Vicki Landers – Coaching Healthcare Resilience

Hi and welcome to.

The You World Order Showcase Podcast today we are speaking with Vicki Landers. Vicki is a transitional.

And life coach for healthcare professionals, she's much more than that. But I'm going to let her explain all of the particulars because it's kind of over my head, to be honest with you. So welcome, Vicki. I'm so glad to have you here. And to see what you're doing and how you're doing.

Thank you. Yeah, what I do is I work with healthcare professionals and organizations to help them return their focus to the purpose of healthcare, which is taking care of the patient.

So I work with organizations and I speak to them, but I also coach individuals predominantly mid career professionals who've been in healthcare for a long time, nurses, physical therapists and.

Do with the rest of their time in the workplace.

Yeah, I think that's really.

Necessary these days because you have so many people. Kind of.

Reaching a point where.

Like you said, they've done everything and they don't really want to switch careers. They love, they love why they're doing what they're doing, but they really don't know what's next.

So one of the things I find is with people is that they they've lost their why they've lost their why am I in healthcare cause Healthcare is so challenging. We've got all of the external pressures of insurance companies and after COVID patients who are a lot more challenging, they're a little more angry.

We've got, you know, staffing ratios that change. And so if you can't really focus on why you're there in the first.

All of that stuff really gets in your way of being able to actually take care of the person who's in front of you, which is the whole purpose of healthcare. And so I help people kind of refocus and discover, you know, why they're doing what they're doing and making a change if that's necessary or just retaping into their purpose. If that is what is, what's going to work best for them.

Healthcare has really changed over the last, I'd say maybe five years, it could be longer, but I've noticed it in the last five years that.

It's more top down, driven in in terms of you have these big conglomerates that are kind of like taking over medical facilities like hospitals and then the doctor's offices that are associated with them.

So that's not just something you've noticed. That's something that's happening in the industry. What's interesting to me is that private equity has gotten so heavily involved in healthcare and private equities purpose is a return on investment to their investors and which is not the purpose of taking care of patients.

So I think that there's some definite dissonance there in, in purpose. I've seen lots of home care companies. I'm a home care home care clinician by background. And I've seen lots of home care companies getting bought up. And then the big, even the big ones like LHC Group got bought up by Optum. And it's like, so even the big ones are getting bought up by bigger ones.

So I think it's gonna. It's changing the healthcare environment.

So, like the people that I would even love to talk to is so I was, I was the IT analyst for the Home Care department for a number of years. I'd love to talk to the people who are building the new technologies and helping them understand that the technologies that they're building. Yeah, they're having a great time building it. But the purpose of this is better care for the patient. So don't just build something because you can build something with a really strong.

Purpose. That's going to really impact at the bedside, at the human level.

So when I when I'm speaking, that's, you know, that's some of my message is just recognizing. But yeah it's definitely changed in the last five years and.

It's, it seems to me when I interact with the medical professions that if I get into groups.

And I only.

Have our local.

Community Hospital that I know was taken over by Aetna and we had a group of doctors that were associated with the.

Hospital. But I think they were separate for a while, but now?

They're all part.

And parcel of the same thing and when?

You go there. You're.

You're just pushed through this process of testing.

And it's not even. I don't even feel like you get answers necessarily back from anybody. They just want to give. They want to use all their little medical equipment. Kind of like reminds me of Alice's restaurant, the old song by Guthrie.

Just they.

Wanted to use all their cope.

Equipment because they never got the chance. But it's just like it, it feels more test intensive and I just I the feeling is that they're not really concerned about me. They're just looking to suck money out of my pocket.

Yeah, I don't know what the answer is because a lot of people are saying things like that, and I think I think it's a pendulum swing. I'm hoping it starts to swing back because there's there is a lot of value to the automation that's there. There is a lot of value in the AI that's available because AI can.

It can put together a lot of.

Information that a human can.

There's got to be guard rails on that, and there's got to be the ability to ask a question to a person who can look at you and go, you know, the question that you're asking. I bet that's not what you're really asking.

I bet you.

Actually want to know this? You just didn't know how to ask the question the way.

The way you could get the answer and things like that I think get missed.

I'm yeah, I'm also in the middle of getting my masters.

Feeling that too.

In healthcare administration.

Yeah, I'm sure that you have a lot of valuable information to take to these healthcare professionals who are kind of caught in the middle of all of this, their whole career path is changing because of the dynamics between.

The top down pressure to, you know, produce in a profit and the bottom up pressure from the patients that are just demanding.

Better quality care than they feel like they're getting.

Yeah, and being stuck in the middle is really hard and that's kind of.

