THE YEAH, BUT PODCAST WITH MARC A. WOLFE

Dr. Herman Williams thought his dreams were over when health issues forced him out of surgical residency, but that crisis became the turning point that led him to his real calling. In this raw conversation, he shares how sometimes our greatest failures become the foundation for a life we never imagined.

About Herman Williams

Herman Williams is currently the President of HW Healthcare Solutions (HWHS), a Nashville-based healthcare consulting firm specializing in key management solutions for Hospitals, Physician practices, and other Healthcare entities. He was formally the Chief Physician Executive of The Hardenbergh Group, the leading provider of healthcare professional staffing, providing consulting services, and assisting with External Peer Review. He also served in the role of Managing Director for the Nashville Healthcare practice as well as Chief Physician Executive for all of BDO USA, the fifth largest professional services firm in the United States.

He brings more than 25 years of healthcare leadership and management experience in medical staff consulting, strategic planning, Executive Coaching, and hospital operations as a senior physician executive. Dr. Williams’ operational roles include oversight of rural, urban, Community, Academic, for-profit, and Non-profit Healthcare Organizations. He has overseen medical staff operations in over 43 facilities in 30 states throughout his career.

Education

M.D. – Boston University School of Medicine, Boston, MA

M.B.A. – University of Washington, Seattle, WA

M.P.H. – Harvard School of Public Health, Boston, MA

B.A. – Amherst College, Amherst, MA

Transcript

Dr Herman Williams 0:00

I refuse to be disabled. I refuse to be a victim of my medical diagnosis. And I just made a decision there that I was going to rehab myself and I was going to find another career.

Marc Wolfe 0:12

Welcome to the Yeah, But Podcast where leaders transform excuses into breakthroughs. I’m Marc Wolfe, host and author of Yeah, But. I interview New York Times best selling authors, human rights activist, former CIA director, and everyone in between our guests share how they overcome doubts. Like I’m not ready to Yeah, but I don’t have time join us to learn how you can do the same. Our guest today is Dr. Herman Williams. Dr Williams, I’d love our guests to know a lot about who you are, and tell me two things about you personally, so people can jump in and know a little bit more about you.

Dr Herman Williams 0:50

Let’s see two personal things. One is 33 years ago, and 30 days I suffered a cardiac arrest, and that changed the whole trajectory of my life, and it really shapes how I approach things now through gratitude, because I was able to be resuscitated. The second thing is, is I use that gratitude to try and give to others, and hopefully they can benefit from the lessons that I’ve learned.

Marc Wolfe 1:22

Wow. Thank you for that. And tell us two things about you professionally.

Dr Herman Williams 1:27

Professionally, I was trained as an orthopedic surgeon and was a chief medical officer for some time after that, and essentially the second thing would be that I’ve taken all of that and put into a consulting practice to try and teach others again what I’ve learned throughout my career. Okay? And because our audience is getting to know you, how does this apply? Or what can they come away with? Those two things right away? Well, I’m just a normal guy, just your average guy went out and thought he was going to be a superstar orthopedic surgeon and then had a life threatening event that kind of humbled me. And there’s just a lot there that are born, that I’ve been able to put into practice to try and have a happy, fulfilling life. So that’s the message overall,

Marc Wolfe 2:21

Thank you for that. And you know, I’ve known you a few years, and I’m still getting to learn more about you, often, just from our conversations, and just because, as you get to know people, you get to see them in a different light. So let’s just kick it off, like tell me about a Yeah, but that you have, that you’re willing to share.

Dr Herman Williams 2:44

Well, first of all, I think you’ve done a great job in your book by identifying the yeah bots, giving examples, giving case studies, and then allowing people an opportunity to jot down their own interpretation. So was beautifully done. But one of the year, but I chose was number five, Yeah, but I don’t know what to do next.

Marc Wolfe 3:07

What does that look like this? Yeah, but what do I need to do next? Yeah, I’m not a doctor. I didn’t go through what you went through as an event. But how does it make me feel as a person, and what can I take away. I mean, even if I reflect on my path to get to medical school, which I kind of joked around and take school seriously, but still thought it was going to be a slam dunk, getting into med school, it wasn’t. And so after I got my first round of rejections, because, you know, you apply to like 15 schools.

