Imagine you are a collegiate athlete, a basketball player, and you are dribbling down the court in a race against an opposing team’s defender. Your team trails by two points. You consider driving straight to the basket to try to make a play and tie the game, but instead, you quickly pull up, and take a twenty-foot jump shot, a three pointer. It misses. In fact, it misses terribly, clunking off the rim into the hands of a defending player, who reverses the ball back down the court.
How does your coach react? How do YOU react?
If you know anything about me, you know I am a dedicated college basketball fan. Yes, a Duke fan (of both the men’s and women’s teams). The now-retired long-time Duke men’s coach, Mike Krzyzewski (you might know him as “Coach K”), was famous for a particular approach to the above scenario of taking a shot and missing it.
In the moment, he might have jumped out of his chair and shouted a few profanities at the referee (who “obviously”missed a foul). He might have pulled the player out of the game if they seemed tired. Or if they were not hustling. Or if he thought his team needed more speed, or more height. But not because they missed that well-intended shot.
And almost immediately, he would switch gears, and focus with laser-like attention on what was happening next on the court. And that is what he wanted his players to do. To give it their best effort, and then move on. Quickly.
To focus on the “Next Play.”
Coach K believed that dwelling on the last play only reduced the player’s concentration and chance of success in whatever happened next. There would always be time to learn from mistakes later, at the next practice, in the film room. But in the moment, he wanted his players to “flush” that last mishap, and quickly re-focus.
He even applied this rule to “made” baskets. No gloating. No taunting. And to victories too. Coach K was known to stay up all night after a game to review film with his assistants, even if his team won. No complacency. No extended celebrations. There was always another game, another challenge.
“Next Play”, he would say. In sport, in business, in life.
I share this as we wind down the year 2023 because I suspect we have all had a few missed shots in the past year. I certainly have. More than my share.
Business decisions that at the time seemed to be good ones, but turned out to be poor ones. Hiring decisions that did not work out. Long-term practice plans turned upside down. Trust and confidence seemingly wasted.
This applies to the exam room too. Missed diagnoses. Late diagnoses. Hearing our patients, but not fully listening to them. Experiencing the death of a patient, despite what we thought was our best effort.
And in our personal lives. Fumbled relationships. Failure to perceive a friend in need. Unintended insensitivity. Investments gone bad. Healthy habits lost in the business of life.
Not to sound all negative, we have all likely experienced some “wins” in the past year too. Hard work, dreams achieved. Practice growth, debts paid off. Clinical intuition, hunches confirmed. Mended fences, renewed friendships. Shots we took, shots that went in.
And, yes, sometimes we just get lucky, in spite of ourselves. Opportunities. Mentors. In the right place at the right time. “Bad” decisions which proved ultimately to be “good” ones. Patients who get better and credit us, when we did little more than doing no harm. Being loved, cared about, and cared for, when we do not always deserve it.
Sometimes the ball simply banks in off the backboard, despite our poor aim, even when we did not even intend for it to happen that way.
But whether good outcomes or bad outcomes, whether lucky or unlucky, business goes on; practice goes on; life goes on.
“Next Play.”
Not to say it is always easy to move on quickly. Some experiences require more extended reflection, time to grieve, time to heal. The human experience is not a mere game.
It is often said: “If you have seen one DPC practice, you have seen one DPC practice.” I would add another truism: “If a DPC physician tells you he or she has never made a mistake in their practice, then you are not talking to a DPC physician.” Or any physician, or business owner, for that matter.
DPC is better than insurance-based, hamster wheel, traditional practice, in my opinion, but it is not easy. Nor is Medicine. Or Life.
Here’s to reminding myself, and you, that we are all human. That we are all vulnerable. That what we do as physicians and business owners and persons with lives outside of medicine is consequential, and sometimes difficult. Whatever happened in 2023, it happened.
We shot the ball. It missed. Or maybe it went in.
Time to let it go. Time to forgive, and be forgiven. Time to be grateful, and humble. Time to gather thoughts, and be in the moment.
2023 is almost gone. 2024 is nearly here.
“Next Play.”