Hey, guys. Welcome to the podcast. My guest today is John Prasik. He is chief medical safety officer at Olympus, and we talk about the importance of continuous learning for medical affairs professionals. The opinions stated today by John are his own and do not represent the opinions or stance of Olympus. Don't forget to sign up for the Medical Affairs Excellence Summit, MAX, which is October 22nd 23rd, and that's in Atlantic City, New Jersey. Gonna be awesome. I'm gonna be there.
I hope to see you guys, and you could get more information by going to Max summit 2024. See you there. Welcome to MSL talk with Tom Caravella, a podcast specifically designed for MSLs and all things field medical. Hey, John. Welcome to the podcast. How you doing? Pretty good. Thanks for having me, Tom. Pleasure to be here. I'm excited. So, guys, I've known John for many years, really, I think through maps more than anything else.
And see, John, every year we talk, and this is something I've kinda had on my list of to do is, you know, get John on the podcast. And we've been talking about it, and here we are. We have a great, great concept, great topic to talk to you guys about today. But before we get into that, John, why don't you do a quick introduction, tell everybody who you are and all that good stuff? Absolutely, Tom. Welcome, everybody. My name is John Prasick. I am the chief medical safety officer for Olympus.
I lead medical safety. I lead medical affairs. And I'm also accountable for infection prevention control. I've been at this role at Olympus since August of 2021. It's my second industry role. 1st industry role was at Johnson and Johnson, De diffuse Synthes, which is their orthopedic section. I made my transition from clinical practice into, medical affairs in 2016. And I was the franchise medical director responsible for the innovation pipeline for diffuse in the spine.
After about 18 months, was elevated to franchise medical leader. That's Johnson and Johnson terminology for chief medical officer. And then about 2017, we had something in the medical device we'll call European Medical Device Regulation, EU MDR. And one of the strategies that Johnson and Johnson had was we're gonna combine medical affairs along with preclinical research. So in other words, benchtop, small animal, large animal, cadaver, ethnography, time and motion, as well as clinical research.
So they called it PCM, preclinical, clinical, medical. And then I spent about a total of five and a half years at Johnson and Johnson before making the transition to Olympus. Prior to that, clinically trained as a neurosurgeon. I'm a medical scientist, MD, PhD. Grew up in Chicago. Got tired of the cold winters. Went south down to Duke where the weather was a lot better. Like this so well that I stayed through, medical school. My undergrad majors were music and zoology, believe it or not.
Wow. Yeah. They had a special program there, Tom, called the early identification where the idea was you get into medical school 2 years ahead, so as a sophomore. But what would you do if you already had that admission ticket in your back pocket? Would you take harder courses? Would you, you know, take things that you know you might not do it well in? And I propose this complex program in genetics, and this ought to be interesting. And at the last minute, I'm like, no. I'm a musician.
Piano, saxophone all through since grade school and high school. And as a result, I said, no. Duke had a marine lab off the coast of North Carolina. So I said, you know, we can design anything we want. I'm gonna dive off the deep end. Got all the pre med courses done pretty much by the end of sophomore year. So I was a music and zoology major, but it was really marine zoology. So it was like the farthest from the main campus and everybody else.
Made for that 1st year of medical school a little bit harder getting back to the real world, but it was completely enjoyable in a way to spend time as an undergrad. Awesome. MD PhD then, did the public health service, paid for my PhD. And as a result, then had some payback to do to them. I trained in general surgery first, then spent 3 years on active duty, 3 years in the reserves as a commissioned officer, lieutenant commander.
I carried Navy rank, although make no mistake with, and I know your son's in the military, the public health service is probably the it's one of the 7 uniformed services, but nowhere near as what the Navy is, even though we have sort of the equivalent of Navy rank. But it was a good way to learn. I did my postdoc at the NIH because that's what PhDs do. Like, when you're done with your MD, you do your residency.
