061_Leading with Authenticity: Dr. Jeff Doucette on Humility, Resilience, and Healthcare Excellence

Guest: Dr. Jeff Doucette, SVP & Chief Nursing Officer at Press Ganey

Welcome back to Excellence In Healthcare! In this inspiring episode, Jarvis sits down with Dr. Jeff Doucette for a deeply authentic conversation about leadership, resilience, and driving excellence in healthcare. Together, they dive into Dr. Doucette’s unique career journey, the critical importance of humility, and real-life stories of growth, challenge, and transformation in healthcare leadership.

Key Topics & Takeaways

1. Leadership Mindset & Ego Check

• Dr. Jeff shares his go-to leadership mantra from author Cy Wakeman: “Your ego is not your amigo.”
• The conversation centers on the strength found in humility and how authenticity and confidence, absent of ego, create stronger, more effective leaders.

2. Dr. Jeff Doucette’s Unconventional Path

• Nursing wasn’t Jeff’s original plan—he wanted to be a pilot!
• A childhood experience in a hospital opened his eyes to the power of compassionate care, leading him into various frontline and executive nursing roles, and eventually to Chief Nursing Officer at Press Ganey.
• Emphasis on career flexibility, mentorship, and saying “yes” to opportunities.

3. The Employee-First Revolution

• Top-performing healthcare organizations prioritize employees first.
• Dr. Jeff discusses the importance of separating “accountability” from “availability,” advocating for genuine work-life boundaries—especially for leaders.

4. Lessons in Leadership—Adversity as Growth

• Jeff opens up about a pivotal, tough feedback experience at Duke University that forced him to reflect and develop a more compassionate, humble leadership style.
• The importance of vulnerability, transparency, and how supporting and investing in others creates exponential impact.

5. Challenges & Opportunities in Healthcare Today

• Current political and economic uncertainties pose significant challenges for healthcare delivery, especially for vulnerable populations.
• At the same time, Dr. Jeff expresses hope, seeing resilience and compassion in the next generation of healthcare leaders, especially Gen Z and Millennials who value meaningful work and life outside the job.

Connect with Dr. Jeff Doucette

• LinkedIn: Connect with Jeff
• Press Ganey: Follow the Press Ganey page for insights
• Email: jeff.doucette@pressganey.com

Quotes to Remember

• “Your ego is not your amigo.” – Cy Wakeman
• “Sometimes you have to just go out there and lead with excellence.”
• “You can be accountable for your 24/7 operation, but not be available 24/7.”

