From the President

By Mike Horsfield, PT, MBA

Dear Friends,

“The cure to boredom is curiosity. There is no cure for curiosity.” — Dorothy Parker

Curiosity is the favorite of my many afflictions. It’s a virus that thrives in my fortunate environment filled with inquisitive friends, diverse thought, and disagreeable colleagues. Poorly examined opinions and self-serving assumptions are no match for this bug. “Changing my mind” is the favorite of its many unsettling symptoms. A profession with so many uncertain answers to so many important questions also provides the perfect medium for proliferation.

Eavesdropping on insightful discussions from soon-to-be friends during the Peer2Peer Summit renewed my optimism about our profession’s future. There were people with fewer wrinkles utilizing an open mind free of preconceptions to tackle meaningful questions with more questions. It reminded me of Zen master Shunryo Suzuki’s words, “In the beginner’s mind there are many possibilities, but in the expert’s there are few.” How can the student and expert collaborate to bring a collective mind, both experienced and free of past prejudice, to discussions? How do we harness this power to explore multiple solutions for tomorrow’s problems?

We are at an exciting time in our profession, one where our customers are demanding more of what we do. I am convinced that the experts who got us here are not who will get us to the future. We will need minds uncorrupted from “how we always have done it” to ask the right questions, which will spawn innovative delivery models that make it easier for us to take better care of more people. We owe this to the communities we serve and the profession we steward.

If you are fostering a work environment that encourages the beginner’s mind, thank you for investing in our profession’s future. If you have one of these minds, please consider sharing your questions with us. So many questions . . . so little boredom.

We Got This!