42: Why Being a "Jack of All Trades" WORKS for Entrepreneurs

Behind Their Success: Ep 42

Ryan: [00:00:00] I have this little pit of fire that just lights up and it pushes and it gets harder and it gets harder. Some people I think want to slow down and you know, there's something in me that motivates me to find the next gear. 

Paden: Welcome to behind their success. This podcast is for people who are feeling stuck on their entrepreneur journey or in their careers.

Paden: It's for people who want to scale and grow their businesses, learn about the power of mindset, or they just know there's more out there and they want to start making changes. I'm Paden Squires, the host of the podcast. I was never cut out to be an employee, and when I was an employee, I was bored out of my mind, so I made a plan.

Paden: I studied and passed the CPA exam in eight months while working, all with the end goal in mind of quitting my job and starting my own business. I did that in 2014 and it's been amazing wild ride since. So now let's hear from other entrepreneurs and what mindsets and probably more important, what actions they have taken that have created and led to their success.[00:01:00] 

Paden: Hello everybody. Welcome back to behind their success podcast. I am Peyton Squires, the host. And today we have on Ryan Hopper. Ryan is a former ICU and ER and hospice care nurse. He's cared for many different patients in many different settings and seen pretty much everything. Frustrated by the medical system and the care people receive, Ryan founded Navigate Wellness in Columbia, Missouri.

Paden: Navigate is a company that provides concierge nursing services to provide top notch care in the home. Ryan, good morning. Welcome on the show. Good morning. Good morning. Thanks for having me. I 

Ryan: really appreciate 

Paden: it. Yeah, Ryan. So, um, nursing background. Give us a little more color to your background, uh, professionally.

Ryan: Yeah. So, I, um, you know, nursing is a second career for me, actually. I was in marketing and public relations, was actually my first undergrad. And then I was working at a non profit, uh, Muscular Dystrophy [00:02:00] Association and was in the middle of getting my master's, just trying to figure out, you know, I liked helping people, just didn't feel like I was quite in the right spot.

Ryan: So I was just scratching around. And, uh, then one day Muscular Dystrophy Association reorganized back in, uh, At the heels of that 08 downturn, you know, what, 2010 or 11 or so. And nonprofits have really been squeezed for a couple of years at that point. So you were just starting to see, uh, them go back to urban areas, Kansas City, St.

Ryan: Louis, and they were just reorganizing. And I was finishing my master's and the favorite part about working for Muscovito Distribute Association was working at clinic. So I got to meet the families there and the doctors and the nurses and, um, But I felt like I was trapped behind a piece of glass almost, and I couldn't quite get up to where I was trying to actually help people.

Ryan: I mean, so when MBA reorganized, [00:03:00] um, I was already in school mode and I said, you know, I think I'm going to go back to nursing. My wife was really supportive and that meant a lot of really big things for us. But, um, when I came out of nursing school, I started in a surgical intensive care unit. So at the university, it's a level one trauma center.

Ryan: So it's a. Mostly surgical stuff, but, uh, you know, car wrecks, gunshots, kind of the, the adrenaline stuff that was, there was a lot of adrenaline junkies that work in these type of places. So, so I did that for about five or six years. I traveled nurse, me and my wife, we had one daughter at the time. We went to Denver.

Ryan: We did a six month stint there. And then, uh, I worked at University of California, San Diego and, you know, I was. Looking for something new again. So I came back into the emergency room services and it was a lot of the same critical care skills that I'd learned in the ICUs. The application of them is different.

Ryan: And so new environment, new [00:04:00] situations, and trying to adapt those skills into that situation. COVID happened. I was working in the ER and I was working for the staffing pool to where I was basically, you know, you're, you're a part time employee, but I was working full time hours because, you know, it gave me certain benefits and flexibility that I enjoyed.

Ryan: Then all of a sudden the hospital was empty. They told me to, to go home and, uh, cause they kind of said to temporary staff that we're not hiring you right now. Or not, but we're going to work you right now. So they couldn't tell me how long. We didn't know back then what that was going to look like. So I took a job at hospice at that time.

Ryan: And, uh, which was interesting because everybody was, people had been isolated. For a long time at this point, you know, especially towards the end. So I did hospice for about two and a half years. The hospitals are empty. People were stuck in their living rooms and hadn't seen their doctor. Hadn't seen a nurse, hadn't seen anybody for a long time.