And then after that, a nurse surgery residency, George Washington, and then came back to the Midwest, University of Iowa, for spine fellowship. I spent my entire clinical career in Catholic health care, believe it or not. And literally from day 1, I was involved sort of on the business side. We were building full on spine and brain institutes. I built 2 of them in my career. Wow. So if you think about the comprehensive cancer center, you have multiple specialties working together.
Imagine that concept spun for adult neuroscience, so neurology, neurosurgery, interventional pain management, which is usually anesthesia, and then physiatry, physical medicine and rehabilitation. You have those four pillars. You can handle just about anything except pediatrics, and we did. The first one was in Waterloo, Iowa. I think my god. Waterloo, Iowa. What? Why? Why would you do it there? Well, it's really simple.
60,000 United Auto Workers with back pain because John Deere is headquartered there. So our business model was we don't wanna go out to the community, up to the Mayo Clinic or back down to University of Iowa. So that was our business model. So joined 2 of my other colleagues from GW. We set up shop there, working Catholic health care at Wheaton Franciscan. And we we really enjoyed it because we were practicing comprehensive collaborative care.
I then, after several years, got recruited by the sister system and Oshkosh, Wisconsin affinity, which became ministry, which became Ascension, and there was a similar situation. You got Oshkosh truck that makes the defender, which is the replacement for the Humvee. You've got Pierce Fire Truck, and then you have 3 of the paper mills. You have Kimberly Clark, Scott Paper, and I'm blanking on the 3rd.
But you got about 80,000 union workers with back pain that were out migrating outside the community to get their care. It's the same sort of business model. Then in 2015, I ended up doing my MBA at the University of Tennessee physician executive program, and that was game changing. I hadn't been back to school for a while. But during that time period, I said, you know, I'm gonna talk to physicians that had made the transition into affairs.
But I also was looking at physicians that made the transition to other things, whether it be consulting, whether it be, the FDA or some of the insurance companies, whether it be Humana, CVS, Aetna, or, Cigna. Ended up talk planning on talking to 10, ended up talking to 55 that 1 year. Wow. And not a single one said no because I said we've all been in your position. Long story short, the last person I talked to was a chief medical officer at J&J.
And so, well, you know, I was this was helping for an organizational leadership development program project, and that's why I think they took everybody took the calls. But in the end, he goes, okay. We wanna interview you. And 2 weeks later, I was being interviewed by j and j. A week later after that, I was on a plane. And next thing I know, I graduated with my MBA in December of 2015, took January off. February of 2016, we started with j and j. So literally, the MBA changed.
And I said, well, I did it because I wanted to originally have a seat that senior leadership within Catholic health care. Yeah. The table, the MBA reset the table, and I did a 90 degree turn into industry. And I'll be honest with you, I've enjoyed every bit of it. So we've That's a really good background for this conversation because we're gonna talk about continuous learning. So who better to talk about continuous learning than a guy that's an MD, PhD, MBA, and a million other things?
So awesome. So let's let's talk about that and the importance. And looking at professionals now, I think that this is a I think that this is a topic that's important, but I don't think people realize the magnitude of it. So can you share what this has meant for you in your career after giving us kind of the backstory? Sure. Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. I think let me start with the definition, then I'll kind of frame it up for a personal interpretation.
I think the definition is is that continuous learning is ingrained by all of us, no matter what walk of life we are. Yeah. Whether it be continuing medical education or whatever you call it on the health care side. It's the way of extension. It's the way all of us, regardless of our careers, keep up to date.
Okay. Whether you're a tax attorney, where you're an accountant, whether you're an expert, in a variety of different things, you usually have some sort of professional certification or some sort of professional credentialing that allows you just want to keep up on things. I mean, I just sat and redid my recertification for my nurse surgery boards last Friday. The way that's gone nowadays is they wanna keep you up. It's not like you're looking at a textbook.
