Passion and Gratitude List

Passion and Gratitude: It seems that the more I don’t want to do something the better it is for me to do it. A good friend of mine, Marv Wopat of Milton, Wisconsin, for years has told people to sit down each day and make a gratitude list. It is what it sounds like, a list of what a person is grateful for.

I have also heard a phenomenon that when given the choice, the great majority of people would not trade places with someone else.

In healthcare a majority of people are in a job in which they make a great difference in the lives of others, work in relatively clean environments and like most of their colleagues, have good benefits and pay. When I ask healthcare workers, how many of you work two jobs to make ends meet financially, very few say they do. I understand this is not everybody, but most do not. In essence, healthcare workers do a job or provide a service in which they have a good aptitude and skill set. They make enough money that they don’t have to work another job to fulfill their passion. Not many people are this fortunate.

My father loved to duck hunt. He liked nothing more than to sit in a duck blind for hours on the Mississippi river, in cold weather, waiting for a flock of ducks to fly by. If he could, he would have done this every day of his life. So what’s the problem? He couldn’t find a professional duck hunting job. In order to afford the equipment to hunt with and to travel to his favorite duck blind and stay in a cabin year after year, my Dad had to work two jobs. During the week he worked in a factory, which covered family expenses, and on weekends he worked in a junk yard to earn money to fulfill his passion of duck hunting.

When I was last in Nashville, I asked some of the employees in the hotel what they were there for. Many said they were working odd jobs, like the one in the hotel, but they were really musicians or song writers or a publicist, etc. See, they have a passion. They also have talent, but in order to meet their goal they need to earn money doing something else.

Healthcare is loaded with passionate people, like you, who earn enough money doing what they are passionate about and can afford to live a fairly good life. We are some of the fortunate ones.

Marv was right. Every time I finish my gratitude list I feel better. Let me know if it works for you.

Thanks.

Sincerely,

Quint Studer