Dr Herman Williams 3:43

When I got to 14, and I was looking at the 15th envelope, and I’m like, this is really thin. Doesn’t feel like a registration packet. You go, Yeah, but what do I do next? Well, yeah, you gotta first reflect on what you learn from not achieving what you expected to achieve, you know. And hopefully there’s some pearls in there that you can do differently, which I did, and thought that I had solved those problems. Then the second time I applied, got rejected.

And then I was like, Oh my God, what do I do now? And I figured it out. The problem is, you’re trying to learn an exam when you don’t really know the content, because you’re partying during college and we’re absorbing the knowledge, you’re just taking the courses and boom. So it became obvious that I had to do a post baccalaureate year, which I did, and got into medical school right away. Got into four medical schools. So it’s really an assessment of what you did that didn’t work. What can you do differently?

Dr Herman Williams 5:00

Then that may be trial and error, but really writing down and committing to paper, I’ll come back to this in a couple of the others too. Is just writing down, because we keep all this stuff in our brain, we think it’s organized, but it’s all over the place. There’s no timelines, there’s no accountability there. It’s just, yeah, I got it up there, but you have to commit it to paper. Here’s what I did, here’s what didn’t work, here’s what I’m going to try. And maybe in that I’m going to try, there’s an A, B and a C, and let’s go through those. And if those fail, what did we do? What didn’t work? What do you think might you might be able to change and proceed along those ways. And I think you know that’s so important. You not getting in, you applying, you being able to do all that still gave you resilience. And look at what it’s changed because you learned from it. So tell us more about, you know, some other yeah buts, or other struggles that you’ve had and you’ve worked through.

Dr Herman Williams 5:59

Well, another one was, Yeah, but can I do it? Which is a nice follow up to, what do I do next? And you’ve got the list, and you go, but can I do it? And some of that relates to commitment, understanding yourself, knowing what you can and can’t do, and also understanding, I don’t believe that anybody does anything on their own, and I was blessed. I had so many mentors and so many people all throughout my life, which has really shaped my appreciation for others. And I would say, if you don’t have mentors and people that you can call on, you have to seek them out, you know, find somebody who’s doing what you’re doing, or what I mean, someone who’s doing what you want to do, and reach out to them.

A lot of people, actually, you know, they’re flattered that you would take the time to seek them out and say, Hey, can I just take you out for a cup of coffee? Or can I have a 30 minute zoom call, and just ask you, how did you do it? You know, to use that as inspiration. The other thing I will say a sidebar is we think we have people who are in our corner. And I thought I did, and I can recall I had a really good friend of person I thought was good friend of mine, and I told them, I said, Look, I want to get into orthopedics. And every time I said that, they would go, Oh, you’re not going to get into or nobody gets into orthopedic surgery. And I’m like, well, somebody, why can’t it be made right? You have to ask yourself, have I surrounded myself by people who are positive and people who are my cheerleaders? Or have I surrounded myself by people who really maybe resent me a little bit? You know, these are people who really were projecting on me. They didn’t think they could be a third and so nobody else could. As opposed to, Hey, man, that’s not for me.

Marc Wolfe 7:31

But Herman, if that’s what you want, you go get it right. If you tell people what you want to do and they’re not all in with you, I would say maybe you’ve got the wrong team around you. So that’s just a little check, yes, yeah. I speak about that in the book. People project their limiting beliefs on you. So when you’re going to move to a city or you’re going to do something, they’re like, Well, if I can’t do it, and I’m really knowledgeable, how can this other person do it? And I was like, well, because we’re not the same people, and you didn’t live through my experiences, and you don’t see through my eyes. And so that’s great advice. And I think a lot of people are so comfortable. And you know, you’re a lot of our Yeah, buts are because of comfort, where it’s like, Whoa, these are my friends forever. Did you have to leave some people behind there?