You're reading the latest articles, the articles that you want to read anyways, but they're gonna wanna make sure that you this is why it's important because it may have created a turn in the way care is practiced. Whether it be courses, conferences, seminars, online self study, we got so many more options now. It makes it much easier. You don't have to get on a plane. You don't have to travel anywhere or sit in the class.
For me, personally, it's one of those things that's always been part of my life that you kind of led to it is I've always liked the duality of balancing different things against each other. And sometimes that really means that you gotta have things that perhaps may be disparate. I mean, I was deep, deep into the lab doing bench top work at the NIH. Yet a year before, I was in Dallas, Texas at Parkland where I was doing my internship in general surgery training.
And there you're deep into the trenches of a busy, you know, tertiary care trauma center where my worst night there as a 2nd year resident was 47 admissions. So the idea of the juxtaposition of things that are very, very different and keeping up on those different knowledge bases, I think that's part of it. But it also allows you to kinda take a step back and say, okay. What am I gonna do with this? That evolution, what I just described to you in my career, you couldn't do that.
You couldn't proceed and do a pivot out of deep intense surgical specialty into sort of learning business and then actually pivoting all the way into a medical device company. But it was if you think about it in retrospect, it's because I had been doing some of the skills in the hospital as a physician leader that are immediately transferable over into industry. Mhmm. So it I think we can we realize we have the skills.
It's just, in many ways, the experience aspect of it, you need to kinda step up to do whatever you're doing, And it allows you to give options. It keeps doors open or even well, like, you just saw with me. It made a certain career pivot. There was, like, sort of 3 sections in my career. Each of them were possible with continuing education. Yeah. And, you know, and I'm glad that you went through your experience because it shows you know, it's we're in a very fast paced environment right now.
Everybody's so busy. So in your experience, what are the key benefits to continuous learning when people are super busy and they're in this fast paced world that we're in? Three things. Adaptability Mhmm. Skill enhancement, career enhancement. Okay? Adaptability. It allows you to pivot like I did. I actually pivoted on a dime. Oh my god. I would, you know, how would you do that? I know how to practice neurosurgery. I can give this a try for 3 to 5 years. Doesn't work, then go back to doing this.
So don't be afraid. In other words, what I learned that last year in business school really made me confident that I could do it. At least want to confident enough to give it a try. Skills enhancement. You keep yourself relevant by continuously adding to your repertoire. Think of it as the bat utility belt. You're able to pull out new skills whenever you need to. Yeah. Then career advancement. It's gonna drive your growth. I mean, if you were to say, hey, John.
The the person I am now, if I was talking to the 25 year old John, did I ever think that I'd be leading medical safety and infection prevention control having been through clinical research? Well, I had some basic science research. I'd run a clinical trial as a medical student. I never thought my career would go through these multiple phases, but it's also kept it interesting. And that has really been the benefit.
It is it's it's kept you motivated to want to learn and grow and sort of be sort of intellectually hungry, if I can use it. Yeah. Well and that makes me think when you when you mentioned skill enhancement and when we look at people that are trying to figure out what their knowledge gaps are, what their needs are, what they need to work on, how do you recommend they decipher that? Yeah. I think the the easiest thing is to, first of all, start with yourself.
Self reflection and self assessment with brutal candor. Okay? You're your own worst enemy. That's human nature, psychology. We think we look at our deficits long before we look at our strengths. Seek feedback from others. K? They're gonna be generally more positive than you. Perhaps determine the must have that you need to get to the next step of career at Hanson.
Take stock, like any good professional, from the opportunities where perhaps you didn't get it right or or you had the course correct or you needed to think, you know, how could I have done that better? Those are opportunities. Does that mean that there are some skills there that could potentially be working from? Or the flip side of it is do you find yourself doing the same thing that you just have a skill set that you constantly rely on that perhaps can be expanded?
