refer to myself affectionately as the great agitator here, kind of excess. And I mean that in a really loving way. I'm always trying to muck things up just a little bit, like, Hey, well, why are we thinking about it this way? And I'm challenging things. I think that comes from I think medicine is the basis is learning science and the basis of science. Developing science and expanding our knowledge is making sure we have a healthy dose of skepticism. And so so I think that the value that kind of incorporates here is the value of growth mindset. And so if you are making sure that you are kind of constantly thinking about, okay, what am I doing, what am I trying to accomplish, and then infusing this idea of maybe I need to grow a little bit, maybe I could do this discovery call a little bit differently. Maybe I'm for one. Entrepreneurs should be reading. I mean, if you haven't developed a habit of reading, then then you are never going to be injecting the kind of agitation, if you will, that you need. So whether it's blog posts and books, I mean, you need to be doing a little bit of both. And they don't necessarily all need to be about business right now. I'm doing Gene. I am probably going to kill his name. Oh, come on. Siddartha Mukherji. I'm killing that.

Brigitta Hoeferle:
But hey, I'll write.

Greg Jacobson:
Some amazing books. And so anyway, the point is, I also think there's a lot to be learned about learning about different disciplines and then seeing how those apply. I think a lot of innovation is at the intersection of two different disciplines now. And so and so I think getting into a habit of reading I think is going to be really important and that is probably going to help you because if you're reading about something and you're learning new concepts or you're reinforcing or expanding on old concepts, then maybe that's that's like the protection of how a habit could have the side effect of getting into a rut. But if you're we'll do the workout example, but if you're reading about fitness, then you're getting new ideas and trying to change things up. And that's growth mindset. Oh, I haven't done this exercise before. I'm not going to be good at it, but let me go ahead and go for it, etc..

Brigitta Hoeferle:
So and I guess a, a continuous change can also be a habit, right? It's a continuous. Let me check in on that. And how can I do it better or as my as my a what do you call them? Personal trainer says always do a plus one. So plus one is doing something even more. But it's a.

Greg Jacobson:
Habit. Yeah. No, I love that. Yeah, that. Well said. I have nothing to add to that. That's perfect.

Brigitta Hoeferle:
Now, and I can really appreciate the concept of looking at other areas of maybe that you have studied or not studied or read about or not read about and bring in that knowledge. How does a dad, you being a father, have an impact on you also being a successful business owner and agitator?

Greg Jacobson:
I. Well, for one, I'm. I'm my my daughter is a perfect petri dish to do experiments on. I am experimenting currently on getting her to develop a habit of feeding the dogs every night. And I'm trying different little tricks on that. But I'll tell you the interesting thing. I think you said something at the very beginning. It was something to the effect of learn, do teach. There's an expression in in medicine that says, See, when do one teach one. So I thought that was like perfectly in sync. And I think that what is so great about teaching is that the teacher inevitably learns more than the student. And so in many ways, I'm learning more from my daughter than than she'll ever learn from me. It's you get to relive your childhood that you probably have forgotten a lot about. There's probably no better kind of manifestation of what you may have been like because who knows what happened when we were four And and then seeing her just come up with new concepts now is just is is is remarkable. So I also think that she's really good at I think entrepreneurs we get we ruminate about the business and and about everything going on with it to probably an unhealthy degree and having my wife and having my daughter when I come home when they know that I'm in that place where I'm still like transitioning out of work and but then they pull me into that and, and really kind of allow me to have a mental break from from that. So I think if you are fortunate enough to have a partner and fortunate enough to have a child, I think it's a very good way to help balance everything in your life.

Brigitta Hoeferle:
I agree we could we could talk on for hours. And I love this conversation and the nuggets and the wisdom that you bring our time is coming to an end. How do folks continue to stay in touch with you?

Greg Jacobson:
Great. So the best way is probably Kinect dot com. So it's k a i and e x US. Thank you. It's the fusion of Kaizen and Nexis. We have Twitter and LinkedIn and all the other socials on there. We have a great webinar series. So if you're interested in just learning about continuous improvement in general, there's lots of that. And of course you're showing my email, shoot me an email. I am not necessarily the quickest at responding, but I have a process on how I do my email, so I will definitely respond to you and we can strike up a conversation. And then I think one of the things you do is gifts. And my gift is essentially going to be my recommendation is to read James Clear's book, Atomic Habits. I think it's a great place to start your exploration of learning about habits. I have no financial connection to James Clear, and I'm going to be giving a couple of talks on habits and continuous improvement coming up that I've been thinking about these concepts and really deeply for the last couple of years, and it's going to manifest in this way.

Brigitta Hoeferle:
So I'm grateful and I love to learn more from you and through you. So folks kind Nexus K a I and e x US dot com. You find all of the socials on there. I'm pretty sure that Greg's next sessions on habits are going to be posted on there as well. Follow him on LinkedIn, on Facebook, on Twitter, on YouTube. Subscribe to his channel on YouTube. Kinesis And Greg, will you come back at some point and share with us more wisdom?

Greg Jacobson:
I would be honored to. This was super fun. This is I do a little muse on on Friday mornings to the company. This is like muse on steroids. So.

Brigitta Hoeferle:
All right. Well, Greg, thank you for being here. Guys, Thanks for tuning in. Tune in again next week on Tuesday, same time, same place. Until then, bye. And Chao, for now, thank you for tuning in to the success pattern show at www.TheSuccessPatternsShow.com My name is Brigitta Hoeferle.

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