when failure isn’t enough to keep us down – with annie porter

In this episode, Jo is joined by Annie Porter who shares her unique perspective on the health profession. Annie has experienced both sides of the health profession, as a nurse and as a patient (after a serious injury left her with a disability) and she now brings her experience and insight to her work as the owner of Porter Practice Management, a values-led business committed to supporting allied health professionals with their business needs.

Jo and Annie discuss the importance of understanding and constantly checking in with your values, why failure is never fatal and how the medical profession’s ethos of ‘do no harm’ can negatively impact a health professional’s perspective of failure in their career and life.

You can find Annie Porter via her website https://www.porterpracticemanagement.com/ or email her at annie@porterpracticemanagement.com.

Resources mentioned in this episode:

• Retreat (coming soon)
• Energy Activators Workshop
• Future-Proofing Health Professionals Facebook group
• The Entrepreneurial Clinician book

If you know you need more support, please visit my website at https://jomuirhead.com

Finally, if you loved this episode, please make sure you subscribe and leave us a review.

TRANSCRIPT:

Jo: You have found the Entrepreneurial Clinician Podcast. I am your host, Jo Muirhead, and I am thrilled today as anyone who ever hosts a podcast says about any guest they ever have because we choose our guests on purpose. But this is a guest today that you may not be aware about. She’s a bit of a hidden, best kept secret. But I want to bring her out onto an international stage because Annie has some incredible insights to offer and also has her own history and story around entrepreneurial thinking. But I’m not going to introduce her. I’m going to get Annie to introduce herself. Take it away, Annie.

Annie: Thanks so much, Jo. My name is Annie Porter. I’m based in rural New South Wales in Australia. I am the director of my own company of Porter Practice Management of which I support a numerous health professionals across Australia to be the best that they can be for not only themselves, but for their participants. And I’ve come to this point in my business journey because of injury and illness. And it has been really inspiring the way that the community has lifted me up and been able to enable me to work still as a nurse within a new area.

Jo: Yeah, that’s very cool. See, I, I knew you would be able to do so much better than me as well. So rural New South Wales. So if people don’t know where rural New South Wales is, think of Sydney and then go, what, eight hours West? That’s right.

Jo: <Laugh>. Yeah. eight hours West <laugh>. It’s a long way. And you are a nurse.

Annie: Yes, I am. I still have my clinical nurse specialist qualifications. So I studied nursing in my local university of my town of 20,000 <laugh>. And I was lucky enough to also have the opportunity to further my studies in law and computer science at that time. And I went on to do some postgraduate qualifications through my university as well and through other online portals. And this is all before Covid, this is before while we were still sitting in lecture halls, even though it feels like a lifetime ago, when I finished my studies just 15 years ago.

Jo: Wow. Okay. 15, I’m sorry. 15 years ago. You’re a baby <laugh>.

Annie: That’s true.

Jo: But I love it. I love it because I’ve made this very clear that we need new thinking so that we don’t keep repeating all patterns of behaviour. So when you decided that you were going to go and do nursing, not to mention computer science and law, but let’s just stick with nursing for the moment. Was that something that you had thought about for a while, or, yeah, I really want to do nursing or was it kind of like, oh, I’ll do this for a while and see how it goes?

Annie: Yeah, so it was always going to be nursing or teaching. And I was raised in small business. My thing is that I grew up underneath the pie warmer. Yes. So I always knew that there was going to be an opportunity to influence people’s lives on a day-to-day basis. And that’s really important to me. It’s a legacy that’s been passed on through my grandmother who was a nurse as well. And she continues to inspire me. Unfortunately, she passed away of cancer when I was just little. But my father is an absolutely incredible man, and he has empowered me to be the nurse that I can be based on his experiences. And then those that I’ve had whilst in primary care in the community, whilst in my lecturing roles at university and mentorship, but also very much in my hands-on roles working for the blood bank and also in surgical and ICU areas, which I very much enjoyed. There was a really big feeling of satisfaction that came from solving a physical problem for someone’s body system. And that was really empowering to me. If I could make that person leave their situation, whatever it was a broken toe or an asthma attack, feeling as though they’d been loved and they’d been cared for and they’d been heard and seen, that’s my primary drive in life.