Where I come.

In, is this OK? You're feeling like you're stuck in the middle. What can you control?

So really helping people understand that they can control their reactions and their responses, and they can make choices about how.

How they want to be there and I love I love doing that because when you when you kind of.

Let go of.

Reacting to all.

Of this stuff.

You as an individual can make choices about what you do. You know you may be irritated about things that are being thrust upon you.

But you can take that irritation and figure out how to.

To make it separate from what you're doing and who you are and who you're going to be as you go through your day and you know physicians, you know, so many physicians retired during COVID and some of it was technology, they, they, you know, they were having to learn new technology and they were already not liking it.

And it was just the exhaustion of being in the middle of COVID and trying to take care of people who were becoming angry and polarized and.

So yeah, it's been a it's been a challenging number of years, which is part of why I've sort of more moved into this arena is trying to help people that understand or be aware that they do have control over how they how they react and feel because we are not our thoughts and feelings. We have thoughts and feelings and behaviors, but they are.

Not who we.

So helping people back to who they are.

Yeah. And in those professions, the, the doctors and the nurses and really even.

A lot of the staff, the support staff in these facilities are all having their.

Their job.

Requirements. I guess that's one way to put it.

They're changing. It's.

It's not like it was, and it's really it's difficult to transition and the there's a little bit of mystery in terms of what's coming next.

For these people, I'm sure that it's like, OK, we've, we've gone through this big transition, but it doesn't seem to be ending yet. So where am I going in this this whole process?

What's that?

Yeah, that I would say that that is true. Healthcare has always changed.

There's always. So again, my foundation is home health and home care. Every year we get a new rule from CMS. Every year they tell us they're going to pay us less or we're going to have to do this kind of reporting. But it was every year.

And then the software has to change.

In order to keep.

Up with that well.

The changes are happening more rapidly. You know the regulations are changing annually, but then they're tossing something out maybe mid year. And so those sorts of things are changing and just the technology and keeping up with how the software companies are changing and when the software company changes something you have to under you have to learn it.

And understand what it's doing and apply it because there's not and it's happening rapidly. Very. It's extraordinary how rapidly the technology companies are pushing things out and changing things.

And it's hard because as humans we have a capacity.

But we, you know, we have.

We have distractions. Is this really a hard thing for us to learn? Are we?

Good at learning new.

Things. Are we bad at learning new things? Are we resistant to learning new things? Are we having to learn something new every two weeks, every one week?

You know, just even things like switching from.

Switching from basically using e-mail as your communication method to using something like teams as a communication method.

Those sorts of changes. Clinicians don't even understand either one of those.

Things you know, they.

Yeah, I didn't.

Would just take care.

Of humans, they can, you know, nurses can start IV's and they can do, you know, they can do wound care and they.

Can do all of those.

Things, but they're having to be people who have embraced technology because it's.

And if you don't embrace the technology, you spend so much time fight.

Doing it and you become so unhappy because you're fighting these things that are coming at you.

And they come at you so fast. And it's not like, here's the program that we're going to use, and it'll be this way for the next five years. It's like it's going to be this way till next week when we decide we're going to implement something new. And then every six months, it's like.

A whole new.

Platform that you've got to learn and.

It's got to be frustrating.

It's extraordinarily frustrating, it's.

Especially for people who are of a generation, somewhere between their 40s and up who didn't, who are not native technology speakers. So younger people are at least.

They come with native technology whereas people Gen. X, we're not. We didn't grow up that way. We didn't grow up with smartphones. We didn't grow up with the Internet. We didn't grow up understanding the evolution of technology. And so it's even harder for this particular group to embrace and.

To embrace change.

I like to refer to.

I'm going to tell.

You there's a study out there. I can't quote who or what it was and I.

May get the I.

May get the message slightly wrong, but it's about.

People who have to have colostomies.

And there are people who have to have colostomies so they know we're going to get reversed and ones that they.

Know we're going to be permanent and the people who know they're going to be permanent, their quality of life improves much more quickly than the person who.

Knows that it's going to get reversed and doesn't bother to learn how to take care of it and doesn't bother to learn how to embrace it. So that's something that I have stuck in the.

Back of my head, I'm like, OK.

Guys, we have to embrace our colostomy.

And it's.

It's just embracing the change is going to happen and being willing to be like you know what it's going to be hard. I may screw it up, but accepting that we are that it is hard and we are going to screw it.

Up and.

And when we accept that kind of stuff, it's much easier to walk through it knowing that it just keeps coming at us.

And then you can appreciate the other things.

That aren't that.