Ryan: And [00:05:00] so it's just kind of like the theme of what it's been. It's me learning skills, adapting how to use those skills in new environment, new situations. I found myself as a, an ICU slash ER nurse walking into people's living rooms and they needed any help that they can get. So during that time as well, maybe part of the genesis of navigating wellness was my mom had, she'd been sick for a while, but she actually died in the middle of COVID.

Ryan: But seeing her go through the levels of, you know, going to the ER, because it was lung cancer that metastasized to her brain. So there's just lots of issues that come up with that. But the thing being that. Going into the hospital, having surgeries, having chemo, just doing a lot of different things. Going into the hospital, she never understood what was going on.

Ryan: The people that cared for her, I believe, truly cared for her. And I, this was a [00:06:00] juxtaposition for me because as an ICU nurse especially, I cared intensely for people for 12, 13, 14 hours at a time. One, maybe two people typically, but to my mom and I knew those people and I appreciated those people. And that was my craft.

Ryan: But to my mom, it was just being, it felt like being ping ponged around randomly, you know, day shift turns into night shift, ICU to the four, maybe, you know, she had going into rehab at the time, maybe discharge, which was an awful time. To, to be discharged because you were isolated for a couple of weeks as well whenever you had to go to a facility because this was in the middle of COVID.

Ryan: And I realized that as a nurse, my care mattered and it was intense and it was deep and it was genuine. And just to take the healthcare lid off of it, the consumer, my mother, the patient did not feel that. The disconnect and the [00:07:00] random just feeling like she was alone. Feeling she didn't understand what was going on, not knowing how to communicate with her doctors.

Ryan: On top of just, everything was harder. Seeing your doctors was harder, getting help was harder because everybody was in an isolated area. I kind of realized that health care providers care a lot. The system, I don't think necessarily cares. So going through that and having a hard time after my mom had died, having a hard time going back to the hospital, having a hard time working even for hospice at the time to where I was just feeling the, the system was a disconnect between the healthcare providers and the people that needed help.

Ryan: I think, you know, I read into that's when I met Janie Bailey, who's the co owner of this, and she's a care manager. Everybody kind of knows what a nurse is, but. You know, nurses look at medical things and care managers essentially just look at the non medical things that we need to take care of to keep people head above the [00:08:00] water.

Ryan: So, you know, whether that's, how's your insurance work or making sure that your appointments are organized, or, you know, is your, do you have housekeeping? Are you eating? There's a lot of other things besides just medical stuff that, that we really focus on. So we got together and I was just in this really raw spot of feeling like, you There's got to be a better way.

Ryan: I'd been hearing nurses talk about the way we would do it from day one. Yeah. Nurses are pretty trusty and just loud people. So I've been hearing for a long time, a lot of really smart people just talking about how crazy the system is or how this does not make sense and. And what do we do? And so, you know, I thought that my marketing and MBA were, we're kind of wasted time that that for you in my nursing career, but all that kind of jammed together and I, I dusted that off and applied both my kind of my business background with, with my nursing background and met Janie and she added some dimensions that.[00:09:00] 

Ryan: Nursing, when they got there on their own, and now we're three years into this, Liz, look at where we're in. Navigate well. Yeah. 

Paden: That's awesome, man. There's a couple, a couple of things I wrote down there really while you were talking and the whole medical system, right? Going through COVID. And of course, You know, for the listeners that don't know, my wife's a nurse practitioner and, and, and worked for the same university where I did and, and just navigating that whole, um, that whole time period, right?

Paden: Where you talked about hospitals being empty, like, I don't think many people realize, like, through COVID, like, you know, everybody's like, hey, stay home for the doctors and nurses, all this stuff. The doctors and nurses were all getting sent home and getting pay cuts. Um, 

Ryan: it was both, you know, honestly it was, it was herding cats, right?

Ryan: If you COVID was, you know, you're talking about into systems that are, that are designed to be, to pivot into large emergency type situations and you saw the whole, the whole system, right? Now pivot [00:10:00] extremely hard. There was, there was times that, I mean, there was months where the hospital was empty. But there were, there were times that the hospital was empty and then there was times where we didn't have beds and we didn't have vents and I can't imagine how hard it was to, to manage staffing and those types of situations.