Jo: Wow. So thank you. And no wonder you and I get on so well.

Annie: <Laugh> Indeed.

Jo: <Laugh>. That’s awesome. So there was a day when doing that type of nursing became no longer possible?

Annie: Yeah.

Jo: You want to share a little bit about that?

Annie: Absolutely. Yeah. So I had an awful injury that I sustained to my left leg in a recreational environment, thankfully not nursing which required numerous surgeries. And since then I have developed a chronic nerve pain disability, which limits my mobility significantly. And I really had to reassess my delivery of support to clients. You know, this is pre Covid. The online health world pre-Covid existed of course, but I didn’t understand how that was going to be possible to get clients to engage on that same sort of the same sort of level that is empowering to their lives and helps fulfill my sense of purpose. My mobility being taken away was a pretty huge thing. I was wheelchair bound for a couple of years, and on occasion I still have to use those assistive devices, but certainly it’s opened my eyes up even further to the lives of some of our participants and the people that we can help.

Because having a lived understanding, I lived with my mother who has multiple chronic conditions and I always lived as a sort of a carer role as well. But having those lived experiences as yourself, especially as a health professional, then dealing on the inside of the health world being a patient, it’s really hard. It’s really hard. There’s certain expectations put upon you to understand things and where they talk to you with all these science terms and I just want to hear how it’s going to make me feel or how I’m going to get outta bed the next day. And those sort of things can lead you down a really dark path. It’s really important to reach out to your support communities. I still see my psychologist on a regular basis to help me learn how to deal with such a significant change in my life. I have a nearly nine year old son as well. And we are an active family and my partner and it certainly has changed our lives, but it also led me to where I am today. And I’ve never been happier in my role or more fulfilled in what I’m doing now. I work with 18 different clients across Australia, and I have the ability to directly influence over 8,000 participants in our healthcare system. And I’m blessed every day to have that opportunity.

Jo: Wow. Annie, the fact that you can rattle off those types of numbers just astounds me. So in my research when I was putting my book together The Entrepreneurial Clinician, I understood that clinicians were very good at perceiving failure as devastating.

Annie: Absolutely.

Jo: And I’ve worked with enough health professionals over my rehab career to know that there is such an entanglement between our identity and our work which may be healthy, may not be healthy, a podcast for another day, but when we’re told as health professionals, you can’t do it this way anymore, that can feel like you’ve failed. Right?

Annie: Failure is never fatal, Jo <laugh>, I use this acronym for my son all the time. FAIL: first attempt in learning, right? That’s our first attempt in learning in this new environment. I think that there certainly needs to be significant work done internally to be able to overcome the perceived barriers that come with significant change in any business setting or health setting as it may be. I think that failure is such a taboo topic. Like we don’t talk about it, we don’t talk about how many mistakes we’ve made or where that’s led us to. And I think that that’s really sad. And I very much respect what you are doing, Jo, which is bringing these ideas and concepts forefront to multiple people internationally, to be able to have that understanding that we are more than the sum of our parts.

Jo: Oh gosh, yes. <Laugh>, thank you. I’m so engaged in the conversation here. I forgot where I was supposed to go next. <Laugh>.

So one of the things that I often say is for health professionals, we get so caught up in this sense of failure. And there’s a few reasons for that. One is as health professionals, if we fail on the job, it can have really drastic consequences.

Annie: Absolutely. Oh gosh, yes. You know, in a primary care sense of way, you are responsible for people’s lives. Exactly.

Jo: Yeah. So we are taught about that from day one. It’s like, do no harm. Do no harm, do no harm. Sacrifice yourself to do no harm. Sacrifice your family to do no harm. And I think if we get those messages strongly enough, <laugh>, because I don’t know about you, but I worked in hospitals for a long time, and one of the key things that I kept getting told is, if we don’t do this, someone will die.