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Transcript

1:19

Hey, healthcare leaders. Welcome back to another episode of the Excellence in Healthcare podcast. I'm your host, Jarvis Gray. And today I am so thrilled by today's guest that we're bringing on to the podcast. But today I am here with Dr. Jeff Doucet. Jeff, are you ready to share with our audience, the healthcare leaders? I am ready to go. So great to be with you, Jarvis. Thanks so much for having me. Now, same here. And you know, Jeff, for what is worth, now I remember when you were just Jeff Doucet. So congratulations. I don't think I've talked to you in the years since earning your doctoral degree, but we love to start all of our episodes, Jeff, with just kind of getting the right mood on a high note with our mindset. So I love if you could share a leadership quote or just a mindset that guides you on a daily basis and share us, how do you also apply it? Yeah. So, you know, I have to tell you that we're going to talk about books here a little bit later, but. Well, I'm going to tell you what my favorite book is a little bit later, but my favorite author right now is Cy Wakeman, and she is really a drama researcher and kind of how, as leaders, we keep drama out of work. And her. One of the books that I absolutely love is called no Ego. And the quote that resonates with me every minute of my life is Cy Wakeman's quote that says, your ego is not your amigo. And I think as I think about that every single day and hopefully as kind of a theme as we're talking today, it's taken me a really long time to really anchor myself in humility as a huge strength for a great leader. And so when I think about Sai, I always think about the very first time I met her, and she told us that, you know, your ego is not your amigo. And when you put those things aside, I really think it amps up your leadership effectiveness. Because at the end of the day, it's really not about us as leaders. It's about the people that we're leading. No, absolutely. I love that in terms of being a takeaway already that, that I hope our audience could get behind. Your ego is not your amigo. And I will say just kind of adding onto that thought. Now, I do think there is a sense of confidence that needs to be had when you're in a leadership role, but not to the point of ego. But I say that because, Jeff, just me thinking about my history growing up with you, as we were already Kind of talking in the pre show, you've always led with a sense of, I would say, authenticity and confidence that I've always personally admired. And just to watch your path along the way has been really impressive. So, so that, that's a whole bar right there. Your ego's not your amigo, but the confidence, the authenticity that I've always kind of admired from you, I think that goes a long way as well. Thank you, Jarvis. Absolutely. So, um, with that setup, Jeff, I love if you could walk us through your role and most importantly, share with us what inspired you to enter the healthcare industry and, and you know, kind of track down the path that you've been building. Yeah. So, you know, for me, healthcare was never really on my initial radar screen. I wanted to be a pilot, of all things. Believe it or not, when I was much younger, I was just fascinated with aviation and still am. And I obviously in this job I fly a lot. So, you know, for me that was always where I thought I was going to go and. But I always had an interest in healthcare. But I was terrified of hospitals, absolutely terrified of hospitals. And when I was a young teenager, my parents sent us to our grandparents house in Maine while they were going on a cruise. And my grandfather showed up at the airport to pick us up without my grandmother, which was very unusual. And so first question, you know, where's Mame? Why is she not here? Well, she's in the hospital, but we didn't want to tell your parents because we don't want to ruin their vacation, so you're not allowed to tell them. So we went from the airport to the hospital where I spent the next week with my grandmother who had had a major surgery and had tubes all in her and everything like that. And after a day of sitting in the room and being absolutely terrified, I just kept seeing all these people come in and taking such great care of her. Then I started exploring on the nursing unit a little bit. Then I took a walk by myself in the hospital. You know, I just knew some, you know, dead body was going to come rolling around on a cart or something, so. But I got over my fear of hospitals and really got interested in what was happening. And so from there I was like, well, maybe I could do this. My mom started taking an EMT class, so I started studying her book when I was a freshman in high school. And then I found out I could take an EMT class as one of my classes. So it just kind of snowballed from there. And you know, from pilot I thought I was going to be a trauma surgeon. Then I started volunteering in the er, And I was like, what these nurses do is pretty amazing. And then someone said to me, you know, we're going to go pick up a crew from the helicopter. And we landed a helicopter and back then in a. In a baseball field, because I was growing up in rural Virginia. And so I rode in the ambulance to go pick up this flight crew that landed from Washington, D.C. and these flight nurses got off, and I was like, oh, my God, I have to do this. So that's kind of how it all began for me. And I've just been very fortunate to be on this really amazing career trajectory. So today, all of those experience culminate in this role that I have as the Chief Nursing Officer of Press Ganey. And my job is really to provide a professional home