Skills to Thrive

A keynote presentation I gave on three skills that encourage fulfilled living.

Keynote

This year, I was asked to give keynote presentations at both my undergraduate and graduate school Alma maters. Both were what are called “white coat ceremonies” for students in the audiology doctoral program transitioning from the classroom to clinical rotations. I was also recently promoted to Commander in the United States Navy — a milestone that I hadn’t anticipated reaching until later in my career. Best of all, I had my fourth child, a baby girl, this summer.

It has been a good year.

Only one year earlier, I broke my shoulder changing the trajectory of my athletic pursuits before my wife and I lost two children back-to-back due to miscarriage.

It was one of the most challenging years of my life.

The tides of life can quickly turn in any direction. All the prediction, planning, and training in the world can never fully prepare you for inevitable adversity.

When contemplating an outline for my keynote presentations earlier this year, I decided to focus on what I’d want to tell myself back when I was in grad school getting ready to start clinical rotations. For anyone who knows me, I’m sure you won’t be surprised that my speeches had very little to do with audiology.

I don’t write out my speeches or even use notes most of the time when I speak in public so the following post represents the gist of what I said for each of these presentations.

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Skills to Thrive

Life is full of phases and transitions.

The formal classroom can provide us with extensive knowledge. All the knowledge in the world, however, means nothing without experience.

We must put our knowledge to the test in order to build legitimate competency and confidence in our skills.

Wisdom results from knowledge application over time.

It has been fifteen years since I was sitting in grad school getting ready to test my skills in clinic for the first time. I can clearly remember the mutual excitement and nervousness of stepping into the arena. I was excited to prove myself and nervous about the potential of failure.

When asked to give this presentation, I decided to consider what I’d want to tell my twenty-four year old self in order to set me up for success as an audiologist. I reflected on past keynotes I’ve heard for our field that was often focused on our scope of practice, technical skills, and multi-disciplinary knowledge to serve patients throughout the lifespan. These considerations are essential to fulfill our respective missions in the clinic but I can assure you that there will be many forms of adversity outside of patient care that make it challenging to sustain performance in any domain.

Since donning the white coat fifteen years ago, I was selected to complete my fourth year externship at The Cleveland Clinic and subsequently commissioned into the United States Navy. At my first duty station, I met the love of my life and married her before we moved around the world to Guam. I’ve been competitively promoted on each of my first looks for the respective ranks when I was in zone. I’ve been recognized as the Audiologist of the Year both for the Navy and military as a whole. I’ve been hand-selected for various leadership positions throughout my career in realms I never thought I would find myself. I’ve obtained my brown belt in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu while having success in competition against men larger, younger, and more experienced than I am. I set a Guinness World Record in burpees during COVID when I wasn’t able to pursue other athletic pursuits. Most importantly, my wife and I have had four beautiful children who have added a love and purpose to my life that I could have never imagined.

We’ve also lost three children in the process.

They say the most common miracle in life is the birth of a child. What you don’t hear as often is the most common tragedy is the loss of a child. One in four pregnancies end in miscarriage. Our first loss was during our first pregnancy. This unexpected pregnancy followed by an unexpected loss challenged the core of our souls individually and as a couple.

Our marriage almost fell apart.

Our most recent loss was in the second trimester after naming our baby girl and having a normal blood test. 0.2% of pregnancies end in miscarriage after this point.

During this time I’ve also had far more rejections and losses when compared to approvals and wins in every realm I operate. I’ve lost friends and family to disease, accidental deaths, and suicide. I’ve had men and women I respected commit awful acts to themselves and others that have ruined families and lives. A previous teammate and friend lost his way leading to the murder of a widely-loved community member and physician in Guam. Countless people I care about have developed mental health and/or substance abuse disorders in response to the variable challenges of life.

I’m not certain of many things, but I am certain that adversity is inevitable for us all.

Depth of expertise in a field sets one up for success as a professional. Breadth of skills, especially relating to self-mastery, sets one up to thrive despite unpredictable hardship.

As a stress management and resilience instructor in the Navy for more than a decade, I’ve come to believe there are three skills we can focus on to encourage thriving in any circumstance. These skills maximize potential physically, mentally, socially, and spiritually both in our professional and personal lives.