I think looking inside, but also looking outside and being diverse in those opinions. Got you. And then so let's say you have someone who realizes, okay, This is important. I need to make time to do this. How do they balance it? What because obviously, people have busy demands with their jobs. And how how did you do it, and what's your advice for others? I think it's it's really simple. You gotta prioritize it.
I always found that there were times of the day or times of the week when those were the quiet times. Some people, it's getting up early. Some people, it's staying up late. Other times, it's, you know, putting a pot of coffee on on a a Sunday morning and working through something while it's quiet before the spouse gets up, that type of thing. I think prioritize and schedule learning. First of all, you know, you gotta you gotta pay yourself.
So much like, you know, you put money away from your paycheck to kinda make sure you don't spend it if you're budgeting, dedicate 15 to 30 minutes every day that's in measurable chunks. Then integrate it into your daily routine. You're passionate about exercise. I need to do more with the job that's in the industry sometimes where you're sitting in front of computers as opposed to, I think, those years where I was standing as a surgeon. I actually think that was probably healthier.
So, you know, integrate your learning, but people integrate learning while they're working out or while they're taking a walk listening to a podcast such as yours. That's where I listen to yours is when I'm taking a walk. Or you're you're caught in traffic. You're sitting in the back of the Uber, and you got an hour to get to the airport because there's traffic, on the turnpike. You know, those are opportune times. You know what I call it? Me time. Yeah. They're not gonna bother me.
Put the phone down. Do a little bit of a digital detox, but use that digital detox first sort of a digital download, where you can kinda power up in terms of learning while you're doing some other activity. You talked about multitasking. Use it for yourself. But also, if you want to have that time, delegate and outsource some of the work that you may be doing to give yourself a little bit of time.
But also, it's gonna help grow your direct reports in some ways because now you're getting to see how they're handling some of your roles, whether, hey, step in while I take the trip overseas for these two important meetings. Also, use micro learning. A little bit smaller adjustable bites, you know, inch by inch, it's a cinch, yard by yard, it's a heart. It's hard as they always say, and then join professional networks. You know, we met at MAPS, Medical Affairs Professional Society.
Did not understand much about medical affairs when I came in, so I was looking for a place to go. And that's how, I ended up going to MAPS in 2018 and the first time the Medical Affairs Professional Society is what we're talking about because I was used to my neurosurgery societies as places where I grew and learned. And I went to the maps, and this mostly was pharma that back then. And I said, there's not much medtech here, but there were a few of us.
And with the leadership at the time, we decided to build that out. So in other words, sometimes you have to make your own breaks as the saying goes. And there, we need I needed to learn. Now 25% of our industry partners are medtech companies, and we're now having a medtech medical affairs aspect that complements what's been going on legacy, the provenance of that organization on the pharma side. So I think that's, the thing.
And the last thing is don't forget, we all work for employers that are offering some type of, perhaps educational credits or learning. I just hired a new, new new grad not a new grad, but she's been out for about 5 years, and she's now going back to get her master's. And one of the reasons she came to work with us is because we do have a tuition reimbursement plan. Many companies do.
So they're interested in investing in their employees because it's far cheaper to invest and grow than it is to replace when there's an unfortunate regrettable departure. Yeah. And I think we're in a good time right now because there are podcasts and there are online learnings and virtual. There's there's just it's a different environment where you can kind of pick and choose how and when because I'm an auto I'm an an audio audible kind of guy.
I'd rather listen to a book or listen to a podcast for my learnings. That's my style. That's what works for me. So, and again, you can you you can I do it when I work out? So it's it's a multitasking kinda thing, but it's also, you know, you find that when you're I I know for me when I'm exercising, I'm at this peak state where I feel like I can absorb things. Mhmm. How do you suggest people kinda have fun with this?
And what what what are some of the what what are some of the things that work for you? One of the things people can do is, is gamify your learning. In other words, you you got the apps. You got platforms. I think we're all competitive in nature. I mean, whether regardless of what we're doing, so points, badges, letter boards, things like that. I mean, it's it's a way to to actually, you know, help and and make sure that learning is still like a game to keep you motivated.