for our nurses that work here at the company. But then mostly what I do is I'm out external facing, working with all of our clients, trying to help solve some of the most complex problems that nurse executives and healthcare leaders are facing right now around integration of the workforce issues with the intersectionality of quality, safety, and high reliability. So I pull that string kind of through everything that we do and really help set the vision for the company to lead with nursing. All right, that's fantastic. And, Jeff, if it's okay, I'd love to ask if you could, just for the sake of our audience, maybe touch on just the types of roles that you've also worked in, even before getting depressed. Gainy. I think. I think the, again, that kind of unique mix of roles and leadership that you've been in will be helpful for context. Because right now, for the podcast, we are in a season of talking about leadership excellence, and I'd love to just highlight that so our audience can kind of see that you can navigate in a bunch of different ways and then, I mean, get to, in my opinion, just one of the most respected healthcare organizations out there with Press Ganey. I've used it in so many roles, and now even in consulting, a lot of my clients are still using the Press Ganey products and brands. But what has the path kind of looked like for you? Just types of roles or leadership roles you've been in? Yeah, so I started in a very traditional nursing trajectory. Right. I was a charge nurse, then I became a nurse manager, then I became a nursing director. And then I was working for a health system in Fort Myers, Florida. And I had an incredible mentor there who, you know, she saw something in me that I didn't See in myself. So I was running. I started running an emergency department, and we did a pretty quick turnaround of, you know, the trauma center location. And she said, you know, I'd really like you to do this for all of our emergency departments. So that grew into this kind of system director role. And then she's like, well, you seem to really have a passion for nursing excellence. And we're thinking about doing magnet and things like that. And I'd really like you to think about that and nurse recruitment. And so I just kind of started having my hand in, like, new nursing onboarding and fellowship programs and things like that. And so it became this kind of mishmash of all these different jobs and what ended up happening. As you know, I got recruited to go to Duke as the associate chief operating officer for emergency trauma and psychiatry services, of all things. And it really was my first, like, big executive role in an academic health center. And, you know, I made a ton of mistakes early on, and quite frankly, I probably got to the point where I was about to lose my job. But again, I worked for somebody who really believed in me and knew that if I was open to feedback, coaching, and a lot more listening, that he could help to transform my leadership career. And that's exactly what happened. The organization invested a lot in me, and I ended up leaving there for my first CNO job. And so I've been in lots of different operations, nursing type roles. And then at some point, I really got a wild hair and thought, I'm going to apply to be the inaugural vice president of the Magnet Recognition Program and Pathway to Excellence at the American Nurses Credentialing Center. Thought I had no business even applying for that job. I had, you know, was in my first C and O job at the time and just kind of did it on a whim. And then I got a call for an interview, and then I got a call for an offer, and I was like, what is going on? And it ended up being, like, one of the most amazing opportunities to really begin to transform nursing practice at a global scale through the influence that I had in that role. But then I missed the hospital. So I went back to the hospital as the SVP and CNO for Thomas Jefferson University Hospitals in Philly at a really interesting time. The safety net hospital, Hahnemann University Hospital closed just a couple months after I started there, just five blocks away from where we were located. So we absorbed that entire organization almost overnight. So we were in, like, major crisis mode shortly after I arrived. And then all the dust settled from that and of course, the pandemic happened. So the opportunity to lead that organization through the first year and a half of the pandemic and then ended up at Press Ganey. So it's just been this weird mismatch of being in the right place at the right time, with the right skills in my toolbox, and just being open and willing to the possibilities. Nice. Well, Jeff, again, I appreciate you sharing that. And that's exactly why I wanted to kind of hear that story for our audience. Because there's not this direct path and you can't over plan it or be super strategic. Sometimes you got to go with the flow. Sometimes you just got to go out there and lead with excellence. And that's again, kind of what I've seen on the back end and the moves you've been making. So thank you for sharing that journey in more detail. I'm really, really intrigued maybe to get your thoughts on this. But, you know, we know that healthcare is always evolving. So, Jeff, I love to ask, what's one trend in healthcare that you believe is a game changer for leaders today to have on their radars? So, as I was thinking through this question over the last few days, I think this is a really, really tough one. But what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna tie this to what I'm seeing every day in the incredible data that I have access to at the intersectionality again, of quality, safety and the