From Medic to General

Apr 21, 2023

Anxiety is a great motivator.

It spikes adrenaline, moves us to action, heightens our senses.
It burns big and bright, like pouring gasoline on a fire.

But, just like gas on a fire, the burn is short lived.
We cannot sustain anxiety driven action for long - and the longer we do, the closer we inch toward burn out.

This begs the question - if anxiety is not a sustainable motivator - what other forms of fuel are available to me, if I want a long, thriving career?
If I want to last on a project and continue to perform well?

Before we answer that question, let’s talk about the medic and the general.

I grew up watching war movies with my dad. He’s a former military man, and although he rarely cries, I’d see him tear up every so often watching these stories of bravery, brotherhood and sacrifice.

One thing I noticed, as we watched together, between handfuls of homemade popcorn: when the battle got hot and bullets were flying, there were always at least two heroes taking action:

The medic.
This was the guy with no gun, bravely running out in to the battlefield to stop the bleeding. Tend to the wounded. See what could be done to react to the chaos on the battlefield and allow everyone to fight another day.
The medic was reactionary. Responding to the needs. Frantically running from person to person.
The general.
Sometimes he was in the battle with his men (at least, the truly heroic ones were) and sometimes he was a bit higher up, further back. Watching, strategizing. Recognizing patterns. Arranging the pieces to coordinate an attack with the greatest chance for success. He came in with a plan, he knew his strengths and weaknesses and not only set a strategy, but was able to rally the troops to both understand and fully commit to the strategy when the time came and the battle was raging.

If we want to do more that survive another day - if we want to win the war - we need to begin to move from medic to general.

This is not easy.
Especially when tasks are urgent and it seems like there are “medical needs” everywhere.

Here are a few tips to help make the shift:

Fight for time to think, strategize and evaluate
- Generals do not abandon the important for the urgent. They know, time to strategize and get all the information they need to plan, is non-negotiable. It’s something we have to fight for. Blocking off time in your week for this kind of thinking, and GUARDING that time is priority #1.
Be honest with yourself
- Generals know what resources they have. They know how many troops, how many guns, bullets. They know the terrain on which they are going to fight and they (hopefully) have an accurate assessment of their enemy - although not always! When we move into general space we have to be honest about the capacity we have, the resources that are available to us, the time frame we are given.
  Wasting time WISHING we had more is not helpful. Generals know what they have and work within those parameters to create a plan of attack.
Create a best case (if everything goes right) and worst case (if everything goes wrong) scenario
- Some of us are natural optimists. Seeing our troops victorious is easy to do and we have all the hope in the world that success is within our grasp. Taking a look at what could go wrong is a necessary practice to keep us from stepping into a battle unprepared.
- Others of us will hyper focus on all that can go wrong. For this group, looking at the ways we might succeed and expanding the vision beyond the potential crisis allows us to fill our sails and motivate ourselves and our teams - because optimism builds energy. And energy is also a resource that we desperately need.
Find advisors
- Generals do not formulate plans alone. They listen, they gather data, they involve others. You do not have to be the smartest person in the room, but you DO need to be the person with enough courage and integrity to make the final call and take the action necessary when it’s time to move.

Moving from medic to general means we move from reacting to directing. Reacting needs anxiety to fuel it, directing needs purpose to fuel it. And purpose is a long burning fuel. Purpose is something that will drive your life and career for decades rather than days.

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