There's other communities, people that are, you know, interest groups and others, whether it be a hobby or whether it be something that you're doing for your career. You can learn an awful lot by being part of an interest group or, you know, the amazing education that's available. And you said you like to listen to things. I like to watch things. You'd be surprised how much you can learn on YouTube.
I don't care if it's something, a simple plumbing repair to something for your career or something that you're really interested in. You're you've gone down the rabbit hole on some particular hobby. And sure enough, there's someone that's got a video that explains exactly you know, how to purchase something, how to compare, or or even things that are just important.
Like, when you're coming up, for something something at work, you may find there's plenty of opportunities, plenty of resources out there that you can have on the demand at your time regardless of where you are anywhere in the world. You can pull that and get that information. Yeah. My role travel. I'm you know, I work for a company that's a global company. I have teams all over the world. I got a team in Tokyo that's 13 hours ahead.
I have a team in Europe, and I was central European time that's 6 hours ahead. I don't care wherever I'm traveling, particularly on 15 hour flight to Japan. I get use that time, yes, to relax, but also use that time is to learn. And now you get long form learning can be accomplished because you got some protected time.
Yeah. So you kinda use the opportunities and then demand match for the time that you have with the type of opportunity that perhaps I wouldn't have time for that long form learning back when I'm not on a plane sequestered, then I'm gonna use that time productively. Yeah. And I always like to look at, these are all great points.
I always like to look at what, you know, what are the barriers, and and what are the challenges when you have somebody who's really eager to, to maybe get you know, finalize a certification or a degree, but they just maybe distractions or work life balance? Like, what are what are some of the things that that you might have seen as barriers or challenges? 3 other things that I'm thinking of. First one is lack of time, fear of failure. 3rd one's lack of motivation.
So lack of time, barrier, busy schedules, demanding workloads. This is life in the modern age. Solution, prioritize learning by dedicating time slots in your calendar. The little blocks in the calendar are those manageable chunks that we were talking about. Mhmm. Microlearning, you know, that's fit for your daily routine. I think the second thing is the fear of failure. The barrier for not succeeding can prevent individuals from starting their new learning. Well, adopt a growth mindset.
View failures as opportunities to learn and grow. Anybody that's ever built anything has probably failed once or twice before because that's how you get there. And someone said, well, how did you how did you learn that? And I go, it's not because it's any brilliance. It's because of some scar tissue from a previous learning exercise Right. Or previous experience that I don't want you to make the same mistake I made. And then perhaps just lack of motivation. I think people are sometimes tired.
They're exhausted. You said you do your exercise to give you energy. But I think you, you know, if you found it put your eyes in your mind focused towards something, I think we all like to be moving forward. But sometimes those achievable goals or finding a learning community that I had mentioned before, they can get you motivated because you got others doing it. And it's that fear of missing out. Well, wait a minute. They're learning it. I need to learn it too. That's why people do book clubs.
Perhaps they wouldn't read, but now that they know they have a deadline, same thing when I was in training as a neurosurgery resident, we had journal club every month, and that was something that we look forward to every Wednesday night. So half of the residency program got split up, went to one private practice office, and the other half of the group went to another, sat there and ate Chinese food and talked about the latest month's articles. I mean, it made it fun Yeah.
That it was you're with your your people and you're with your friends and, you know, the people that you trained with. And and they they motivated you as well. I've seen those people some 40 years later when I was at a a meeting, and one of them pulled out a picture. I was like, oh my god. That's all of us sitting around a journal club eating Chinese food. You wanna know something? You look back at that, and it's like, that was inculcating that constant desire to read and learn.
We do it as good. And now look at us. We're all we're not the young ones. We're the ones with the gray hair, and we're the ones that come years later, but we still do it. And that formed a camaraderie while you were doing that learning. Yeah. Good those are good memories, you know, and and being able to to to learn and do your job, but do it with and have some fun do it with with other people. That's why I love going to conferences. I go to, you know, I go to a lot of conferences.