Ryan: But. You know, I was a critical care nurse and, uh, you know, so ICU and I did ER and they were sending me home and they were putting in for people who don't know there are, there are different levels of care in the hospital and med surg is, uh, people are stable, but they're not, they're not home ready, but.

Ryan: You know, in the middle of the staffing crisis, they're sending, they're sending me home and they're putting med search nurses down in the ER to stretch their staffing. And for those that don't know what that is, I look at that as putting, putting staff in a dangerous position of not knowing what they're doing.

Ryan: But if you are, [00:11:00] and this is part of navigate wellness really as well, is that when you walk into the hospital, you don't know what nurse you're going to get. You don't know the doctor that you're going to get. And they've never met you probably in their life. And your life could easily hinge on the skills staff that you are randomly assigned upon entry, depending on who pulled your number, basically.

Ryan: Let's say you walked out of your house today and they arrested you for murder. I bet you would call your lawyer and you would call Goodwin. And whether you did it or not does not matter, right? Because there are serious implications. There's complex language and procedures involved. And again, the long term implications of those could be literally life and death situation.

Ryan: That's very similar to how random people have an emergency, walk in, here's your public defender, and not that public [00:12:00] defenders are bad, but if your life's on the line, you might not want to just grab the public defender, right? You want to know somebody that knows you and understands what you're doing, and cares about the outcome, and is invested in that outcome.

Ryan: And that's kind of what we say is like, we're your nurses. We're not replacing the emergency room, but when it's time to go, I'm here. I'm going to tell your nurses and doctors. You know, what medicines are taken, the problems that we've had recently, their goals of care, hey, they're either do not resuscitate or, you know, or do everything we're going to communicate with that family.

Ryan: And it's all stuff. I'm not replacing the current system. In that instance, I'm actually trying to help it. Run more efficiently and effectively. I'm scaling the hospital a lot of time in 

Paden: that situation. Mm-Hmm, , that's an interesting point. You know, and it's, you know, as a guy that works in professional services and has my whole career and, you know, different accountants and lawyers and all that stuff is, you realize, yeah.

Paden: It, it is just kind of all based [00:13:00] off the skill and advice you get from that person, you know, in the medical system. Right. You have people, like you said, people are randomly assigned. Stuff changes all the time and like, you probably know the stats better than I, but you hear stats all the time that like most deaths and like hospitals are just like flat out mistakes and, and like mistakes are going to happen and it's not like, oh, the providers are terrible or whatever, but the system, like there's so many different chaotic things going on there that those mistakes are going to happen, right?

Paden: Well, 

Ryan: if not only is it going to happen, but being a staff member that has made mistakes for sure. It's awful. It's an awful feeling. There's a lot of shame involved. Nurses can eat their own is a saying. Nurses eat their young. And you know, and we are hard on each other and sometimes the system feels punitive.

Ryan: So if I'm the practice, I'm the nurse that made a mistake and I'm feeling shame and possibly ridiculed and, and scared, what am I going to do? I'm going to cover that mistake up. Yep. Yep. Is that best for our [00:14:00] patient though? You're talking about stats that talk about the mistakes that we know. I wonder, not really you, right, the big you, I want to know how many mistakes are made and not known and what are those impacts, right?

Ryan: And I would be interested in creating a system that, that empowered people to own those mistakes and to fix those mistakes, not to hurt the nurse. We've got to start, we've got to create a system that. Allows people to be honest about things so that we can impact. 

Paden: Yeah. Get better. 

Ryan: Right. But it's just not the flow.

Ryan: Right. And then, you know, nurses, nurses and doctors, this is an interesting little recall about us is that nurses and doctors work for the hospital and not the patient. Our dynamic is interesting because you know, whether, wherever I go, I walk into the hospital, I walk into a doctor's appointment or a clinic or anything that we're doing, I work those clients.

Ryan: We're private paid. Those clients paid for that service. I work directly for that client. Part of it [00:15:00] is the nurse is supposed to advocate for that patient. And the doctor writes the orders. And if he writes an order that I think is going to hurt my patient, it is my duty to say no. And I took that part of the job.

Ryan: Probably more serious, probably a little more to heart. Picked off a few people, I bet. What's that? I bet 

Paden: you rubbed a few people the wrong way. 