experience of care, both for patients and the people that are taking care of patients. And in terms of employee engagement. And what we see in our data are that the top performing organizations right now all have one thing in common, and that is that they are taking an employee first approach, that employees come before everything else in the organization. And that commitment to creating a positive practice environment is absolutely critical if you want to improve your performance in quality, safety and patient experience. And there's a really small but really important aspect of the resilience equation that drives overall employee engagement that we are seeing all healthcare providers really struggling with across the board right now. And that is decompression, or people's ability to get away from the work and recharge their batteries. What we are seeing is that organizations are struggling with quality, safety and reliability. And so they're pushing and pushing and pushing on their people without really thinking about how we get the friction points out and how we change the process. And we have got to get to the point as healthcare leaders where we stop asking frontline healthcare workers to care their way out of bad processes and that is what is really driving the burnout and turnover rates that we're seeing now is this lack of ability to decompress. And if you don't understand kind of the resilience model and how it all comes together, there's really two pieces of it. One we call activation. That's kind of our why our driver, those top drivers of what keeps people working in an organization. And. And then the other side of the resilience equation is this decompression piece. How do I get away from the work and what we. I've identified that that leaders really have gotten two important words confounded, and that is accountability and availability. So you can be accountable for your 247 operation and not be available 24 7. But what has happened is leaders have gotten those two words confused and they feel like the only way to be accountable is to be available. So they're not giving themselves any time to get away from the work and truly decompress. So I could go on about this for hours, but I honestly think that if organizations can get this right in terms of we really set boundaries for our people and expect them to step away from the work on a regular basis and have that employee first, people first approach, that is the sweet spot right now for making success in all of your other metrics and performance. Performance. Nice. And I'll say, Jeff, I appreciate hearing that. I'm actually doing a workshop for a hospital group here in Atlanta later today where we've created quarterly leadership labs, which the leader, the CEO of that hospital just identified. Very similar. I love how you put it, that accountability and availability piece. And what she identified is her folks weren't taking time to even connect and learn how to lean on each other or support each other or build each other up, hype each other up. So just an example of leaders doing that. But I'll say given the work that I do in my business right now supporting hospitals, there's not a prominence of that. It seems to still be kind of very hit or miss. I'm just curious, are you seeing more organizations maybe invest in their people in that mindset, or is it still something we're trying to build the momentum around? Well, what I am seeing is that the top performing organizations are making that investment and commitment. And it absolutely starts at the top. The chief executive officer and the board have to be committed to creating an environment where leaders can do their best work. And part of doing your best work is you have to be able to step away from the work at times in order to refocus so it's. It's like, think about taking pto. Right? It's the number of leaders that tell me that they continue to check email, they continue to respond to text messages, they continue to work while they are on pto is astounding to me. And that is a terrible, terrible trend. But it only gets better if I as the CEO or I, as the chief executive say, this is not okay. You are on pto. You are supposed to not be working. I don't want to see your name come across my desk. Not what typically happens in a lot of organizations is, wow, I sent you an email last week and you didn't respond. Oh, well, I was on pto. Oh, okay. Well, when I email you, you need to respond like, that is the mindset of a lot of leaders. And I honestly, just. As somebody who isn't like that at all, I don't understand that mindset, because in the end, all you're doing is making it harder for that person to be fully present in the work that they're doing. But when they're here. All right, fantastic. Again, I'm sure that one's gonna resonate very well. And that's a whole truth set up right There is. We have to. We gotta find that line. But I've always kind of approached it a work hard, play harder mindset. So you won't see me responding to emails. Yeah. But no, let me move into the next question. Jeff, you know, we all face the bumps and bruises along the road, and so I would love to, if you could share with us maybe a pivotal moment or just a challenge in your career and share with us, how did that help really shape your leadership style and your leadership mindset? Yeah. So I'll tell you again. I'm going to go back to. I had something else that I was going to talk about here, but since we brought it up already, I'm going to talk about my time at Duke and working for Kevin Sowers, who's now the president of Johns Hopkins Health. Kevin was one of the toughest bosses I've ever had. Right. His bar was incredible, incredibly high. I