What you're focused on like it's going to change any minute now. I can just wait and then you you're just waiting instead of embracing the rest of the things that you do like and can enjoy. I like that you related it to a class to me.

Yes, yes, it's the embrace, the colostomy theory. And when I was the person who used to.

Teach the software and we went through a major we went through a major conversion not long before I left hospital where I worked. That was one of my things I was like, OK, let's all embrace the colostomy today.

It's a it's a perfect metaphor.

So what?

Kind of people.

Do you work with? I mean, do you work one-on-one with the healthcare professionals? Do you work with the whole organizations or?

So I do have a variety of things.

How does that work?

I am. I'm a professional speaker so I do keynote presentations to let's see like physical therapy associations, home care associations.

We work through the Energy Leadership Index, which is something from ipec my coaching program and we do the Energy Leadership index and we go through kind of.

How do each of them see the world, and how does that influence how they interact with each other? You know, their organizations provide care to people in their home, their home based care services.

And how they can, how that helps them work more towards the purpose of the organization and work together better. And then I also do individual coaching with, you know, mid career professionals who are in healthcare.

So I have. I have a three legged.

Very cool.

Stool in my business.

Yeah, all centered around the same core message though, so it's not like they're scattered. You just have this this message that it can be presented in three ways.

Right.

So how would people work with you, I mean?

A. How would they get in contact with you and B?

You know what?

Do you do groups? Do you do?

One-on-one, how does that work?

So the way to get in touch with me is so I have a website which has all my contact information on it and that's in progress.

Coaching.com my e-mail is vdlanders@inprogresscoaching.com and I'm on LinkedIn and I'm on YouTube. But mostly emails the best way to get a hold of me.

You know, when I do individual coaching, we do I have a couple of different things. The program I have right now I call the and it's leading yourself through making choices about what you're going to do with.

Your rest the rest of your career.

And so I do like 12 sessions and we always do an energy leadership index assessment so that people can have an idea and we start the shared language because I find that a shared language makes such a big difference towards being able to communicate effectively and help people really.

Understand the questions that I'm asking because I'm a coach, which means I'm not a mentor and I'm not a consultant.

At least in this capacity and so we're really working on whatever their goals are. And you know a lot of times our goals are I wanna figure out what I'm gonna do with the rest of my life or I'm gonna wanna. I wanna figure out how I can still stay at this organization and not be unhappy and miserable and feel like I'm burned out. So we do. I do a lot of talking about things that influence.

Their stress, you know, stress is just an individual reaction to a stimulus. So we talk about which stimulus stimuli are causing them stress. You know, how do you identify that you have stress?

What are the? What are the stimuli that cause you stress and then start to recognize you know what? What choices do you have and what changes can you make to?

Either remove stress from that environment or change how you see those particular stimulus so that you can let go of that and feel better about everything during the course of the day.

Yeah, I'm sure that that is just like.

So powerful.

For somebody that feels like they're kind of stuck or trapped in a position and they.

They used to love what they.

Did but now.

Right. And things have changed so much that they're no longer loving it and. And so yeah, it's that concept of feeling stuck. So I come from a when I think about anabolic and catabolic energy, catabolic energy, being destructive and.

It's about victimhood or blame, and you know, we tend to be there and when we're there, we don't believe there's any other way to see the world.

When there actually is a lot of other ways to see the world which would be looking at the world through an anabolic lens which is constructive and creative and can see the opportunities and the opportunity may be you know when you're feeling like a victim and you're feeling like everything's happening around you, the opportunity may be to say you know.

I am feeling like a victim and that's OK.

That's completely normal for the situation that you are in, giving your life experience and just helping people give themselves some grace and be like makes total sense that you are angry. It makes total sense that you feel stuck and working with a coach is something that can. It really helps people like acknowledge that.

It's OK to be human and to be who you are. We all have feelings. We all have thoughts.

And it's perfectly normal to go through the emotions that people are having, and they're in situations that are full of change and rapid change that they didn't want, that they didn't ask for, that they didn't plan for that, nobody told them was.

Going to happen.

And when you?

Get to that point where?

A. It's always great to have somebody.

Who has experience and can kind of lead you down the path and say, yeah, what's your experiencing those emotions? They're normal. You're not crazy. You're not alone. You're not the only one feeling that way. And often times when we get trapped in that victim mentality, it's like.

I am the only person. This is only happening to me. I'm the only one feeling like this. I don't know what's wrong with me. I can't seem to be happy about anything because this is just like driving me crazy and I want it to stop, but I don't know how to make it stop and.

It's just like.

All those thoughts that we have in our head.

