Reflection on Advantage during the Holidays
Lisa Stewart interviews Health Hats to discuss family, music, & listening to younger activists taking over navigation & reform of healthcare. Watch on YouTube Download the printable newsletter here Contents Episode Proem Boland van Leeuwen family Happy Holidays, family, friends, and colleagues. May the 2024 New Year infuse wonder, community, and rejuvenation. I reunited with my friend, Lisa Stewart , at the PCORI Annual Meeting a few months ago. Lisa suggested that she interview me for the new year. When I met Lisa, she was Senior Engagement Officer and Health Equity Advisor at PCORI (the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute). Currently, Lisa is the Principal at Torchlight Engagement Advisors & Leadership Coaching. Her joy lives in connecting ideas, people, and groups for organizations serious about improving the health outcomes of over-burdened communities through health equity strategy implementation and integration, cross-sector partnerships, impact investing, and capacity-building. We ponder privilege, listening, bitching, travel, family, and music. Hang on. Podcast intro Welcome to Health Hats, the Podcast. I’m Danny van Leeuwen, a two-legged cisgender old white man of privilege who knows a little bit about a lot of healthcare and a lot about very little. We will listen and learn about what it takes to adjust to life’s realities in the awesome circus of healthcare. Let’s make some sense of all of this. Why reflect? Accept and look forward. Health Hats: Hi, Lisa Stewart. Lovely to see you, Lisa Stewart: Wow. It’s lovely to be seen and be here with you. We had this wild and crazy idea that it was time for Danny to be interviewed, right? We’re going to turn the tables on Danny. DALL·E 2023-12-16 – a color photo of a person looking in a mirror and seeing a black and white younger version of herself What better time of year as we march into 2024 and start thinking about the life we want to lead and what we want to do differently? I’m thrilled to be in conversation with you anytime, Danny. Anything you want to say? Health Hats: I have mixed feelings about reflection. On my podcast, I start with a proem, a preface. Why do I have the conversation? Why this guest, why this topic, whatever. A reflection at the end, done after production – the interview, the producing, the editing – were there pearls here? Is there one more story to tell? But the reflection is essential even though I’m not really a backward-looking guy. Lisa Stewart: Tell me more. Bitch in bursts, not dribbles Health Hats: Life has ups and downs. It is just the way it is. You can’t have an up without a down where everything is flat – no ups and downs. Sounds boring to me. I have a chronic illness, and I’m pathologically optimistic, right? That’s my style. Other pathologically optimistic people have taught me that you need to take two minutes periodically and just vent. And do the life sucks. Woe is me stuff. But mostly, I don’t want to look back and think woe is me. So that’s what I mean by not looking back. Accept what is and what are we going to do now. Lisa Stewart: Very practical. Do you have a ritual around your two-minute releases? DALL·E 2023-12-16 – biracial couple laughing, one in a wheelchair looking at their watch Health Hats: It’s a good question. The UMass Graduate School of Nursing dean introduced me to this idea. She had health problems, and we recognized this optimism in each other. She had breast cancer and surgery and the whole thing, and I had been newly diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis. She didn’t have a watch on, but she looked at her wrist and said, okay, you got two minutes, start now. So I bitched, then she did. It was hysterical. It’s tough to bitch for two minutes straight and be creative. You can’t bitch and say the same thing over and over. Two minutes is a long time. After about a minute, it’s just absurd. So now I have a friend I texted just yesterday; we need a bitch session. She’s ready. I did it with my wife a few times, and