“The strength of the team is each individual member. The strength of each member is the team.” –Phil Jackson
So we did it! We got the job! Hard part is over right? Well no. Not even a little. Anyone who has ever started a job knows that there is no easy slide into position. There is an over-stimulation of the brain or body much like being immersed into another country and told to learn the culture and language in a matter of weeks. Luckily the human brain is adaptable as are we.
But then orientation/training is over. The speed of learning slows and we are left sitting there in silence time to time to figure out the solution to one of life’s biggest mysteries. For me, a nurse, it is always going back to the idea that I blogged about some weeks back. Eating Our Young is what we do best. And sadly it doesn’t matter the gender most times but this time I want to take a step on my small box and talk woman to woman. WHAT are WE doing?! We are already in an uphill battle in the world and yet we would rather throw someone down the hill instead of build them up.
Every day we are surrounded by competition. If someone is smarter than us, younger than us, prettier than us, or has the boss’s attention more than us then there must be a sinister reason right? Surely that young attractive person can’t be smarter than we are or better at a top job. That is impossible! And so then we make up this idea that this or that person does not do the job right, isn’t a right fit, so on. And on and on and on and on. So I’ve decided I am going to study everything I can when it comes to building a good team and culture around me. Again, easier said than done.
“Alone we can do so little, together we can do so much.” –Helen Keller
If I can build up and educate the weakest of us, work to others’ strengths, then that only benefits me. Imagine that! If we work together. If we as women build each other up and help each other achieve our professional goals, we can move mountains and change the face of nursing. Why must the stereotype be fat, lazy, eating our young kind of people? We are SO MUCH BETTER than that. As nurses (LPN, CNA, RN, NP) we worked hard to get those letters. We worked hard to learn and get where we are. If we all stood up together as one voice and even from differing opinions, get along and do what we set out to do, we could change the face of the world. We are many and we are strong.
“To do what nobody else will do, in a way that nobody else can, in spite of all we go through; is to be a nurse.” — Rawsi Williams
A Girl Named Bee 