Day Four

Weight: 239
Food:
Breakfast: English muffin, one egg
1st snack: Apple
2nd snack
Lunch: Salad with olives, ¼ oz each beef, ham, turkey and two tablespoons creamy Italian dressing.
3rd snack; apple
4th snack
Dinner: pulled pork sandwich
5th snack: pulled pork sandwich (bartended at the elks and may have had a drink or three otherwise would not have eaten the sandwich, should not have eaten it).
6th snack

Exercise:
Two short walks, about a mile. I live on a gravel road and take two dogs with me on the walk. One is a Lab and the other is a cocker spaniel with a show cut, the cocker is a mop and would collect water and sand like there is no tomorrow. And, I am the volunteer bartender at the Elks lodge tonight 4pm to 9pm and will get a good workout from that.

Activities

Thoughts and/or education:
Goals, objectives, and milestones. I have spent over 35 years working with goals, objectives, and milestones. One cannot get to their destination with them. A pilot cannot fly a plane without a map or some idea of where they are going. We are the same in every thing we do.

I managed small hospitals for several years. One of the first things I did was to gather together all of the stakeholders, board members, department directors, community members, and spend a couple of days in a retreat talking about what they wanted the hospital to be. This was a very structured process that was focused on “if it was good, it would look like this”. It is a very positive experience, no negative vibes allowed.

I would then gather all of the information, while the group was out having a great dinner, and spend the evening sorting through it and making sense of what they told us (I always worked with a team of facilitators). The next morning, I would validate with the facilitators and then make my presentation to the group. This would be the start of the process towards developing and implementing a five-year plan.

At every meeting of the Board of Trustees, I would give a plan update. Somewhere in year three, I would report the plan was virtually complete and it was time to develop a new plan. The board was always amazed. None of them could believe we could have accomplished so much. From the start, most thought the goals and objectives we had set were too ambitious.