From PBX Operator to Chief Innovation Officer with Rachel Papka | Ep069

Rachel Papka: Do you have record on?

Manuel Martinez: I do. I had been recording the whole time. So as soon as we stopped, I was like, I hit record right after that.

Rachel Papka: Well, that’s where we should start. Do you have record on?

Manuel Martinez: Look at that. I hit the button this time. So for those of you, this intro is going to be a little bit different. We just finished recording what I think was an amazing podcast. The good thing is, is I have the entire audio. But we do not have any of the video thanks to me not following my processes.

Rachel Papka: So what we’re going to do here is we’re just going to say, first off, things happen. Life happens. We just spent the last hour and a half together really getting to know each other, getting to know our backgrounds a little bit more. And what we need for career downloads is to make this real. And this is real right now.

Manuel Martinez: Definitely. It’s real. And it just goes to show things happen, right? Business, personal, just all the time. And I mean, we talked about it at the beginning of the episode. How many times did it take us to actually get to film this? And then we go and film it and record it. And it’s not filmed. Like, luckily, the audio is there.

Rachel Papka: Yeah. Manuel Martinez: But that’s the extent of it.

Rachel Papka: I think this just kind of again shows that life is going to throw things at you. And we talked about getting knocked down or we talked about things not working out. But you know what? It happens. This is fabulous. I’m again so grateful that I just got to spend this time with you. I got to learn more about you. I got to learn some history. We talked about vision boards and manifestation and the journey to becoming a chief innovation officer and your journey about TED Talks that you will, you will be on TED Talks for sure.

Manuel Martinez: I will. And I learned that I just have to make sure to prepare. You can’t just, similar to what we talked about vision boards and manifestation, you can’t just say it and it’s going to happen. You actually have to put in the work. And I didn’t put in the work for the first time and I knew it. And now I will. And I posted about this and I said, it may not happen this year. It may not happen this year. It may take me 10 years. But I will make it happen.

Rachel Papka: Yeah. And we don’t hit record.

Manue: And when we don’t hit record, we go back, we update our process and says, hey, make sure we hit record. Not only did I not hit record on my primary device, I didn’t hit record on my secondary. So I talked about it once where this happened once before, where I only had one and I didn’t hit record. And then I was like, hey, you know what? I need to have a backup. I need to have the SD cards in the camera and hit record there just in case. And my primary didn’t, I didn’t hit primary and I didn’t hit the secondary. I guess I have the tertiary. At least I have the audio.

Rachel Papka: So that’s okay. We’re unique. Yes. And we’re going to just move on from this. And I’m going to encourage everybody to listen to the audio.

Manuel Martinez: Yeah. Well, thank you. And again, I appreciate your time and I will beam that you are the chief innovation officer. I’m going to take some of that energy that you bring and I’m going to innovate and find a way to make this work.

Rachel Papka: Thank you.

Manuel Martinez: So thanks again. I appreciate you taking the time. And again, it was a pleasure meeting you and just the entire conversation was fantastic.

Rachel Papka: All right. Let’s have fun with this.

Manuel Martinez: Welcome everyone. My name is Manuel Martinez and this is another episode of Career Downloads. For each episode, I hit the refresh button, bring on a different guest to learn more about their background and their experiences to help you as you’re managing your own career. So for today’s episode, I have with me Rachel Papka. Her and I connected probably been a little while now on LinkedIn. I saw some of the posts that she was putting on LinkedIn through a connection with Angie Costco who I’ve had on the podcast before. It was really interesting to me as a chief innovation officer. So that was really intriguing to kind of understand like what is that? That’s not a, in my experience, it’s not your traditional role that a lot of people aspire to go. So I thought it would be good to kind of learn how she got there and a lot of what she does now. So with that, I’ll introduce Rachel.

Rachel Papka: Hey, good morning.

Manuel Martinez: Good morning. Pleasure having you here.

Rachel Papka: You know what? I’m super excited because I think this is our third time that we’ve tried to do this podcast.