Obviously, we talk about MAPS. I love going to MAPS. I think they do an amazing job. And, you know, just a shout out to, to Travis and Pedro and the whole team at MAPS. Do an awesome job. It's it's fun. It's networking. You get to meet people, and you get to learn at the same time. So I I I highly recommend that sort of of continuous learning activity.
But what do you think as a leader, what do you think organizations need to be doing to foster this concept of continuous learning with their people? 1st of all, I think lead by example. Many of the things that we now have on our we have to do some, you know, employee trainings for a variety of, for me, in my area of safety for quality because we're gonna get audited by competent authorities, things like that. But one of the things they did is they subscribed to LinkedIn.
So you can pick and learn things right from your own learning platform at work. Mhmm. And then I think that's, you know, that kinda gets into the second. Well, do you have access for it? Well, yes. They did. Before it was you know, LinkedIn has done a lot of different things. Before that, when I was back in doing my MBA, it was lydia.orlinda.com. I had I I was good with PowerPoint. I was good with Microsoft Word. But as a clinician, I had never worked on a spreadsheet.
I used an online program to teach me how to do Excel, before the MBA started. And I think also encourage people's growth and development, give them opportunities, and realize that that's gonna be rewarded. And some companies, as I said, have have paid for entire graduate degrees. Others provide other opportunities and will foster things. Like, I was I was at j and j. I think I ended up going 3 courses at Harvard Business School that they sent me to.
Mhmm. Now those were I was with people from other companies at certain aspects, but there was also one of those 3 that it was just the senior leaders of j and j. So I was there with the the CEO of the med tech sector of j and j with the top 35 leaders, and we got to spend 4 days there together.
So that the I think the better companies and things in organizations really want to invest in their people, particularly investing in that development where the the more experienced pulls up, the younger, the more inexperienced. Yeah. One of the things that I've seen is that there are lifelong learners that almost become junkies for this stuff. So I'm curious, like, at what point and to what extent should people go to in their quest to upscale? And does it get to do they go too far?
I don't think they can go too far. I think it's, you know, to what extent I think if you think about your career goals, I think focus on those and think about upskilling what you need to do. Think about what the industry requirements are. Are you up to are you up to speed? Do you know where the industry is going? For me, I moved into medical safety, and I realized that our quality engineers were the people I was spending time with.
And they're like, by all means, these are some of the organizations you want to go to for the training and certifications. But also, don't overdo it. Think about balance and overdo it. Think about balance and well-being. Yeah. Because, you know, there there actually is, you know, you you you can be over you can be supersaturated. There are times when, you know, the work and everything you're tired, you need to take a break and, you know, a a healthy work life balance. Is it balanced?
Or do I think if I repurpose that, I think about it as a healthy work life integration. Okay? Because, yeah, yeah, we have long hours. I particularly have longer hours at this company than I did at the previous one, but I have windows of opportunity in the middle of the day before other parts of the world are coming back online that I can now that's my time to maybe go around to the unfinished section of the basement and exercise, pharmacy midday. Because guess what?
I'm getting out of the house. I'm working from home now. But also, those are the types of opportunities where you need to mix it up a little bit, and you gotta have that balance and well-being. When we work hard enough as it is, you gotta put yourself first. Yeah. Oh, no. Absolutely. Yeah. And, you know, I think just looking at this scenario, I know we and I mentioned this before. We're in a different time right now.
It's it's obviously, this continuous learning process has to be a lot different now than maybe, I don't know, 10 or 15 years ago, I'd imagine. Yeah. Technology and access to information is far more advanced. So you're gonna see, I think, kind of a couple of things. Technology integration. Then continuous education. I said you'll be getting on a plane. Traditional message, in person workshops. And I spoke at those workshops. Those that was fun. Now technology plays a role.