Ryan: Well, and some of that was maybe, so again, I started in surgery, right? And surgery is pretty rough, you know, I don't know if you've seen, you know, all the medical specialties have their own like personality, you know?

Ryan: And surgery is a lot of, uh, a lot of surgeons who learned in a tent overseas and a military type. Situation because it's trauma and it's, you know, it's something that, so there's a lot of open dialogue, you know, and there's a lot of people bumping into each other. And if your argument holds water, it should withstand the scrutiny and it took years and crest, but, and I just thought that was normal, but there is a veracity [00:16:00] that, that I practice with that, you know, your ego or my ego should not dictate.

Ryan: This if you can't handle me asking some tough questions and how confident in your treatment plan. Are you right? Yeah Yeah, sometimes the treatment might be right, but if my patient doesn't want it and we call them clients So you're going back and forth on it, but but if my client doesn't want to Sorry, that's not your call.

Ryan: The system's very paternal and just will steamroll. It's very algorithms. It's, it's not malicious and nobody's, most people aren't trying to do it, but they're trying to get stuff done. There's a lot of volume, a lot of critical cases out there and they haven't, they don't know you from Adam and that's where, you know, we show up and we try to advocate and we do know them from Adam.

Ryan: We're on a first name basis. And we know how the sausage is made, and we understand how the system works, and we understand better than anybody what our patient wants, and when they go [00:17:00] home, we're going to be with them. Because that's kind of the other part of the model, is that wherever they go, I go. You go to the hospital, I'll come see you in the hospital.

Ryan: If you're at rehab, I'll come see you at rehab. If you're at home, absolutely, we'll see you at home. And we're really, we're the only people, everybody else is siloed off from each other. And people aren't communicating across those silos, right? We're the only one that, as we come with you, we understand all those places, but we understand you.

Ryan: And just, we're your medical team, we're your advocates, we're your representation. And when you go home, because we spent all that time with you, We're going to be able to care for you in a way that's safe and, um, improves outcomes, right? 

Paden: Yeah. I mean, you just provide the continuity of care, right? Like, it, it cuts down on so many of the mistakes or miscommunications.

Paden: You know, you have a client that has, you know, four different doctors for different reasons or what have you. Yeah. And you're, you're the one in there communicating, [00:18:00] translating all this stuff to the patient. Right. And, and really advocating for. 

Ryan: Right. Well, and there, a lot of times the good positions, you know, cause that's it, nurses asked me a lot, like, well, what do you, how does everybody treat you or handle you, you know, and good doctors and good nurses love us, right.

Ryan: They're happy. Cause I'm there to make their job easier. I'm not there to like. This is my where I 

Paden: question everything or what I'm in your 

Ryan: sandbox. Right. We're glad to be here. I'm here for client and to make your job as easy as possible. Cause I'm usually feeding information to the nurses and feeding the information to the physicians.

Ryan: We're shorthanding their whole job. They got to see a lot of people and I've got, this is my one. I'm here for this one. You have 299 other people. So what can we do to make it quick and easy and 

Paden: effective? And absolutely a lot of good stuff there, Ryan, you made a comment earlier about Being adaptive, and that's kind of been a theme throughout your life.

Paden: You hear the term, I guess, credited to Darwin or whatever, like survival of the fittest or whatever, but that's actually a misquote. [00:19:00] He never said survival of the fittest. He said the things that are the most adaptive and the ability to change, those are the things that survive and thrive, right? It's not about being fittest, it's about the ability to change, right?

Paden: The pivot, right? And because the ability to pivot allows you to just navigate the world because if you can't pivot, you're eventually going to run in something or somebody's going to run you over. And that is, like you said, it seems kind of be a theme of your life. You know, looking back at your life, what, what skill would you say you possess that has best helped you?

Paden: Or like, what, what would you say is your leading skill? 

Ryan: When things get harder, I tend to push harder. You know, there's times I'm not running right now, but there has been times I've worked up and done like half marathons and, and just have done things where you're, you're kind of pushing yourself looking for that next plateau up.

Ryan: But I have this little pit of fire that just lights up. When it pushes and it gets harder and it gets harder, some people, I think, want to slow down. And, you know, there's something in me that motivates me to [00:20:00] find the next gear. 

Paden: Yeah, you're leaning into it, right? And you're right, you know, most people in most situations, and we all do this in different areas, but like, as soon as we go up against a little bit of resistance, we either slow down, stop, or totally turn around, right?

