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Reflections on the SHSMD Annual Conference

By Amy Jose posted 10-17-2018 09:42 PM

  
A week later and I’m still coming down from the high of being at SHSMD Connections 2018 and revisiting all of the wonderful and informative sessions and speakers.

Usually, when asked about takeaways from a conference, my answer is around a certain session and how the concepts can be taken back and applied to my own organization, or how networking sparks new ideas based on what our colleagues have been doing. It’s always comforting to hear about others who have some of the same challenges that we do. Don’t get me wrong, there was plenty of that taking place over the few days of the conference, but the overarching high-level concepts are what resonated with me the most.

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Dreamers and doers, creativity and discipline and the spark and the grind can all be complementary to each other. Erik Wahl opened his powerful presentation with a painting. The ”Bono” painting above was done in about 3 minutes and he was painting with both hands. The Einstein image was painted upside down. I love art! This captured my full attention from the moment he came on stage. His energizing message reached beyond what we can apply to our work. It included concepts related to what we do outside the walls of our offices and spoke to what we can do with the rest of our lives.

Creativity is different in all of us. It isn’t something that we are born with and it can be expressed in many ways. Here are some of my key takeaways from his presentation:

  • Learning is a gift, even when pain is the teacher.

  • We were taught to become increasingly busy. Focus on the science and discipline of intentionally slowing down, and on the ability the twist things upside down to look at obstacles like they are a blank canvas.

  • It’s in surrendering to emotion that true breakthrough thinking can happen.

  • A change in perspective is all it takes to reframe everything. The concept of creativity is a practiced and disciplined skill.

  • When you see something you want, keep striving for it until you find a way to make it work.

  • Genius is 1 percent inspiration and 99 percent perspiration.

  • See what those around you see, but also have the courage to twist and UNTHINK, the title of one of his books. It speaks to the importance of differentiation to set yourself apart from the crowd and discover the creative genius inside us all.

  • Creativity has been misdiagnosed as a genetic trait. It is not inherited, it is a skill that we just don’t practice enough as adults.

  • Use your creativity to think outside the box and view mistakes as learning opportunities. Avoid being caught up in negativity surrounding you and be courageous with what you are doing.

And my personal favorite: Growth and comfort cannot coexist. This I haven’t been able to stop thinking about. For personal growth, professional growth, growth as a wannabe Ironman Triathlete or whatever it might be that we are pursuing, getting comfortable being uncomfortable is what allows us to progress to levels that we never imagined we could reach.

One of the reoccurring themes of the conference was differentiation. What are you doing to be different than your closest competitors? We’ve all heard that the only constant is change. How is your organization remaining relevant?

Johnny Cupcakes, another amazing keynote speaker, talked about the importance of creating unique experiences for brand awareness. He noted that the stranger an idea or campaign is, the higher the chances are that people are going to talk about it, which translates into free word-of-mouth and social media advertising for you. When you go beyond just “satisfying” your customers to ”delighting” them, you are creating an opportunity for people to generate excitement about your product or service. Regarding how he got to where he is now, he said to do more of what makes you happy, “My superpower is that I don’t care about failing, so I try and try and try.”

Lastly, the SHSMD community knows how to have fun! The opportunity to explore a new city and connect with old and new friends continues to be one of my favorite parts of a conference.
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By Amy Jose | Posted October 17, 2018
SHSMD Social Media Engagement Advocate
Integrated Marketing Strategist
Spectrum Healthcare Partners
South Portland, ME
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