How an insult turned into life-changing advice.

Do your job and let them do theirs.

Cool, calm, and collected. It’s something I take pride in. The way I carry myself in my professional life.

How do others perceive me compared to how I perceive myself? Am I helpful at work, at home, or to my friends and family?

I like to think I am helpful but is it really helpful if it’s not wanted.

The harsh reality.

I worked really hard to get into Anesthesia training. Once I was in and practiced for about a year, it started to click. Everything started to fall in place just like I knew it would.

I was in my last year of training and was getting good at the art of giving anesthesia. I studied hard, worked hard, and anticipated the logistics of difficult situations like a seasoned practitioner. In fact, my ego was often stroked a little when preceptors would be excited I was staffing their room.

At the end of each day, we would debrief with whoever mentored us. The anesthesia provider would fill out an evaluation to go over how you did.

My evaluations were always strong that last year. Each category is rated 1 thru 5, with “5” being strong and “1” meaning weak.

Pain is weakness leaving the body.

I used to see this on T-shirts at the gym. It was always some big muscular guy wearing a “sh-medium” size shirt yelling and making a bunch of noise with every press. Weakness was appalling to them.

I think weakness is probably not viewed as “positive” by anyone. But why not? It may not be positive, but can we learn from it?

I sat down at a table after a hard day of work. Waited patiently for the anesthesia provider that mentored me to give me my evaluation for the day. He came in, handed it to me, then sat down and started playing on his phone.

I looked at the form and was completely speechless. It was all 1’s and 2’s in every category.

Weak.

I thought about just taking the “L” and walking away. I was so upset. I worked really hard all day.

I made sure my patients were well cared for with detailed care plans tailored to their specific needs. I explained to them and any staff that needed explanation of my plans and why I was doing it. I talked to each surgeon to see what their needs were. I helped everyone with everything I could from turning over the machines to taking out the trash. All to facilitate a smoother transition from case to case. I even filled out all the billing paperwork and filed it.

I finally asked him, “Why did I get all 1’s and 2’s?”

He simply replied, “You do too much.” And then kept playing on his phone.

There was a long pause before I broke the silence. “Look man, I felt like I worked really hard today, I’m not really understanding.” I stared at him intensely waiting for a response that would satisfy my inquisition.

Work hard at working less.

He proceeded to explain to me that while I felt like I was working hard, the only reason it felt like that was because I was trying to do everyone else’s job on top of mine. Everything from the explanations to accommodations throughout the day.

Everyone is a professional. There are nurses, surgical technicians, first assists, surgeons, anesthesia technicians, patient care facilitators, and cleaning staff. Each person counts on the other person to do their job and do it well. When that happens, it’s a smooth and very satisfying day.

I’m paraphrasing what he said but it ended with, “Do your job, and let them do theirs.”

I was kind of taken aback at first, but it made sense. I spent the whole hour-drive home thinking about what he said and what I did throughout the day. I’ve always been a pretty relaxed guy, but I think I’m relaxed because I’m in control of everything around me. Letting go of that was not going to be easy.

Applying the concept.

From that day forward, I made a conscious effort to do my job and let everyone do theirs. I still maintain situational awareness, but I focus on myself, what I’m doing currently, and the logistics of what I plan to do.

I even took it a little further. The concept of doing your job isn’t just literal, it’s about focusing on myself and not trying to control what everyone else is doing. Applying the concept to daily life, side hustles, and even my marriage.

Simply put, focusing on bettering myself will inevitably better everything around me.

At work, when I give anesthesia, I focus on my patient and what I am doing. Anesthesia isn’t a job where you can just put the patient to sleep and ignore everything else.

You must be aware of everything around you. How the surgery is progressing, is the surgeon running into complications, is their bleeding, what are the staff in the room doing, do I need to adjust my anesthetic according to which part of the surgery we are in? I could write a whole article maybe even a few chapters of a book on all the things I process in a matter of seconds.

The point is, to direct that attention and choose what you are going to do based on your job versus someone else’s. What you should be doing and trusting someone else to do what they should be doing. It’s all about stress deconstruction thru time management.

Implementing the concept with side hustles isn’t as straight forward. It’s more of a directing the time you are going to spend on something and not getting distracted through tangible exercises.

I know I need to do this, but I could do this this and this. Do your job.

Easiest way for me was to make a goal-oriented content calendar. I have one of those huge desk calendars tacked to the wall. It has small manageable things on each day. Throughout the week I am consistent in time spent without overwhelming myself or trying to do everything all at once. Stress deconstruction thru time management.

Applying the concept to my marriage was the best thing I ever did. Having been with my wife for more than half our lives, we have experienced the ups and downs of our relationship many times.

As time progressed, it felt like the downs were outlasting the ups. I started to realize maybe I was projecting what I wanted to happen onto my wife. Instead of trying to fix “us,” maybe I can just work on fixing me.

Do your job and let them do theirs.

I began to focus on myself first. What can I change in myself to make me better?

Make one small positive change a day. It may not seem like much, but over the course of a year it becomes huge. A 1% change in a day is minuscule, but over a year that's 365%!

So, I got to work.

Better professional, better person, better father, better son, better sibling, better eating, better body, better at chores, and better cook would transfer over to being a better husband and a better me.

At home, I created a chore chart and try to do one thing daily. I also ask myself, “What is one small thing I can do to make my living area better?” It’s become a thing now, and my youngest son loves to show me what he did that day. Sometimes its goofy like putting an action figure on his nightstand but he’s having fun with it.

By focusing on myself first, I could then transfer that energy to everything around me. Whether it's in my professional life, side gigs, or home life I began to notice all the positive changes over time.

Can you think of a way to utilize this concept in your life?