Annie: That’s correct. Absolutely. And it is drilled into you from day one, the first day that you walk on campus for your undergrad. Or attend your first TAFE lesson. These things are certainly very present and forefront. And the bureaucracy wants you essentially to lose everything about who you are because you must do this role. And I think that that’s really sad and really disappointing because so much of who we are can influence and support and encourage and empower our roles, within the community. It’s taking that risk to be innovative, innovative and creative in your role. Yes. While still doing no harm, but one of my favourites is ‘be the change that you want to see in the world’. And so I actively live with that principle in my personal and professional life every day and making sure that that’s still aligns with my values of love and integrity and honesty and transparency.

And being able to apply those in different situations looks different. It looks different now for me than it did in a primary care facility. Healing is not, you get better and then you’re good. You know, there’s so many pitfalls. It’s a rollercoaster ride, and we continue to live with that day in and day out from the day of diagnosis, whether it’s ourselves or our partners or our children or our community. There’s somebody out there that’s influenced you, that has to change their role for whatever reason. We can’t know what’s going on behind the scenes. And all we can do is love and support them in the best way that we can to encourage them to be their best self.

Jo: Absolutely. So you’ve come from this place where you wanted to be a nurse, you trained to be a nurse, and it was hands-on what I call hands-on nursing. You were by the bedside, you were holding the buckets. You were, you know, holding the bloody mess.

Annie: Yeah, that’s right.

Jo: To now being in a very different role. So as the owner of a practice management company, you come alongside businesses like my own, and you make sure that you clean up the mess that I create. No, I’m kidding. But no, seriously, I’m not really kidding. <Laugh>, but you help businesses be the best that they can. But I remember when you said that to me once, and I think I started to tear up. It’s like, Jo, if I can free you up from this stuff and help you manage this stuff better, you guys can go and be better at what you’re really skilled at. Cause it’s obviously not filing.

Annie: <Laugh>.

Jo: That’s a standard joke, Jo. And her filing.

Annie: Oh, it’s abysmal, but that’s ok. Because it’s one of my strengths. So I think from moving from yes, hands-on nursing into administration I did some further studies, of course cause I do love to upskill myself. I did some further graduate certificates and qualifications because I recognise the need for innovation in within the industry of online support and quality services. Shouldn’t be rare. It shouldn’t be the hardest thing to come by <laugh>. It should actually be the standard.

Jo: Yeah. Preach. It’s like I just spent a day in a hospital yesterday and walked away surprised that everyone was kind.

Annie: Yeah. I’ve just supported my dad through three months of chemo and radiotherapy for his prostate cancer. And we have come across the most beautiful, loving and supportive people. And, you know, you’ve got to be the right sort of people to work in cancer in the cancer industry. How very terrible it is that it’s an industry. I pray every day for that we find the cure for cancer tomorrow. And I think that there’s that opportunity to overcome the ownership of the health delivery method. The shaking up, the preconceived notion of the client getting what they paid for rather than the best possible vision driven support with transparency and full accountability is actually what everyone deserves at the very least.

Jo: So how has your experiences as a nurse, but then as a patient of health services, informed the way you have created this brand new business that now supports 8,000 participants in our health system?

Annie: That’s a great question.

Jo: I didn’t prepare you for that question <laugh> because I’m mean and nasty like that.

Annie: Love that

Jo: What was it that’s informed you? What have you brought with you? might be a better way of asking that question.

Annie: The strong building blocks of what I was exposed to as a patient versus what I thought we were delivering as the deliverers, the nurses, the primary care clinicians, the immunization nurse, the IICU nurse, those things built upon, they created the base standard, the founding building blocks of my business so that it can be ever changing and adapting to how quickly the industry moves. Yes. Sometimes in my niche area is the National Disability Insurance Scheme in Australia, which is our federally funded body that supports people living with disability. To get onto such a scheme is a nightmare. Staying on such a scheme and receiving the supports that you deserve is really difficult and hard work. And then I see the OTs and the speechies and the physios and the psychologists and the psychiatrists and the art therapists and the social workers who are all fighting against the system to try to understand how they can best provision supports for these people.

I guess having that experience on the inside has certainly broadened the capabilities of my business because we have that lived experience. I have a dear friend of mine who’s a nurse, who’s a veteran and she served our country very proudly, but she’s living with PTSD from her time serving as medical support on the frontline. And I hear in her stories and the way that she interacts with clients on a very base level, that level of respect and understanding. You can’t buy that, you can’t teach that. That sort of stuff is really, it’s innate on who you are. My subcontractors. I work with amazing people. Our visions absolutely have to align in every way to be able to work together.