Manuel Martinez: Yes.

Rachel Papka: So I’m glad that it happened today.

Manuel Martinez: Definitely. So to help give people a sense of kind of what you do, so I mentioned that you’re a chief innovation officer. So if you don’t mind telling us a little bit about what your current role is and some of the duties and responsibilities.

Rachel Papka: Yeah, absolutely. I have to though, real quick. It’s been about a month since career downloads have been trademarked.

Manuel Martinez: Yes.

Rachel Papka: About a month.

Manuel Martinez: About a month.

Rachel Papka: So I just wanted to say congratulations because I haven’t officially got to congratulate you. I mean, yeah, sure, on LinkedIn. And just another point of clarification is that top tech awards is when we actually discussed doing this podcast.

Manuel Martinez: It is.

Rachel Papka: That’s how long we have been trying to get us together. And so I just continue to appreciate that you made this happen.

Manuel Martinez: Thank you. And I appreciate you kind of being open and working through, right? So it was on both ends, right? You had to reschedule. I had to reschedule. Because most people might be like, “Oh, well, I guess we’re not going to make this happen.” I was like, “No, I really want to have you on and have you share your experiences.”

Rachel Papka: Yeah. So no, again. So kind of getting into the fun point of what you asked my title as chief innovation officer, I’m proud to say that I’m at Steinberg Diagnostic Medical Imaging. And why do I share that? It’s because it’s a community company. And so as the CINO of the company, I have oversight of change management process. I like to say I have a fun role. I get to have fun all day long. I oversee the contact center. So we get close to 3,000 calls a day within the contact center and think of anything and everything that happens before a visit in the contact center. But then I also have the pleasure of the Health Information Technology Department. And that’s where I think as you kind of stated in the beginning, I do have a unique role as that I have one foot in operations and I have one foot in technology. And so it’s fun.

Manuel Martinez: Oh, I bet. And that’s, I think, one of the things that I really enjoy about this is bringing on people and exposing them to different roles, like things that they didn’t know were possible. I go back to a friend of mine and I’ve had him on the podcast, is he was always big into sports. He didn’t know at some point that there are careers where he can combine his love of technology with sports. He goes, had I known that, I might have pursued that earlier on in my career. So this is going to be fantastic for a lot of people.

Rachel Papka: Yeah, I don’t think a lot of individuals realize how many different roles or career options there are in technology or even in healthcare for that matter. Right. I, you know, prior to chief innovation officer, I was the chief health informatics officer. That’s like a mouthful on its own. But you know, that’s where some of my background comes from is the informatics. And I think that, again, we’re my passion in bringing people processes and technology together.

Manuel Martinez: Awesome. So if you can now tell us, so now that we know who you currently are and what you do, tell us a little bit more about kind of where you grew up and what you thought you might be doing as a career and eventually what led you to kind of your first job or maybe you started a career and just what did that look like?

