Ambition, initiative, strong work ethic… all these traits have served me extremely well throughout my career, but particularly well early in my career when I was a young, up-and-coming healthcare leader.
From my youth I have been a hard worker, determined to do well, full of ambition, and eager to please. While in college I worked a paper route that ultimately became a 55-mile motor route that I traveled twice a day, six days a week and once on Sundays. I later became a spot welder on the graveyard shift at Western Electric, manufacturing coin telephones. I finished my college career as a classical and flamenco guitar teacher with seventy students per week.
After college my work ethic and ambition didn’t wane. I went on to grad school and after that an administrative residency, followed by a great opportunity as vice president, administration at a hospital in Scottsbluff, Nebraska. Two years later I was asked to be the founding CEO of a hospital in Texas and I enthusiastically jumped in with both feet and enjoyed 15 challenging but fulfilling years there.
As one thing led to another and my career progressed, it was evident that I was offered each of those opportunities because of my reputation and willingness to work hard. As someone once said, “If you are willing to do more than you are paid to do, eventually you will be paid to do more than you do.”
Thanks to my willingness to do more—to go above and beyond—in my teens, twenties, and thirties, I can now look back at a very long, successful, and profitable career in healthcare leadership!
It takes hard work and patience, but having a willingness “to do more than you are paid to do” really does pay off in the end!
