The following out-of-work period was difficult but gave him [DeVore] some real exercise in a new kind of resonance:

The unsuccessful job-hunting became very frustrating, and I became very depressed. So much so that I made myself susceptible to a virus that resulted in spinal meningitis. And I was laid down flat in bed for three months with no income coming in. Nothing coming in at all and a wife who was pregnant, mortgage payments that were overdue, and every time I started to stand up my head just throbbed and I couldn’t do anything. All I could do was read. And so I had my wife go to the library.

I said, “Get me every book you can on every great person, every person who has been successful.” In these three months I devoured about twenty-five autobiographies and biographies of great people. And every time I read these biographies or autobiographies I identified with these people. These people became models.

“I knew I wasn’t the same Caster. I was still nursing my injured leg and I was grossly overweight, but all I needed was a chance. The director offered me a three-year scholarship. I would study sports science. Soon after, I met with Jean in person. Even seeing how out of shape I was, he believed in me. Potch was about 180 kilometers away from Pretoria. Violet wasn’t happy about the distance, but I would no longer be sitting.

Jean is criticizing herself for doing something harmless while at the same time rebelling against doing the one thing she has to do to keep her medical license. She is proclaiming her innocence in regard to the opioid prescription but pleading guilty to watching too much TV. Things are all twisted, and I do my best to straighten them out. “There’s a big difference between turning off the TV because you are tired and turning it off because you are supposed to,” I say. Jean has every right to watch as much TV as she wants; it is her only pleasure these days, the only relief from the surveillance she is under. I continue to talk with her about changing the story she is telling herself, about treating this time as a retreat (with TV!) into which she can surrender. Surrender becomes a theme we can explore. Jean is a conscientious and experienced clinician. She is devoted to her patients, and she knows that clinical work is much more important, and meaningful, than the electronic medical records being demanded of her. But right now, for the next year and a half, the medical records have to have priority. Can she submit to that with patience? Can TV be her reward? Or will her sense of the injustice perpetrated upon her paralyze her even further?

Habit 5: Seek First to Understand, Then to be Understood - principles of Empathic Communication

“Suppose you’ve been having trouble with your eyes and you decide to go to an optometrist for help. After briefly listening to your complaint, he takes off his glasses and hands them to you. “Put these on,” he says. “I’ve worn this pair of glasses for ten years now and they’ve really helped me. I have an extra pair at home; you can wear these.” So you put them on, but it only makes the problem worse.

“This is terrible!” you exclaim. “I can’t see a thing!”

“Well, what’s wrong?” he asks. “They work great for me. Try harder.”

“I am trying,” you insist. “Everything is a blur.”

“Well, what’s the matter with you? Think positively.”

“Okay. I positively can’t see a thing.”

“Boy, are you ungrateful!” he chides. “And after all I’ve done to help you!”

What are the chances you’d go back to that optometrist the next time you needed help? Not very good, I would imagine. You don’t have much confidence in someone who doesn’t diagnose before he or she prescribes.

Chapter 10: Creating a Culture of Collaboration

“I also had a lot of faith in the guy I was talking to. His name was Leo Robitschek. Maybe you’ve heard of him—he’s one of the foremost mixologists in the world now. But at the time, he was working at EMP while putting himself through medical school.

Leo had always been full of great ideas, but he was also the squeakiest wheel, the person on the staff who never failed to let you know why what you were doing was fundamentally flawed and never going to work.