Dr Herman Williams 8:50

Look, there. only is one person that I still I’m in touch with from high school, and he and I have just grown two different careers. He’s an actor, and I have one other friend from graduate school that, I mean, is like a mentor, friend of mine. And you know all these other people they they fall by the wayside. So don’t think that these folks are going to go along without your life number one. Number two is, life is tough. It is, and a lot of people just drop they’re not committed. They’re okay with I’m okay with just is I don’t want to challenge myself anymore. And so you may find, especially if you’re someone who likes to constantly challenge yourself and do more and be better, I wake up every morning. How can I be a better person? And, you know, I try to be a better person yesterday. Maybe I made it, maybe I didn’t, but I’m going to try even more today. But there a lot of people just go, Hey, today’s just another day. I’m not going to challenge myself. You know, that’s just not me. And if you’re that one of those type of people, you’re going to find yourself maybe alone sometimes.

Marc Wolfe 10:00

Yes, now you bring up, these are, these are great points. And I think it’s great hearing it from your perspective, from if I don’t surround myself, it’s gonna make things harder, right? So if you go and stay comfortable and you don’t try to achieve and try to grow and try to learn, but that takes effort. Herman, that takes a lot of effort. So tell me, you know, I’m not sure I can do it. Was one of your Yeah, buts, but when did you recognize at your youth that you could do it? What was the trigger?

Dr Herman Williams 10:33

So I have an interesting, circuitous background, and you know, I was challenged at age 31 with you’ve just had a cardiac arrest, you’ve lost your career. You’re 100% disabled. And by the way, the system is designed to pay you only if you stay disabled, so you’re going to have to really step out of your comfort zone. And I was challenged with that at age 31 and I refused to be disabled. I refused to be a victim of my medical diagnosis. And I just made a decision there that I was going to rehab myself and I was going to find another career, and I just I wasn’t going to be satisfied with and so a lot of people are not challenged by that. They just kind of, you know, go to school or whatever you you get a career, or you get a trade, and you just kind of march through life and everything seems to work, okay, boom, then you come across a challenge, and you’re just like, whoa. I’ve been doing this for like, 40 years, but now there’s cancer in the family. How do I so I was challenged with that way way early. It took me maybe about the better part of six months to get to a position where I could actually stay I rehabbed myself. I felt normal and I was employable. And once I had done that, it really set the stage for me responding to so many other crises in my life, because I knew if I overcome that, I can do anything. And so not everybody’s had the benefit of that challenge, but that’s why you and I are trying to whip up the message, you can do it. You know you just have to redefine the parameters, the goal, the challenges, and what is it that I have to do? And am I up for the challenge?

Marc Wolfe 12:24

Wow, that’s so powerful. And I know because of what I’ve lived through in my life that you can use it to be an anchor and an excuse that you never move forward, or you can go and say, Well, I’ve been through it. It’s true. Now. What am I going to do? And what I heard you say is, six months you rehab. Isn’t there a statistic that says that people have a cardiac arrest, do not change their diet significantly, do not change their life, and most of them literally don’t take it as an opportunity to improve. They look at as this is the is who I am. Now,

Dr Herman Williams 13:00

Yeah, there is some research that people you know don’t change, or people who get lung cancer go right out and start smoking again. I mean, Yeah, but this is the way I looked at my situation. In the 90s, when I had my cardiac arrest, there was only a 10% chance of making it to the hospital if you had an out of hospital cardiac arrest. And of those people, there was only a smaller percentage of people who walked out of the hospital with a brain that was functional. So when I had passed through all that, and my wife wheeled me out of the hospital in a wheelchair, I was like, I’m ready. I’ve already beat the odds on all these other things, I’m ready to commit myself to making the most of this. And yeah, there are some people who, even though they survive that, they’re like, I’m just gonna be satisfied with being disabled. I was not that guy.

Marc Wolfe 13:53

I’m Marc, a Wolfe, author of Yeah, but not sure where to start. What your next step should be. Dr James Naismith faced, Yeah, but I don’t know where to start and invented basketball anyway. My book, Yeah, but breaks down 15 common excuses, including path based doubts like that, with a quick finder to easily navigate the chapters, ready to find your direction and have no more Yeah, buts click the show notes today and get your copy from Amazon or Apple books before I want to move on to your other Yeah. But how did you mentally deal with I went to school, I went and this is my career. You were practicing in your career for how long before this happened?

Dr Herman Williams 14:35

Actually, I over my training with this happened right smack dab in my chief residency here.