honestly had no idea what I was doing when I arrived there to be the associate Chief operating officer of Emergency and Psychiatry Services. But he took me under his wing and saw something in me that I didn't even know I had in me. But at that time in my career, I felt like it was really important for me to raise my voice and raise concerns and talk about all the things that I saw that were going wrong. And all the things that could be better. And, um, you know, and again, you and I got to work together in that kind of performance improvement space. So you. As you know, we had a lot of opportunity. But what I didn't realize was that the way that I was communicating and what I was communicating was more like a bull in a china shop than somebody who was using his voice in a very strategic way. And so what began to happen was that I would get in a room and I would start talking about what we needed to work on, what we needed to fix in a very impassioned way. And I look back on it and kind of laugh now because I would probably have run myself out of the room if I were working for myself back then. And it got to the point where if I didn't change, I wasn't going to be working there anymore. And so I got an evaluation. And I walked into the evaluation, you know, expecting to get fives across the board board. And it was one of the most difficult feedback sessions I had ever received. And it was delivered with a lot of directness and compassion, empathy and love in a way that only Kevin could do. And I left there thinking, wow, what just happened? But the very last thing that he said is, I want to invest in you. So I participated in a program led by Dr. John Grinnell from the University of North Carolina. Uh, and it was basically a four day immersive leadership experience where I was able to kind of really dig deep about the things that I was doing that were getting in my way from a leadership behavior standpoint and to really connect with the core of, like, who I am as a person, to really understand how to show up in a way that was both humble and effective, that was both empathetic and held the line and set the bar high. That was both compassionate but able to hold people accountable. And so it was an absolute pivotal turning point in my career. And I am absolutely convinced that had Kevin not made that investment in me and had that very tough conversation, at least it was tough for me to hear. I don't know how tough it was for him deliver, but it was really tough for me to hear. Had that not happened, I would not have had any of the success that I've had in my career now. So as leaders, I think the message is twofold. Right? Sometimes we have to do the really deep, hard work of looking in the mirror and admitting to ourselves that there's a lot of opportunity here inside and that we've got to work on ourselves. And I think the second Message for me as a leader was, wow, when you have somebody who's got all the raw materials, but maybe doesn't know how to put all that to good use yet, investing in that person in the right way is something that can really impact not only the person for a lifetime, but also the organization and the performance. So when I came back from that experience and shared the feedback with people and really started working on my own development, people at Duke started jokingly saying, the old Jeff and the new Jeff. And it was like something transformed in me in that experience that I still think about today, you know, over. Well over a decade later. Um, so I, I forever grateful for that investment that Kevin made in me and for the really tough love that I had to have in order to. To take it to the next level. Um, I went home the day of that evaluation thinking my career was over, and, you know, here we are. So it's something that I'm forever grateful for that investment. Well, and again, I, I appreciate hearing that because I don't know if you knew this about me, but working at Duke was just my second job out of college. So you talk about raw talent. Plus I'm an engineer. I wasn't a healthcare person. Duke was my first healthcare job. And coming in working with you, you pushed me to learn faster, to kind of get up to speed with a lot of things and everything that I do now and the, the coaching, consulting that I do on my business for other organizations now, I stem a lot of that to my relationship with you at that time. And then modeling after folks like Kevin. And I did have a chance to hang out for a day with John Grinnell as well. And the things I learned from him, from him in like a day. Not even a formal sit down, but. But all that to say, Jeff, you've been a big part of my story. And just to hear that the. That was stemmed from Kevin and his support and his investment in coaching, it validates the things that I've been trying to build for myself, too. So I just want to thank you for sharing that and just know that excellence trickles downhill in a lot of ways. Yeah. And let me just say one more thing. I think I talk to so many leaders and executives every single day in this role, and what I find is so many of us suffer in silence and think that, wow, I must be the only one that is having this struggle, or I might be the only one that's having this problem. And if there's anything that I've learned over the last, you know, five or ten years, it's that the more that we are vulnerable and transparent in our own experiences, the more we are able to help other people. Because there is this sense that if I am vulnerable or if I tell somebody that I don't feel good about what's happening or I don't know what to do, that somehow or another that makes me weak as a leader, or somehow or another it's gonna, you know, people