Paden: But it's, it's really interesting if you just lean in, run through it. It's amazing how quick you can get through that and solve that, solve that problem just by facing it head on. Right. Yeah. I have a little anecdote that changed 

Ryan: my life. People have said I was a jack of all trades for a long time. I mean, people are kind of familiar with that part of it.

Ryan: And it was always kind of like, to me, it was always a backhanded compliment. I never enjoyed it. I don't think that's how people meant it, but there is a, there is almost a, A negative connotation to the idea of Jack of all trades, right? Master of none. Cause that's the, that's the next one. That's right.

Ryan: Well, and that's the, so here's the, it's actually not the final line. I'm going to butcher it. And so, you know, Let's see. It's Jack of all trades, master of none, but [00:21:00] better than a master of one. So that I heard that for the first time, that last part, and it was a, I forget her name, but she was an author and she was writing about William Shakespeare.

Ryan: And William Shakespeare, before he was the famous playwriter, he, uh, took any job at the theater that they would give him. He did props, he did, you know, the lighting, he did the costumes, and so then when it was his time to write the plays, he wrote it in a way that made the props work, made the costumes work, made the set work, he understood how important all the parts were, and he dedicated to each part of those, and it made him the greatest.

Ryan: He was never the greatest at props. He was never the greatest, uh, any individual piece, maybe even the writing. And I don't know if I can say that, but, but I would say that possibly that's what made him, that was two years ago. And that changed my life. 

Paden: Yeah. There's, uh, you [00:22:00] know, a guy that, I really respect and somewhat of like an intellectual hero to me is Charlie Munger, who passed away, I don't know, last year sometime or what have you, but you talk about jack of all trades.

Paden: His biggest thing was like studying all kinds of different areas. So like, say, psychology and marketing and finance and finance. All these different pieces, like, it's the people that are in the silos say that only work in psychology or only work in like different social areas or whatever, but it's the combinations of taking the lessons and learn from each one of these different areas of study and you combine those and that's when you really get closer to like what's the truth of the world and how it operates, right, and the ability to hold all these different ideas from all these different studies in place Um, actually allows you to see the world much closer to what it is and not how you want it to be.

Ryan: Well, again, that was a, it was marketing, NBA 

Paden: nurse. It all came back around 

Ryan: [00:23:00] and it really has been, uh, cause there were jobs that I was probably on a show, you know, are an NBA, there are, there are jobs in the hospital that you're kind of on a short list for. It just never felt right. It felt like I was, uh, I don't know.

Ryan: I'm a gut person. My gut, uh, my gut tells me if something's right or wrong, and then my brain builds the narrative. That's 

Paden: everybody. People think they make decisions, but really, like, we physically make a decision, and then our brain makes up a reason why there's it. And that is scientifically proven. 

Ryan: Is it?

Paden: That was just me. A lot, our logic we use is totally after the fact. Yeah, absolutely. After the fact, yeah. 

Ryan: I'm the big gut guy, and my gut tells me, and I listen. 

Paden: I want to give a great example of that fact to kind of prove the point. I heard this story from some other podcasts, but there was this guy that had this medical condition and like, after like 15 seconds after meeting somebody, he wouldn't remember them.

Paden: Like he had some short term memory, like completely gone. Like Ryan, you walk in the room, introduce [00:24:00] yourself. 10 seconds later, he doesn't know who you are, right? Yeah. So what they did to study this guy is, they had a doctor come in there to like, shake his hand. And the doctor had like a pen in his hand, like a pencil.

Paden: And the guy shook his hand and he, the doctor stabbed him with it. And he's like, ow, ow, you know, ow, right? And, of course, 10 seconds later, this guy doesn't remember any of this, right? So then, the doctor comes back in the room, reaches out his hand to shake the guy's hand, and the guy literally makes up this excuse and says, I don't shake doctor's hands.

Paden: That's so cool. And so, the amazing thing is, like, His mind made up that excuse, but his body knew, like, his mind didn't remember that thing, but his body knew, right? It's such a, such an interesting thing to where, like, logically, we make up our logic after the fact to justify whatever we just did. 

Ryan: I believe that.