There's gonna be hybrid. They're gonna be online. There're gonna be webinars. Things that you can learn from the comfort of your own home. But also, there's, you know, different things that we never had before, Uacademy, Coursera. In fact, you can get a graduate degree on Coursera essentially free of charge. Now it may take you a long period of time. That's an opportunity we never really had before.
The open access learning that the universities have realized that other learning platforms are competing with. Also, perhaps you don't need a full degree. Now it's a certificate in something.
And then, like I said, it's that access and that, again, learning culture, the continuous learning is just so far far more easier that, you know, COVID disrupted people's careers, but they seemed like easily pivot and become business owners or self sufficient, entrepreneurs as a direct and proximate result of what was available while their downtime, and I was able to do that. I've had, other people that, very successful entrepreneurs. They ended up selling out.
They couldn't work for 2 years in that space. 1 of them went back and got a graduate degree in those 2 years. And then now pivoted and moved into a similar adjacent space, but now he has the credential to do it. I mean, he never had it. He kind of just was a self learner all along and he used his exit strategy and his resources from that to retool himself professionally from a credential standpoint.
Yeah. Yeah. And I, you know, I find myself migrating towards things that that I like and that I wanna do that's in my comfort zone. What what what's your advice for people to maybe step out of their comfort zone when it comes to this upskilling and continuous learning concept? I I think if you step outside your comfort zone, that's where the real, I'm gonna say, geometric growth is gonna take place as opposed to the linear growth.
Because when professionals challenge themselves, usually, you're gonna know what you didn't you're gonna find out what you didn't know, but you're also gonna find out what your new limits are. Right. How about can you can you multitask and you know, you're gonna start pushing the boundaries, and that's gonna build resilience, and that's gonna make you actually more adaptable. It's also gonna enhance some of your problems solving skills.
And learning new skills involves tackling unfamiliar problems. K? That means that you do need that being able to look at it directly, but maybe able to look at it slightly 15, 20 degrees from a different aspect. And perhaps doing that's gonna help you develop that sort of get you out of your comfort zone. At least just widen your aperture of thinking when you're exposed to other people. And this also is gonna have a direct and proximate result because it's gonna increase career opportunities.
When all of a sudden you're building out a new skill set, you're also making yourself incredibly more value both to the company that not only employs you, but is in elevating your net worth, as someone that has a unique set of skills that perhaps maybe other people didn't have. So it can open up new career opportunities. So embracing discomfort, is really part of the learning process.
I I have something sitting on my desk here is it's it's it's a it's a stone that was painted years ago with the world on the word uncomfortable on it. Yeah. It's a reminder to me in some ways that I gotta always challenge myself, get myself uncomfortable. But for my teams and the people that I'm working with, my job is to get you comfortable with how uncomfortable I'm gonna make you. Yeah. I'm gonna have to foster some of your learning. So they're like, you know, they look at it.
What do you mean? And I'm like, yeah. I'm gonna get you comfortable with how uncomfortable I'm gonna make you. You're gonna be surprised. Okay? Well and I think that's that in this time that we're in, I think there's a lot of people that know they need to come up to speed on certain things, like AI, for example. You know, anything digital. And that might not be in their comfort zone, but they know that they should.
So what advice do you have for people that may feel like they're behind the curve or overwhelmed and need know that they need to do it but just haven't? I think you heard me say this before. Start small. Small achievable goals. One skill at a time, hopefully, in a sort of a ladder that builds. That makes you sure you're not overwhelmed. 2nd, create a written learning plan. And I say a written it can be a spreadsheet.
It can be something, but something that you can check off and have that feeling of accomplishment. And then lastly, leverage available resources. I think, you know, like we said, Coursera, Khan Academy, LinkedIn Learning, they're all out there that you don't need you can get up to speed pretty quickly with some of those resources.