will see that I'm not perfect or whatever the. The ego is that's talking to you, or whatever this false narrative is that you've developed about yourself, all it does is it only hurts you in the end. Right. So I think that this level of transparency and talking about, you know, how we all got to where we are, it's never. Because everything went right all the time. Right. So I just think it's a really important conversation for us to be having. Yeah, no, thank you. I mean, that was. That was my true hope when we kicked off the podcast was like, what are the conversations that we're not having that I think would be just really, really cool to hear. And this is our. Like, if we stop right now, Jeff, I would be happy. I was like, I got all I need. I'm looking forward to the rapid fire section. All right, well, let me jump on this one. I mean, just looking at the healthcare landscape, given your view of the world today, what would you say is the biggest challenge facing healthcare leaders right now? And then on the flip side, what do you feel is the biggest opportunity? Yeah, so I think obviously, you know, what is happening geopolitically right now in healthcare care is incredibly concerning. And if it's not, you're not paying attention. You know, just the sweeping changes to reimbursement programs, to how we think about providing care, who's going to and not have access to health care. What is happening today as we sit here recording this podcast will have implications for decades to come. And I think that that is going to utterly transform healthcare system. And I don't think it's going to be in a good way because it's being led by people who don't understand the complexities of how healthcare in this country gets delivered. So I think today that's the biggest concern that I have. You know, I think about it in my role as a volunteer board president of FQHC here in Philadelphia that relies heavily on Medicaid reimbursement and government programming and grants to keep our doors open and provide the care that we provide all the way to the organization that I'm in now where I'm working with, you know, thousands of healthcare organizations across the world who are trying to deliver care in really difficult circumstances. And I think this only makes the things more challenging. The flip side though, is that the majority of the people who work in our industry are people who do it because they care. They are people who want to make a difference. They are people who really see the opportunity to care for another human being or to care for someone who's caring for another human being as a means to really change the health status, the community they live in and the people that they're serving. And so that gives me great hope. Every day I'm in a different organization meeting with different healthcare leaders. And I will tell you that what I see more often than not is a level of resilience, commitment and determination that I just haven't seen in any other industry. So. So it gives me great hope that we will continue to improve, to make things better for people. And at the same time, we cannot do that at the expense of the people who are working in healthcare. We must put them first and we must create environments where they can come to work and feel like they're doing their best work. I agree. And the only thing I'll add on to that is I think it's going to be a unique time to see what opportunities around innovation and strategy really start to percolate through healthcare organizations. I've been doing quite a bit of work with rural communities and community centers. My wife works at the cdc, so I'm also following the national public health scene right now. And the change is coming now, how we respond. I think that's what I would add for our healthcare leaders to start thinking about, start planning on right now because the change is coming. Yeah, I think the other really important thing is letting go. Right? We love tradition. Right. We love doing things because that's the way we've always done them, or doing activities because that's the way, you know, the CEO before me did it or the CNO before me did it. We've got to start letting go because people are overwhelmed and overloaded and we've got to start letting go of stuff that just doesn't make sense anymore. I think that's going to be a big piece of it as well. But we'll see. Time will tell. Time will tell. Jeff, you asked for it. I think you're the only, you're the only guest on the podcast that has ever asked for the rapid fire two minute drill. So let's go ahead and jump into it. The first question that I have for you is actually a little bit of a two parter where I love to ask what inspires you to do your best? And then also share, how do you inspire others to do their best? Yeah. So I love the people that I get to serve as a leader and they are the people that keep me inspired to come to work and try to do my best work every day. Because I don't ever want to let the people around me down and the people that I'm leading down. And I see that my job is to give them the tools and resources they need to try to create a great environment for them to do their work in and then just get the hell out of their way. Just let them do their work and be here to listen, help, coach, and kind of be that guide from the side. So that's what gets me up every day, is trying to come to work and do the best work I can do for the team that we have here. And then what I like to do, and hopefully to inspire people is again to understand that we are whole people. And to create an environment where people come to work and can be their whole self. And being your whole self means that some days aren't always going to be