When we're, we feel.

Like everything around us is out of control and we don't know how to control it. Victimhood, to me, is just the process of.

Of wanting somebody else to reach down and rescue you and.

It never happens. Say it never happens.

You're going to have.

Buckle it up and do it yourself, but it's helpful to know that there are people out there like you that can help. They can say, OK, this is the situation you're looking at it through a correct lens. Yeah, it sucks.

But what are we going to do about it?

Right. And do you want to do something about it because there are some times where we're like, you know what I am going to choose to stay in this because of reasons, whatever those reasons are, as long as we're choosing.

All of a sudden.

That gives us a little bit of.

Our power back. I'm choosing to stay.

Here or I'm?

Choosing what I'm doing regardless what the choice is, it's amazing how choice.

Is empowering and.

And alleviate some of that that stuck and anabolic, or the catabolic?

And just, you know, choosing to stay for a time even while you figure something else out, it gives you hope at the end of the tunnel. It's not like I have to stay in this horrible situation for.

And that just brings on anxiety and depression, it's like.

That's how you end up with anxiety and depression is you have no hope.

That that hopeless, helpless feeling.

Yeah, yeah. And if you stay stuck in that, it's really bad for your mental health. So I encourage you, if you are struggling with that, to find somebody that you can talk to, whether it's a life coach or.

As somebody whose opinion?

You really do value who can help you just.

Talk through what you're experiencing, but if you are a healthcare professional and you are feeling.

Like you're just stuck in the situation and you.

Don't really know what your options are.

Definitely reach out to Vicki.

Would love to help.

Yeah. Yeah. And so you do talk to organizations as well, so.

I do, yeah.

And how does that look? What do you what do?

You help people with.

Umm, so that's sort of new in my book of offerings. And so I'm really looking at it's more of a presentation style and you know broken up amongst things like. So I have a program that's the core dynamics program and we look at the core disciplines of leadership and so it's a it's kind of workshopping.

That it's much more speaking and a little bit of dialogue about the disciplines of leadership, including things like awareness, acceptance, conscious choice.

Trusting the process, fearlessness, blah, blah, blah. So it's really it's a, it's kind of a didactic with a little interaction program that ioffer.

Very, very cool.

Is there anything that I haven't asked you because honestly, you're like, way outside my wheelhouse.

The one thing that I.

Want to talk about is?

Kind of how I got here and I'm not going to. I'm not going to go on this for too long, but how did I get here?

Was that I?

Was a physical. I am a physical therapist still and I had moved into management and leadership.

And I had then shifted from a direct management position to being on the leadership team where I was the IT strategist and analyst, and I was having breakfast with a friend of mine who was trying to decide what she was doing with her career. And at the end of one of our conversations, she's like, you should be a coach.

To which I responded. You know what that is?

It was a Sunday morning. I went home, I started. I started researching. You know, I fell down the Internet rabbit hole. And by the end of that day, I was like, I need.

To talk to a coach, I need to find out exactly what it is that they do, because they think this is what I should be doing.

Sleep and quit my job. I sold my house so that I could quit my.

Job a year and a half ago.

And it's been a fascinating journey. Learning about I'm a clinician. I'm one of those people who didn't know anything else learning about business and marketing and strategies and systems because I love systems, love systems and it comes from my IT love. But that's how this has all evolved because I myself took a.

Really big Leap and said I can do this. I can trust myself that I can have my own business and make.

It make it be something that can.

Support me. I'm still very early in the building stages, but I just. I want people to understand and know that we can take these big leaps and the world doesn't end.

And they're.

I don't know about you, but.

I look at the last couple of years is like so much opportunity just popped open because of the big changes worldwide.

That we went.

Through and.

Before COVID, I was like, I know we're on the slippery slope. They're pushing us towards dystopian.

Existence that I wasn't really excited about living and then COVID not happened and it's like ohh wow, all these people are popping up warning the world to be different, better. And they're giving us options and they're showing us the way I love this and I feel like that's what you're doing.

With health professionals who desperately need somebody.

Now that is my purpose and my focus.

Well, I am so glad that you found us and you came along and shared it with us, is there?

Anything that you would like to leave the audience with today?

I want them to. I want to leave them with this idea that.

The thing that you can always control, regardless of what's happening in the world around you.

Is truly yourself.

And that you have the power to do that and that that is so amazing and so beautiful. And if anybody is interested in learning more about.

How they can take?

Control of their own self, I would.

Love to talk to them.

Amazing. Thank you so much for joining me, Vicky.

You are welcome. Thank you for having.

Me, I love doing.

Things like this.