Be remarkable.
I took him to the ER at 3:30 AM, which we’ve done a few times before, but that certainly doesn’t make it any less scary for either of us, especially when it’s a breathing issue. You should know right now that this is just the backstory to a post that isn’t about health problems, so I’ll go ahead and tell you that we got back home in the morning, my son is doing better (though we still have a long road ahead), and I’m praying that tomorrow will be a better day.
So, on with the rest of the story. I was walking to the pharmacy this afternoon to pick up his new prescription, and I realized that tonight was a writing night for me on this site, and with all that had been going on, I had neither a story nor the energy to go find one. I made my peace with this, and then began to replay the events of last night over again in my mind.
We were placed in Exam Room 14 for the better part of three hours, and during the course of the night four doctors came in to help us. Each one of them introduced him/herself to me and my son, and then went about their business. As far as I could tell, all of them did their jobs well: all were polite, competent and pleasant.
I don’t remember faces very well, but I’m decent with names. It was weird to me that I could only remember the name of one of the doctors (his name was Joe). I’ll attribute this to the fact that I was in a very stressful situation, with no sleep, and most of my attention devoted to my son. Understandable. But if that’s the case, why did I even remember one name? As I thought about it some more, I realized why: he was remarkable.
He came in just like the others, with the same procedure – I assume it’s how they were all trained. But he was the only one who seemed to show more emotional concern for my boy, instead of just clinical. And here’s the biggest thing: instead of examining my son and telling me how his body was doing, like the others had, he first looked at me and asked me how I thought my son was doing. He listened to my answer with his full attention, then went on with his examination.
That small action made an impact on me. It made me feel like I mattered a little bit in there, because I’m not gonna lie – it’s really, really hard as a parent to stand by helpless while your child is locked in a battle with something that can be life-threatening. You may say that it’s not a big thing, and all he was doing was gathering more information to do his job better. And that’s true. But the point is, he did it in a way that demonstrated concern for me and my son, and he did it when no one else did.
In an emergency situation, with more inputs and stimuli than my brain could handle at the moment, it chose to remember just one name – one person who made a positive impact in my life during this crisis.
When I thought about any lessons I could take away from this, I came up with two pretty quickly . . . I’m sure there are more.
- Give people more than they expect
Seriously, this is way easier than it sounds. For instance, I do it all the time at work – if someone asks me to provide them with some data, I’ll email it over to them, but I’ll also throw in a little note with a few related links that may help them with their project. I’m pretty good at finding things online, and it doesn’t take me very long. For my extra two minutes of work, I may save them 30 minutes of additional searching. And even if I don’t, they’ll make a mental note that I gave them more than they asked for. - Whatever you do, do it with a touch of “you”
Joe did this with the way he treated us today. His bedside manner is the personal touch he puts on his projects. For me, one of the personal touches I put on email correspondence is by communicating in funny pictures, even to people I don’t know. I have a huge repository of images saved by the name of the idea they represent, and it’s become second nature to pop these into emails as I go. Again, it doesn’t take me any extra time, but it makes my day more fun, and I’ve gotten numerous responses about how the recipient broke out into laughter during a meeting, or otherwise appreciated the gesture. Little things like that are what make you unique . . . don’t be afraid to use them to become memorable as well.
I’m running on one hour of sleep, high stress, and the last remaining scraps of adrenaline, so I hope this post has been relatively coherent. The main idea is that it doesn’t take much to become remarkable in the eyes of the people you serve. Sometimes by making a small additional effort, you can make a huge impact in the lives of those around you.
Thank you, Joe. You’ll probably never see this, but I want you to know that you made a difference in my life today.
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