your best days. And some days you're going to wake up and say, you know what, I can't do this today. And I say, that's okay, you don't have to do this today if you can't do this today. And just to really, again set the foundation for people to come to work and feel like they can do their best work every single day. Because what we are doing at Press Ganey is really, we are dropping the rock in the middle of the lake and we are working with people are who, who are working with people who are working with people. And we are creating that butterfly effect. You know how I love that story of the butterfly wings, you know, creating a hurricane at some point, that it's just that kind of working through people to work through people and ultimately to create a better experience for people who are receiving and consuming healthcare. Right. Fantastic. I love it. And Jeff, what's the best piece of career advice that you've ever received? Yeah, I think the best career advice I've ever received is pretty early in my career was that you can't be everything to everyone. So for everyone's sake, please stop trying. Because I think as leaders, you know, we try to be everything, do everything and have all the answers and it's just not possible. And so to stay in this line of work for longevity, you've got to, to really take that to heart. Right. Let me, let me throw you a curveball really quickly. What's the best piece of career advice that you've ever given? You know, I think the. Gosh, that's, that is a tough one. You'd have to ask somebody that's worked for me. Right. Or worked with me. But I think what I would say is that at the end of the day, like none of us are going to be at the end of our life and saying, I wish I would have worked more. That's not what people talk about. I've been with so many people at the end of their life as a critical care nurse, a flight nurse, an emergency department nurse, as an administrator, being with families who are losing their loved ones. And nobody says, I wish I would have worked harder. I wish I would have worked more. So don't be a person that regrets not being able to find this work life effectiveness. There's only one time that your kid is going to have fifth grade graduation and the sing along show. And not being there is going to be something that's going to be way more impactful than missing a meeting. So work is important and it's important that we do good work, but it shouldn't define us and it shouldn't be the piece that we spend every waking hour of our effort doing. There has to be a balance in that. So I hope that that's kind of advice and environment that I've been able to create for people that work with me over the years. No, I love it. What that resonates for me personally is just keep the main thing. The main thing. I'm not. Yeah, I mean, the priorities have to stay priorities. Jeff, if you could rewind time knowing what you know now, what's one thing that you do differently in your leadership journey? Well, kind of the tongue in cheek one is I wish I would have listened to the retiring nurse when I was a new nurse who said, put all the money you can in your 401k or your retirement plan. I wish I would have listened to that advice honestly. Like, I've made a ton of mistakes, but I wouldn't even take back the mistakes because I've learned something from all of them. And I think I've become a better leader, um, because of the mistakes that I've made. So there. Honestly, I'm not a regret person. And like, oh God, if I could go back and change this or change that, you know, there are Things that come out of my mouth that sometimes I wish hadn't. In fact, somebody gave me this little thing that I keep on my desk. It says, lord, keep your arm around my shoulder and you'd hand over my mouth. So those are some of the little things. But honestly, like, I have loved every part of my career and have been surrounded by people who have really helped to lift me up in ways that I didn't even know were possible. And so I think you have to say yes, you have to be willing to take risks. And even when you think you're not qualified for a job or no, you might have, like, horrible imposter syndrome, like, I do not belong in this room. You belong, or you wouldn't be there. And so own that space that you're taking up and, you know, do something good with it. All right, fantastic insights, Jeff. Do you have a book or a podcast or a publication that has been crucial for your own personal development as a leader? And if so, we'd love for you to share. Okay, so, well, I have two show and tells. One of them only because they spent the weekend doing a little bit of cleaning around my house. And I will never forget. So my grandfather was one of the most important, important people in my life. He, you know, left school early, so was not a well educated man to support his family. And he built an amazing business for himself. And when I was about 12 years old, I was like having a big career conversation with him about what I wanted to do. And I was so worried about everything. At 12 years old. Yeah, I think I was about 12 years old. And he said, oh, I have something for you that's going to really be impactful. And he gave me this copy that I still have of Dale Carnegie's how to Stop Worrying and Start Living book that I read when I was 12 years old. This one is copywritten in 1948 when my grandfather went to a Dale Carnegie Institute, like at a Ramada Inn or something. And the book is all yellow and I still have it, but it just talked a lot about having the right mental attitude to how worry and anxiety are really roadblocks to creativity and thinking and innovation. And so it's the first business book I ever remember reading. But