Keeping an eye on the prize (and the road)
Three words: Ophthalmic nurse truckers. Feel like you’ve seen and heard it all yet? Not even close. I love uncollapsing distinctions. My business partner Lisa is a hard-core business strategist…and a sultry tanguera. My husband is a corporate fund-raising genius who can drum Zeppelin’s The Ocean like it’s his…dare I say it? Job.
These are but a couple of people that I know who would love to somehow conjoin their loves with their work…and find ways to infuse the passions they feel for their loves in the everyday workday.
AND there is a merry band of ophthalmic nurses…(could this be more specific and specialized ?) that have found a way to merge their love of their cause (compassionate eye care for all) and their love of the road (I hear strains of the Everley Brothers…is that just me?).
So, imagine this: CNIB identifies the need for a public service for remote communities in northern Ontario. Specifically, eye assessments and treatments of certain diagnosed conditions. But, how do you provide the expertise of highly skilled specialists in places like Moosonee and Kapuskasing? No problem. Enlist the services of ophthalmologists from various Ontario cities and cart them around for eight months of the year in an 18-wheeler retrofitted like a medical clinic. They will service some patients by fitting them with new lenses. They will prescribe drops for early-stage glaucoma. And some will even perform on-the-spot surgery for minor conditions.
How do they get from A to B? The answer? Highly impassioned and qualified nurses who not only provide outstanding care for their patients, but ALSO have their truckers’ licenses so they can drive the whole show from town to town. HONK HONK. In my mind, I imagine the CNIB Eye Van missive goes something like this (and may well be something unrequited here for this trucking mama…though parallel parking often seems thrilling enough for me):
I’m gonna back off the hammer, for now. I’ve got a fat load of purpose and I’m going to have to log some z’s before next clinic.
Down’n gone.
CNIB has connected with Aviva Community Fund…a cool and novel way to reward fresh and innovative ideas (because let’s face it…golf classics are a bit of a snore) with new bucks. And boy howdy, is it needed.
Bravo, bravo, bravo to all of you ophthalmic trucking nurses! For finding a way to make it happen and for finding a way to make us care! We vote for you!
And for us mere mortals (or VW sedan drivers): as part of my quintessential questions, and even before I start coaching people, I ask them to identify what is so easy for them that they don’t even know it’s their gift.
So, I ask, what are YOU always being thanked for? How can you find a way to make that part of you that simply revel in, to merge with what you simply do…and even much much more?!
A cheesecake-baking personal trainer? Bring it! A eukele-playing librarian? Uh HUH!
Is there something ELSE that you’ve often wondered about but don’t quite GET how it fits tidily into your plan? (Hint…this may well be your personal brand of genius…RUN…don’t walk…towards it).
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