Marc Wolfe 14:41

Okay, so you’re getting an exposure and experience of how amazing this opportunity would be, and then it snaps. How did you deal with that delta in mental challenge of what? Because most people don’t go through a cardiac arrest in. 30s. I mean, they just don’t right. So tell me how that felt.

Dr Herman Williams 15:04

Actually, it’s interesting what we’re as we’re talking about this topic, because some people could have considered not finishing a failure, and for me, it was, it was a little bit of a convenience, because I had already gotten my MD, and really, as a child, that’s what I wanted to do, was be a doctor. So the fact that I couldn’t do my trade, even though I had trained so hard and done research in ortho and really put about 13 years into this, I just accepted the fact that that was not going to be my path, and I immediately went back to school, retrained myself, and I said, but maybe my path is the business of healthcare. And at that time, there were no doctors involved in consulting. And so it actually, you know, you hear the expression a door closes and a window opens, and man, let me tell you, I crawled through that bad boy.

Marc Wolfe 16:01

I got up on a step stool, and I jumped and pulled myself up and crawled through that window. But look at where I am today. So give me some more background about you. Were you married at this time? Did your family go and were they the ones that inspired you to always overcome, or were you the first one? Tell me more about that.

Dr Herman Williams 16:30

Great question. I was engaged at the time. I was supposed to be married six months later, and my fiance, who ultimately became my wife, and is still my wife after 33 years, it’s just the it’s like a fairy tale. She was the scorekeeper at a basketball game I was playing at. I went down, no, actually, I pulled myself out of the game and I sat on the sidelines, and then I passed out, and she saw me, and she screamed at everybody and said, you know, Herman’s not doing well. Something’s wrong. And so all the guys were running. She talks to me about how it looked like everybody was coming over. They did CPR.

And so I was surrounded by somebody who has been committed to me for over 30 years, who actually was integral to the life saving efforts my family came up and helped us. My dad lived with us for like, three or four months to help while she went to school to help me recover. So again, make sure you surround yourself with family and friends who care and who can help you rehabilitate yourself and can be sounding boards to tell you, and again, this can be a life threatening illness. Can be cancer. It could be divorced. It could be the death of a family. Marc, any of it, just insert challenge of choice and surround yourself with people who are there to support you and people who can give you advice, and don’t just pick one person, get a bunch of people’s advice, and then formulate your own conclusion, critical thinking, Yes, and being able to discern what’s noise and what’s not, and actually being supported by other people.

One of your Yeah, buts is like, what if I fail, right? So, but hold on, you sound like a resilient guy that’s got a great community that supports you’re sitting here doing things when you’ve already overcome odds that in the 90s, medically, this was a real high risk for you to What do you mean? What if I fail? I mean, you’ve already not failed. What? What’s that all about? So you know, you become successful in one thing, but then you get a challenge and another thing, and for me as an example, that the decision to start my own company was full of, what if I did? That’s all I could think about, right? What about that regular check I get and insurance that comes along with that? And, you know, the sick time, and that’s all I was consumed by one and the only reason why I didn’t just like do it right away was because I was afraid of failure. But you know, sometimes you have to take a risk. I said to myself, if I’m working this hard for somebody else, don’t you think you’re gonna work as hard for yourself?

And I said, so, I mean, I can’t do more than that, is to do my best work my hardest. Now, there’s some other things too. I needed some clients, and I needed support from my current job to help me transition. But at the end of the day, it was, am I going to work hard enough so that I know I’m going to bring revenue in the door, and I’m not going to fail, by the way. There’s nothing wrong with small obstacles, right? You know, I wouldn’t consider it a failure, even if my first year out was a total disaster. Hey, year one, 80% of businesses don’t even survive. So if you survive past year one, that’s a win, right? Right? You say in your book, a lot of the perception about failure is what people people’s perception that you confuse, or what people are going to think, I’m a failure, therefore I am a failure. So you gotta, you gotta teach that out. And you gotta ask yourself, it’s all about perspective. Is it half full or is it f empty?