Ryan: I buy every bit of that. I realized that because I can, I have, sometimes [00:25:00] people have said I have the gift of gab, you know, and that makes it dangerous because I can talk as a young age. I was real, I'm talking to myself into the wrong thing sometimes. Like I was so convinced I was so convinced myself so effectively that I would find out later how wrong it was.

Ryan: And it was honest. And now I think about it, it's almost a little self awareness, right? Oh, that's everything. Because right now in election season, people aren't. We can't, you see groups not able to like, and all they do is seek out information that confirms what they already believe. You know, that happens in medicine a lot.

Ryan: It's called confirmation bias, right? Which where, but Dr. Google, and honestly, it's Dr. Google plus, you know, we have some accessibility issues, but I'm not going to go into that, but, but on the other side of those accessibility issues, we almost have too much accessibility. I don't know if you've seen my Amazon clinics.

Ryan: But [00:26:00] you can go on there. You can have, uh, let's say, and even I could use this for like my clients. I thought about it before. It's like, if I go in and I see a rash, I can pull up Amazon clinics and there'll be headache footage, you know, every, did you do all the medical problems? I'll find a rash. You hope you click that you open up a list of positions that will, we'll see you in an hour, D as do, and, uh, could probably even write you a script.

Ryan: And that's really interesting to me because the way we've positioned our, the business and what we're doing, um, it's making, we can operate independently, usually using people's primaries and their team. But people do have strong goals of care sometimes, and now more than ever, patients have the ability to shop physicians.

Ryan: And those physicians never see you, never put hands on you, never like really know much about you, but I can [00:27:00] show you a rash and you can write a script and on you go. And I think that is one, I think physicians are actually becoming more replaceable in the equation. You can pull and plug physicians right now, and that's wild.

Ryan: That is wild. But also the fact that, you know, one thing that came from COVID was, you know, all the telemedicine as an example, just, I'm not against it, but we're seeing patients less. We're touching them with our hands less. We're not. You know, there it's a nursing, especially, but medicines, uh, it's a five senses deal and see stuff that there's things I hear, there was things I smell.

Ryan: And I know that if you're not a nurse, you don't, that doesn't, you didn't want to hear that. But like, I got to touch things and I guess I don't taste things, but everything else. But we do. And I agree that our model lays into that really 

Paden: well. I just, yeah, you've just seen so many different patients and cases and whatever.

Paden: It's like just pattern [00:28:00] recognition, right? You know, you see, oh, this feels like this or smells like that. Like, you know what I mean? Like, you're like, oh, I know what that is, right? 

Ryan: Well, I could be that to the doctors that aren't seeing it, aren't touching it. I don't replace physicians, right? I scale them. No, you guys have too many patients and they all, all those patients have got to go see you and it's gotta be on this 60 minute.

Ryan: And well, that just, that's a lot to ask some people that aren't doing very well. But I can tell you all those things. If I can be the nurse or the doctor's ears, eyes, nose. Then you can scale using telemedicine. I just, nurses are very siloed professions, right? I mean, so I think that's why, I think you'll see more people like us do what we're doing, but we are decently unique because I think you're seeing nurses and care managers design a, I mean, we're, this is the first time we've really been let at the adult table to design something to work from our perspective.

Ryan: Yeah. I think [00:29:00] people are happy and I think you're going to see more models kind of move that way. And I don't know that when hospitals or doctors design it, I think it'll, it'll turn out like hospitals and doctors design it. And I think if you let nurses and care managers designer, I think it's going to look like nurses and care managers design it.

Ryan: And I'm not trying to replace, we're trying to be the puzzle that fits in. So I don't see any of those people as my competitors, even though sometimes that maybe they are, but it's really just trying to scale. Yup. 

Paden: Ryan, I got one more question for you, man. 

Ryan: Yeah. 

Paden: What is a piece of advice you'd give to your younger self?

Ryan: You know, I think I probably spent too much time worrying about the big plan. There was times that, you know, it was in that, it was in marketing and public relations and I was at, you know, I did nonprofit and then I was in grad school and I was in nursing school and in ICU and ER and it felt. Chaotic and random.

Ryan: And it felt like, and this is part of being an entrepreneur is that I do [00:30:00] like every two or three years, I like a new little wrinkle. 

Paden: Yeah. 

Ryan: Well, something will, you know, stretch me out a little bit and I'm, I'm glad for all that. And I think, uh, just not worrying about. You know, how's this fit overall? Are you happy?