And I’m lucky enough that I can be quite choosy with the clients that I choose to bring on. In fact, my books are closed. Very exciting times, <laugh> to have only identified those people whose visions align with mine, like the vibe check, I call it. Because I need them to understand that there is so much more than the failure of what you can’t do. It’s what you can. It’s how the community builds, builds you up and your illness and your disability and your injury does not restrict you from being the best version of yourself. They can distract you from what you believed or what you thought was your only path. But in fact, in my instance, and I hope so much for everybody listening, that it’s their experience as well. It actually leads you to fulfillment, personal, professional, financial family. Like my son wants to be a nurse. And having that opportunity to have him say that, and I talk about things with him that I’ve experienced in our world because it’s important for him to know, it’s important for him to learn about the injustices of the health system so that he can one day lead the fight in the next generation.

Jo: Goodness me, Annie, this is such a powerful conversation, and I’ve been taking notes while you’ve been talking. I loved how you talk about the vibe check. Congratulations on closing your books.

Annie: Oh, thank you so much, <laugh>. It’s very exciting.

Jo: How long have you been in this business now?

Annie: It’s been 10 months since I opened my business.

Jo: Yeah. 10 months. You’ve got subcontractors. You were doing very unique work. So much more than a virtual assistant. Can I just say that? <Laugh> so much more than a virtual assistant and in 10 months you’ve been able to get to a point where you can close your books.

Annie: That’s correct. We are financially secure.

Jo: Yeah. That’s just outstanding. And the way you have done this is by understanding your values, which are exactly the same values you had in nursing.

Annie: Yes. Correct.

Jo: Like, because our values aren’t dependent on the organisation we work for.

Annie: So true.

Jo: And they’re not dependent on the career that we have. I mean, they might be different priorities at times, but essentially our values don’t change, right?

Annie: Absolutely. I feel as though I hope that I’ve lived authentically with love every day of my life. And I know that there were some days after my initial diagnosis when I didn’t love myself, and that’s when I wasn’t being true to my values and I wasn’t being true to those of my family or my profession. And it took a bit to come back to realisation how to find that how to find that love in that gratitude. But I’m very, very lucky that I have a supportive family and that the online delivery mode that I moved into became a family in itself. The health industry in Australia is very small. Yes. Especially within the NDIS. The NDIS, everybody knows everything that’s going on, which is how it needs to be so that we can provide the best care to our participants. And so because things seem to change so slowly, but then new policies and procedures will drop tomorrow that no one knew about. So you need to be able to have that adaptability and have that creativity to take those risks and apply them with your best interests at heart, so that you can provide the care that people deserve, whether or not it’s rehab counselling, whether or not it’s physiotherapy, whether or not it’s psychology. And a lot of these industries and including nursing, we developed this vicarious trauma through what our clients have been through. There are instances where I’m dealing with a participant of a client who has a disease similar to mine or has been through something similar to mine. Whether or not I choose to share about my experience is certainly a situational conversation, you know? But on many instances when I choose to be vulnerable, I find that not only does it sort of induce respect, even though they may not like what you’re saying, they still respect that you’ve said it, but then it empowers both of us.

Jo: What an amazing statement. This whole conversation, I’ve just written it here for myself. This whole conversation, Annie, is causing me to check in with myself. Of course. It’s causing me to check in with myself around what I perceive my influence to be. Like you mentioned, I’m still struck by the fact that you knew that you were influencing about 8,000 people. Like you are supporting businesses. I know that if I help one person, that one person will take that home to that family. And then that family will take it to schools and workplaces, and then that community is getting supported. But I know that I can’t do enough of what I want to do just as one person, which is why I’ve chosen to go out to the health professional community and go, wait, I need you to stick around because three years post-graduate is not experience. And I don’t want to be the 18 year old lady needing the experienced health professional getting it from a new grad. I’m sorry. It’s very selfish motivation here. But then it’s also watching what health professionals are having to grapple with on a day by day basis. But still coming back to the fact that the systems aren’t great. In fact, they’re downright unfair and unjust at times.