Marc Wolfe 20:21

Yeah, it’s, it’s, you know, when there’s 15 Yeah, buts, I could have written 100 right? Because, I mean, there’s just so many Yeah, buts people use. And what I hear is, you took the yeah part of the Yeah, but, and you’ve actually owned it. But I don’t want to mislead the audience into thinking I still don’t think about failure. I think about that every day. I just have pushed it down because I I say, look, you’ve been successful in the past. You’ve had the worst of all challenges, the challenges to life, and you’ve made it through. You’re likely going to make it through. But that doesn’t mean I still don’t experience it, right? So I don’t want people to feel like, oh, no, are you kidding me? Everything’s easy. Nothing’s No, no. That’s not what we’re saying. I mean, I can, I can think of

Dr Herman Williams 21:12

One major thing I did in my life that just hurt like a son of a gun. But I have to say other than that, most of the things that I’ve set out to do I’ve been able to achieve. But that’s, you know, that’s full of things that I knew I could have achieved, right? I didn’t try to be president United States. I didn’t try to be governor, didn’t try to be dean of a school. I tried to be things that I thought I could be and I knew what the path was. So a lot of it is right, sizing expectations and what you want to do. But becoming a doctor was a stretch goal. Equal thing, dude, there’s there other things you can do.

Marc Wolfe 21:55

You’re killing us, Herman, you got it rejected from another school. You’re killing us, right, right? So what else? As we kind of wrap up, what else do you want to make sure that people really get to know when they can see through your time reading, Yeah, but through your life experiences? What else you want to share? I just want to emphasize the value of writing it down so you can see it because it has a different look and feel when it’s all mapped out, and you go, Oh, well, of course, that didn’t work because it has no you know, it’s all over the place. And so there’s such value in putting it down on paper. Asking yourself, what is it going to take to do? Asking yourself, Am I willing to do it? And asking yourself, Okay, what if this doesn’t work? Yeah, that’s, that’s, that’s great, great advice. It’s, it’s when you have to actually write it down. I’ve worked this with clients. When they write it down, and I have them read it, they’re like, Yeah, this isn’t the full plan. I was like, Yeah, because we make up in our mind, the gaps, but, but Herman, you know as a lot of things you’re saying are behaviors need to change for improvement, and keeping things in your head and living in your past and being stuck literally, will keep you from being everything you can be and helping who you’re supposed to help. And I’m grateful that you’ve taken this challenge and being able to do this and are still continuing to help people, not just locally, but literally. You’ve done videos, and you’ve helped people even outside of the United States. So you’re a guy who literally has taken what was lemonade and May, I mean lemons, and made lemonade out of it, and you’re continuing, because it doesn’t sound like you’re stopping anytime soon. No, I think that’s a great way to really sum it up, as hokey as that is. But I do think of that you just gotta make lemonade out of lemons. I think listening and reading and learning about how people overcame these that’s in your book, Yeah, but Yeah. But again, I want to say it’s, it’s beautifully architected, where you’ve got the Yeah, but you’ve got a case study. Well, you got an explanation of what it is, you got a case study, and then you have a chance to insert your own personal so, as opposed to just reading a book and go, oh yeah. So it’s a great guide, Marc. I mean, it’s a beautifully written book, and I want to commend you for that, because for folks who have not experienced adversity, they really need to be guided through the process as if you had on how to overcome obstacles in life. Well, thank you for that. Yeah, it’s I’m pretty proud of sharing other people’s stories locally and people that are famous, and sharing their stories in a way where people recognize every path isn’t easy. There’s other things going on, adversity, or even your own head noise or head trash you have if you don’t know.

Overcome it, you can be stuck. So thank you so much for sharing your story. Thank you for supporting the book, and thank you for being available and overcoming Yeah, but you’re actually now a But Buster. So just you can get the tattoo, you can go and put the #NoMoreYeahButs Herman. Thank you for listening to The Yeah, But Podcast. If today’s episode provided valuable perspective on how to overcome the excuses that can hold you back, let us know in the comments. Remember, it’s not about the yeah buts, it’s about finding ways to live, learn and lead better every day. If you enjoyed this episode, be sure to subscribe. Leave a review and share it with someone who could use a little kick to get past their yeah buts, and don’t forget to follow us on Spotify or Apple podcast and for even more tips, connect with me at marcawolfe.com/podcast or on LinkedIn until next time, keep challenging those excuses and keep moving forward.

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