030 | WAITING (W3W) with Toby Brooks

It is word to the third, my reflections on purpose, life and growth. I'm Toby Brooks, I'm a speaker, author, professor, and forever student. Each week on Becoming Undone, I bring you guests who've dared bravely, risked mightily, and grown relentlessly. High achievers who've transformed from falling apart to falling into place. But every third episode it's my turn to reflect, refine, and reprocess. Inward to the third. You know as I was reading that I realized I'm lying to you. Each week it's been too long since I did one of these friends, but it just goes to show me that not even three months is long enough to lock in a good habit. I'd been humming right along my goal of three episodes a week since the start of the show. I was on track for my vision of 150 episodes in year one. Then spring break hit. I opted to take the week off. Like really off. Like turn my phone off and leave it in the house off. Well I got some long overdue stuff done around the house. I cleaned the shop, got my daily driver car squared away with a drop kit, new tires and wheels, I finished setting up the new studio space for the show. It was awesome and it was much needed. However, I didn't get any shows done. And then I didn't get any done the next week. And before I knew what had hit me, I'd gone a month without any new shows. All that to say, I missed you. I'm glad to be back. Thanks for waiting.

Speaking of waiting, I suck at many things. We're talking like world-class bad. I'm a terrible sport. That's why I like to train and play alone most of the time. I'm terrible with names. I've tried all the tricks and they work sometimes, but more often than not, they don't. I'm pretty insecure, too. As early as I can remember, my confidence depended on the play or the interaction before. If it stunk, I was worthless. If it was good, I was good. But what I suck at the most, and I mean absolutely stink at, is patience. I have none. I won't wait in lines. If I'm gonna drive through and nobody moves for like 30 seconds, and I count in my head, I'm out. If I have to go to the doctor, I not only resent the fact that I have to wait, I resent the mere existence of a room committed to waiting. Back in the day, it used to be littered with diversions to waste your less important time while waiting on a physician with more important time. These days, they don't even bother with that. You just bring your phone and you scroll mindlessly. We'll get to you when we're darn well good and ready. As I was thinking about this, it occurred to me, I'm a health care professional too, but working in athletics has just fed the flames of my impatience.

We once had a football student athlete who needed to see a neurologist so that he could get a form signed from the NCAA that would let him play with a tinted eye shield in his helmet. Problem was, in our fairly small city, there was only one neurologist within about 200 miles, and that physician was scheduled up for 6 months. Solid. It didn't matter if you had a little headache or brain tumor growing out of your ear. You weren't getting in until half a year had passed. Except one phone call from the athletic trainer at the local university explaining the situation and my athlete was seen that day. That day. For an eye shield. No athletic training room I've ever worked in had a waiting room. If you came in, you got care right away.

If you needed to see a doctor, get an MRI, or have surgery, you got priority over literally everyone else in the whole community. We once had an offensive lineman tear cartilage in his knee on a Saturday. He had an MRI that night. He had surgery at 3am on Sunday morning, and he played in a game three states away five days later. That's the healthcare reality athletes in some part of the world enjoy. They say there's good medicine, there's bad medicine, and there's sports medicine. But I can tell you that in a 20 plus year career in the field, it's magnified my toxic impatience and made it almost unbearable.

Fast pass or not, I never even considered taking my kids to Disney. No way was I going to stand in those lines. Chick-fil-A may be world-renowned for their fast and efficient service with their high school kids armed with iPads, but there's no way in earth I'm gonna willingly head in there when there are 40 cars wrapped halfway to Amarillo. It's just not gonna happen. I am NOT a patient man. So when I've tried to do some pretty big things in the past three years and fallen squarely on my face every time, it's been hard. Real hard. I've submitted materials to speak at eight different TEDx events. 0 for 8. At one point, I had my heart set on working in the Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs. I've applied for nine different jobs there. 0 for 9.

As in absolutely zero response. Not even a thank you for applying email. If anyone from the Olympic Training Center is listening, the culture could be better. I've tried to grow as a leader and as I hate to even use the word influencer to similar effect. I'll share the final stats one of these days when there's an ending worth sharing. But for now let's just say if applying for things for a full-time position, I'd put my stats up against anyone in the world over the past 36 months. They are staggering. And sure some, maybe even many, of those things were stretches for me. I got out of my comfort zone, but I have two decades of experience, four college degrees, and a drive to get better that I thought, naively, obviously, might at least get me a sniff of an interview. Something's wrong. It is entirely possible that I'm writing, saying, doing, or all of the above. It's killing my chances. But I thought I might at least get something.

But nothing. And the impatience within me is driving me mad. So I took some deep breaths and I faced some brutal honesty with myself. There may be another possibility. It's just not my time yet. I am sick of waiting. I want to train and prepare. I'm tired of excuses, I want action. And I'm fed up with losing. I'm going to get back on track. And I will push, and I will pull, and I will claw, and I will scream until something breaks loose. In the meantime, you will not catch me figuratively or literally in the waiting room, mindlessly scrolling on my phone, anymore. It's time to get to work. Bricks and Buckets.

Each week on Becoming Undone I reflect back on the highs and lows of my week in Bricks and Buckets. Bricks are attempts that miss the mark, while buckets sail through the net clean and true. It's the basketball equivalent of roses and thorns or happiest and crappiest. Break this week? None. I am choosing to ignore the negative this week and instead focus all my energy on the positive. That means it's all buckets. My bucket this week?

I got word that I'll be presenting at the 2023 Digital Teaching Symposium. This is exciting for me and marks two years in a row that I got accepted. I've thoroughly enjoyed my career as an AT educator these past two decades, but it is exciting for me to see new paths of leadership and scholarship start to show up in my world. Even better, some colleagues from my department also got accepted to present their work. So Kate and Misty, if you're listening, virtual fist bumps all around. As important as teaching is, and as critical as health care is. It's amazing to me just how antiquated health care teaching and education can be across our country. I'm thankful and grateful to work with great people who take their roles as educators seriously and are constantly honing their craft. That's a bucket. What about you? What are you working on or waiting for? And what are you doing in the meantime to get better every day? I'd love to hear about it. Surf on over to undonepodcast.com and drop me a note.

I'm Toby Brooks and this has been Word to the Third. Becoming Undone is a Nitro-Hype creative production written and produced by me Toby Brooks. If you or someone you know has a story of resilience and victory to share for Becoming Undone contact me at undonepodcast.com. Follow the show on Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn at becomingundonepod and follow me at Toby J Brooks. Listen, subscribe, and leave us a review at Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, or wherever you get your podcasts. Those reviews matter and I'm constantly trying to build our listener base so I can bring you more of what you enjoy. So I'd really appreciate it if you would take just a second and get that done for me. Virtual fist bumps to you.

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