Ryan: Are you, are you doing something that's of worth in this world? And honestly, there was time there where it was, I was just looking for impact for so long. What's the best way or how can I make the biggest impact in people's lives? And, uh, yeah, I think I was just worried about the stringing it together and it kind of just happened to me and like 

Paden: things do, you know, but 

Ryan: yeah.

Paden: It's always interesting and we kind of kind of have conversations on the podcast about that. It's like, you know, you're like in the middle of it and trying to connect dots into the future of like, okay, how does this today help me going forward? But like, you never really can do that, right? You never can see, okay, what happened today?

Paden: Like, how is that going to play out in the future? Because there is so much randomness to it and stuff that we don't have any control over. But, you know, [00:31:00] We can always look back and connect all the dots, right? Where it's like, Oh, I jumped from the ICU to the ER to the whatever and say, and make a story out of all of it and say, Hey, look, it all happened for a reason.

Ryan: Well, you know, there's, there's, there's a point to the, the bigger we get. So Ryan Hopper, individual, I pivot. Great. I love it. I enjoy the new anyway. I get excited. I get energy from it. It's fun. Great. But the bigger the organization gets, not all individuals are going to want to. So you have to be thoughtful about like, uh, where are we growing?

Ryan: How are we growing? Are the roles changing within that, that growth? Um, and does that, can that individual holding that role, is that an optimal fit? Or are we square peg round hole with some folks and, uh, maybe a newer problem as we get bigger and we're kind of. Trying to take the next step of scaling. I mean, it's, you know, we're small, but, which makes it probably more painful than, [00:32:00] than anything, but, but it is, I have to think about the, the machine.

Ryan: I think of it as the boat that we're building, you know? Yeah. You got to think about how's the, how's the crew, how's the boat going to handle that turn? 

Paden: Yeah, you know, entrepreneurs, yeah, we get all excited and create up all these ideas and, um, we need to make sure we're not just leaving like our whole team behind just chasing us trying to figure out what to do.

Paden: what we're doing. Have you ever read rocket fuel? 

Ryan: So that's a big, that was a, that really opened my eyes. And when it was, uh, the visionary, if they aren't connected, he, the visionary will take off running basically. And, and there, yeah. And, and leave, 

Paden: leave chaos. And then I'll sneak your boat and my, you know, Well, Ryan, is there anything else you want to share with the audience?

Paden: You know, also, you know, what's the best way people can connect with you, man? 

Ryan: Yeah. So if you want to connect, we're on Facebook. We're on our, our website is www. mynavigatewellness. [00:33:00] com. We feel like we've Entered a disruptive model, just disrupting people, not being able to live at home and having to go to facilities.

Ryan: Um, but being able to, you know, when you buy your, your final house, let's make it your final house. And that might mean making preparations and living until you die at home. And, you know, just helping do that with people or keeping married couples together and my people knowing my first name and me knowing theirs has been just almost a therapeutic experience as a crested nurse, you know, so, well, you have to crest up when you're ICU and ER and hospitals or any of that type of stuff.

Ryan: There's others, but it's, you know, and then you, uh, you start referring to people as member bed eight or bed five and they, you know, you compartmentalize just so you can go home and, you know. Be normal, right? So, but now knowing my people, uh, the losses hurt a little more, but some of the victories are much more celebrated [00:34:00] and, and honestly, uh, we've kind of made it to where death isn't as loss as much as it is, is the next part of the plan and we can do this with the way you want to, if we can't control it and we can do it with dignity and, uh, feel good about what we're doing.

Ryan: Yeah, it's exciting. 

Paden: Ryan, man, I appreciate you coming on. Uh, guys, listeners, uh, yeah, great conversation here. Um, and check out, uh, the company, especially if you're local here in Columbia, Navigate Wellness. And thanks, Ryan. Uh, appreciate you, man. Thank you, Paden. Thank you so much for listening to the podcast.

Paden: If you found it valuable, please rate, review, and share it. That is the best way to help us build this and reach more people. As we're trying to accomplish our goal of help creating more healthy, wealthy, and entrepreneurial. You can follow us on social media by searching for me, Paden Squires, or going to www.padensquires.com On the website and social media we're always sharing tips of personal growth and there we can actually interact. I'm looking forward to it. [00:35:00] Thanks guys.