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Here is an except from my first article published by Shout Out Colorado:

Hi Rebecca, what’s some advice that you disagree with but is more or less universally accepted?

“It’s business, it isn’t personal.”

The idea that business isn’t personal provides justification for limiting our interactions with each other to trivial exchanges at best and at worst treating people poorly in the workplace because “it’s business”. It attempts to devalue human interaction into a simple exchange of commerce. I feel that mantra was created to help compartmentalize our humanity and make us less human, less powerful.

My business is personal. Our health is the most personal thing there is. If you want to succeed in the healthcare business you need strong personal boundaries but vulnerability and connection are just as important. Patients don’t care how much you know, until they know how much you care.

An entrepreneur’s startup is often their baby, it’s their blood, sweat, tears, missed family events, sleepless nights and long days. I don’t see any advantage to pretending that’s not deeply personal. I think addressing the impact work has on us emotionally is the key to addressing burnout and building resiliency. Unpacking ‘the emotional toll’ is what sparked me to start peer support groups locally for healthcare workers in my area. Just this year I started working with the non-profits Speak-Up Reach-Out and Building Hope to offer peer support groups so people working in healthcare have a safe place to share experiences. We need to recognize we don’t leave our humanity at the door when we clock in for work.