then I'm going to also tell you about my other book. And I have show and tell because I have to put a plug for my friend Cy Wakeman and this book, no Ego. The first time that I heard Sai speak was working for Bon Secours Health System and she did a leadership retreat for us And I just knew in the first five sentences that I was absolutely obsessed and in love with this woman. I. I've read every book that she's written. I've listened to her podcast. I follow everything that she does and just the way that she thinks about how drama creates so much wasted head, space, energy, and time in healthcare organizations and how, as leaders, if we can help get that out of the work, it really starts with putting your ego aside. And so, again, you know, your ego is not your amigo, is something that I say to myself about 15 times a day. So poor Si Wakeman lives in a very scary place, and that is my head. Well, I just wrote that down. I'll be checking her out probably later today while I'm driving to the workshop that I'm doing. But I will say anybody who's reading dale Carnegie at 12 years old is destined to be a leader somewhere. So that's fantastic. Jeff, just looking forward, what are you most excited about achieving over the next year? And most importantly, how are you going to celebrate the wins? Yeah, well, it's funny that that's your question, because one of the last questions that I ask in every interview is, okay, if you're selected and we're celebrating your success in a year from now, what does that look like? And what are we celebrating? So right now, what I am most excited, excited about is the next generation of healthcare leaders that I am meeting as I am traveling throughout the country. Gen Z's and millennials, I think, have really gotten it right after watching their Gen X parents like me and their baby boomer grandparents really work themselves to the bone. And I say that younger generations, they work to live. They don't live to work. And I think that what older generations might be looking at as laziness or lack of engagement or not caring is not that at all. What it is is that they've realized that they want to make a difference and they want to have a career and they want to do good work, but they don't want to be defined by that. And they want to have a life that is contributing to their neighborhoods, to their communities, to the people that they think are important. And so, to me, that gives me great, great hope that as that generation finds their way into senior leadership positions in healthcare organizations, we stand to really benefit. Because let's be honest, even though we don't look at, you know, we will be consuming their services and leadership in the not too distant future. So I have great, great hope for the next generation of leaders. And what I'm Seeing as I'm meeting what are now frontline clinicians and people entering their very first leadership roles, gives me great hope for what. What exists in the future. All right, is that almost like a scary thought, to think that you are probably in a position to be somebody's Kevin Sowers and you might be talking to the next Dr. Jeff Doucet? Is that. Well, I don't know. I would never claim to be Kevin. He's one of the most incredible leaders that I've ever worked with. And if anyone ever put that same category, it would be an incredibly humbling honor. But, yeah, I mean, I do think about that a lot. I. And, you know, it's so interesting. We just wrapped up Pride Month here. It's the first day of July that we're talking, and, you know, I get a lot of messages because I try to be incredibly visible about being an LGBTQ leader, because I think that visibility is so important. And I received so many messages this month from people that I've never met saying that, you know, your message inspired me, or it's so nice to know that you can have a successful career and bring your whole self to work. So, again, I think that visibility, regardless of what that is for you, but bringing your authentic self to work, you never know the impact you're going to have on somebody else. So I just think to be your authentic self, which takes time. It really does take. It's a journey to get there in so many ways in leadership, in your personal life, like, in all of the things. But when you get there, you just never know the impact you're going to have on people. So I always say that you should always act like people are always watching. Well, again, Jeff, man, I told you that was the impact you had on me. I mean, as we sit here talking nearly 20 years ago, I've truly just enjoyed today's conversation. I've enjoyed every. Just opportunity to talk with you and learn from you. Before I let you go, I would love if you could share just the best way our listeners can connect with you online, and then we'll officially sign off. Yeah, thanks for that. So the best place to follow me for professional Things is on LinkedIn, so you can find me there. Follow our Press Ghani page. We love to publish, like, really short insights. Think Gen Z Millennial, you know, TikTok Instagram, our short little insights there on our LinkedIn page a couple times a week. Um, and then you can connect with me there, or you can email me at my press G. Email. It's so easy. My name jeff doucettesghany.com and would love to hear from all of you. Fantastic. So, for everyone tuning in, just want to say thank you all for making the Excellence in Healthcare podcast part of your day. Truly hope this was a value add for everything that you're doing. And just remember, leadership is about influencing and inspiring others to achieve excellence. Until next time, this is Jarvis and Dr. Jeff Doucette and we're officially signing off.