And even still, I mean, some people I've heard while they're doing job interviews, they're basically looking while chat gpt when they're get a question that they can't answer. They're online automatically thinking about it. I mean, there's many times when you've thought of something and, like, I can't remember. Who is that actor in this movie or that actress? What do we do? Alexa blah blah blah or Siri blah blah blah. What's you know?
And it's some of the stuff is just things that you never really thought of. Like, someone was asking, well, how big is that company? It's like, okay, Siri. What's the market cap of x y z? Boom. Right there. It's at your fingertips. Okay? And it's like, did we have that before? I mean, this is this is, you know, when you think of Steve Jobs' first presentation for the iPhone. I remember this. It is a phone. It is a music listening device, and it is a Internet communicator.
Everybody's like, what is he talking? That's classic now. Yeah. It's like the iPhone. Of course it is. He knew exactly what it was. Those three things. Three basic things. It replaced the phone. It replaced what was very, very popular, iPad, and it allowed people to navigate. They were used to using the you know, the Internet was, you know, how they were getting information. Now you could do it with the comfort of your pocket. You had it.
You had all 3. And, I mean, you look at that that that was classic Steve Jobs pushing innovation. Look look the resources, leverage available resources, look what you have in your pocket. Yeah. Literally. What's funny you should mention that because I I feel like that video keeps coming up on my on my Instagram feed. Like, I keep seeing that video. Yeah. It's like I don't know if we go out and get a black turtleneck. You know? Yeah. I know exactly what you're talking about.
So where does that take, like, looking at how far we I was gonna say, how do we get our information? I had a set of encyclopedias. Like, I I don't wanna date myself, but Oh, that could be Britannica. Yeah. And and and actually it was kind of fun, but, you know, it's it's much easier going to the Internet, going to Google, and go to chat gbt. But so where what happens in the next 10 years? What I mean, what do you think happens in the next 10 years?
I think you're gonna see it's like anything else. We're gonna have highly we have highly evolved a highly personalized medicine. We're gonna have highly personalized, almost bespoke craft handcrafted learning experiences. Yeah. The technology is gonna allow that to happen. Mhmm. I mean, literally, you know, whether it be your learning style, whether it be a certain pace, whether it be a certain preference, those are the types of things I think overall, that's gonna make wise.
It's gonna make it more efficient, and it's gonna make it more engaging, which means it's going to potentially then stick and it's gonna be with you. The more memorable it is, you know, that studies have shown, the more memorable it is, the more it's gonna be retained. And I think those are the things I think. So then also, maybe it will be the emergence of integrating technology.
So it's the AI, but the virtual reality or mixed reality or those types of things where now it's again, it's a personalized experience that is just easy, to simulate world real world scenarios. And then there's probably gonna be these life learning ecosystems where what is, you know, the micro badges, the digital credentials, this the sort of gamification that I spoke of earlier really gets codified into learning pathways that you can pick and choose how you want to to learn and and advance.
And I think regardless of where you are, what your career is, whether it be pharmamedtech, whether it be, as I said, you know, something in in in the law or tax or accountancy or, you know, actuaries. You have to make it accessible. You have to make it engaging. You have to make it memorable. Awesome. Well, we'll leave it at that, John. You're awesome. This was an amazing conversation. I know it would be. And, hey, we're talking about continuous learning, and we all learned a lot. Go figure.
See how that works? Exactly. It's a pleasure, Tom. Thank you so much. I look forward and I learn so much from you and the podcast that you do. So it's just a privilege and an honor to be part and help contribute to what you're doing. So thanks. I'm grateful. I'm absolutely grateful for you being here. And I wanna thank everybody for listening, for joining, for sharing. Appreciate you guys. We will see you next time. Thank you for all your support of this show.
Thank you so much for listening to the show. If you've enjoyed it, please subscribe so that you don't miss episodes in the future, and feel free to leave a rating or a review or a comment. Thanks again, and I look forward to seeing you again soon.