Annie: Yes, they are.

Jo: But what, what can I do? Do I have a role here? Not even what can I do to fix it, but do I have a role here? Is there a role here? This is where I start. And then it’s usually, well, yes I do. What is that role? And for me right now, it’s not clinical work because I know that’s not safe for me. And if it’s not safe for me, it’s not going to be safe for clients. So I don’t provide clinical services, but I can support those who do.

Annie: I guess identifying those boundaries is really important. Yeah. And I think some of your teachings in regards to preventing burnout and energy activation, those sort of courses that I’ve done with you myself, and I’ve brought home those principles personally and professionally to my family and my business have been incredibly important. I think we need to continue to have these conversations on a daily basis. We need to continue to be the popup that won’t go away when you click the little x button. I want to be the spam popup that says, listen to yourself, listen to your values, act with authenticity and doing so there, the sky’s the limit.

Jo: That’s another great visual. Imagine if we had a popup that was, Hey, you awesome person, check in with yourself today because you’re doing great work instead of ‘buy my tshirt’ <laugh>.

Annie: That’s right.

Jo: So Annie, for the people listening to this podcast who may be sick or injured and thinking that my life is miserable, I can’t be a health professional anymore because I can’t do it the way I used to do it, terrified of their future. If there’s one thing that you want these people to know right now, what would that be?

Annie: Trust yourself and take the leap. The community will support you to reach your goals and they will inspire your dreams of what is possible within health delivery.

Jo: Okay, we’re going to leave that there. Now, the second most important question, what’s your favourite coffee?

Annie: <Laugh> I’m a double shot soy. Flat white. Thank you very much, Jo.

Jo: Excellent. I assume we can get these in Armadale?

Annie: <Laugh>. Yes. From the four coffee shops. Yes. Watch out

Jo: <Laugh>. That’s very cool. Now Annie, you have told us that your books are closed, but if there are people listening to this episode today who either want to go on a wait list or reach out to you in some way, what’s the best way that they can do that?

Annie: Absolutely. I’m on LinkedIn. My website is currently under development. I’ve been a little bit busy. But porterpracticemanagement.com. Get you in touch with me. I’d love to have a chat about what are your struggles, what are your barriers, what are your boundaries? And how can we work on that together? I can have that hour with you, free of charge, to be able to help you identify, re-identify your purpose after injury, illness, disability, or just re-identify that after under the mountain of admin work that can come with working in health <laugh>. Then I’d be more than happy to do so. Please email me. I’d love to hear your stories. I’d love to connect with you. And that’s porterpracticemanagement.com. I think that the more that we continue to talk about these things together, the less taboo it is, the less scary it is. The knowledge that, like this podcast, that there are others that are out there who are trying to help each other as health professionals, it wouldn’t exist without you, Jo. So thank you so much for everything you do because you are an inspiring, internationally acclaimed person, and I’m very, very lucky that I get to call you my friend and colleague.

And I think that there are so many opportunities and I hope one of the things that I’ve discussed today will be able to help someone in need be able to listen in and hear that failure is not fatal. Remember that failing is the first attempt in learning. And having that opportunity, having that innovation, having that creativity spark again, that’s what we are looking for. It might take you a week, it might take you five years, it might take you 10 years, and that’s okay because everyone’s journey is individual. But please know that we are out here to help you.

Jo: That’s wonderful. Annie, thank you so much for agreeing to be on this podcast with me today for sharing so openly. Annie’s email address will be in the show notes. So if you’re sitting there trying to work out her accent, that’s okay. We will have spelt it for you. If you’ve got any questions about this episode, if you want to get to know Annie, she’s in the Future-Proofing Health Professionals’ Facebook group. And I know that if you tagged her with a question in that group, she will answer you. She will. She’s nodding ahead at me going, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Annie: Yeah, please.

Jo: If you want to continue this conversation, not just with me, but also with Annie, get in there, get involved, ask the questions. Cause it’s quite obvious that she’s not scared of the questions.

So until next episode, go be your awesome self.