Rachel Papka: Yeah, right. I don’t know who else can raise their hand and say that I was going to get married with the 2.5 kids with the white picket fence. Right. That was something I still remember this day. I don’t know where I got that from or that’s what I always kind of thought was going to happen. But when it came to career, you know, the path to where I got today is very interesting. And so I grew up in Northern Nevada. So actually I’ve been, I consider myself a true Nevadan. Even though I did move to Northern Nevada when I was a year old and born in California, I don’t know anything else other than Nevada. So my roots are definitely Nevada. I’ve been here in Las Vegas now for probably about 21 years, raised my kids here with my husband. And so growing up in Nevada, I first started, I don’t know if you remember like when you had to take those tests in high school and you know, what type of career did you want and it was a veterinarian or it was a nurse or it was a doctor or right. Like not all of the jobs that you see today. And so I remember when I was younger, I wanted to be a veterinarian. I don’t, again, where that came from, I don’t know. Because I don’t have like a deep passion for animals. I mean, I love my animals. But as I continue to kind of go through high school and have some early jobs, right, at a daycare center or you know, kind of doing some, I’m trying to even think like working at the mall, right? Like those teenage jobs. But as I graduated high school, I thought, okay, well, I’m going to be a nurse. So I went ahead and got a PBX operator job at our local hospital. And that was great, right? Like think of your phones, right? Like PBX and dialing it and you know, transferring over. And then being at the hospital, I did some different jobs. I did registration, I did ER registration, and then I landed in radiology department. But interesting enough, as I went through those jobs, I realized, nope, not going to be a nurse. Not for me. So I switched to be a teacher. And so I actually was a substitute teacher for a few years. And I was going to be a special education teacher. And so now I’m working at a hospital and finishing my degrees. And we then moved for the first time out of Northern Nevada to Southern Nevada. And within a year of me moving, well, getting married, moving, I then was pregnant with my twins. So I took a break, about 10 classes away from graduating with my bachelor’s degree. I didn’t know what I wanted to do. I was like, I’ve got these two babies at home. I don’t think I can be around kids. I’m still working for the health system, realizing that I’m not a patient facing. And so I finished my degree in business management. That seemed to kind of make sense at that point.

Manuel Martinez: And you mentioned not wanting to be a nurse, but still kind of working within the healthcare. What is it about nursing that made you kind of say, like, this isn’t for me? And again, everybody’s different. The reason I ask is, my brother, for example, at one point, everybody told him, he should be a doctor because he was really big into things in medical. He had, if somebody got cut and he just, that was his thing. But he found that nursing was for him. He has that bedside manner. He likes being helpful and attending to people. That’s his thing. And I know other people that are like, that’s not for them. Or maybe it’s just the blood and all those things. And that didn’t bother him.

Rachel Papka: It was during the ER registration and it wasn’t the blood. It wasn’t the goryness. I think it was more around, I didn’t know. And I may not have realized this right at that moment, but as I kind of started going through the healthcare technology, it came a lot clearer to me. Is that I don’t know if I could understand the patients that would come in that didn’t take care of themselves. And I know that may not sound harsh, but I think it was more of realizing that the parents that possibly couldn’t take care of the babies, but because they had chose to, not that they didn’t have a reason to. Or the patients that came in and weren’t taking care of themselves from a health perspective or just letting everything go. And I just don’t know that I could really be empathetic enough to take care of those patients. But however, I knew working in the hospital that I still wanted to be part of the patient’s journey. So the patients that did find themselves in the healthcare system, how could I make sure that once they entered the healthcare system, it was going to be easy and seamless and they were going to get all the answers that they needed. So I knew that I still had a passion for healthcare, but I realized that I couldn’t take care of individuals exactly the way that they should be taken care of no matter what.

Manuel Martinez: Right. Yeah. Because it can be emotionally taxing as well, right? And I think that’s where it comes into is just, and I’m sure it, like you said, at that point in time, you didn’t realize it. And I think a lot of times I’ve talked to people and I’ve done it myself where we try to force ourselves into something instead of paying attention and listening and be like, there’s something, I don’t know what it is, but there’s something about this career, this choice, this whatever that it just, it doesn’t sit well or just really understanding, you know, call it intuition, call it your gut feeling, whatever it might be. So I’m glad that you kind of listened. And that’s the reason I wanted to highlight that is just a lot of times, especially early on when like, I don’t know what I want to do. I will just brute force my way this way because that’s what people say or that’s like the traditional path.

Rachel Papka: Yeah. Again, I knew that I wanted to be in healthcare. I just couldn’t find my way in healthcare, which is when, interesting enough, when I was working at the hospital, it was still paper-based. So there you go. I just kind of shared how old I am because they were going to be like, what? There was no such thing as medical records. That is correct. I was in the hospital, but I had the opportunity of then being part of implementing the healthcare record there at the hospital. So when I was in the radiology department, I was asked to be a super user and that super user was going to train all the clinicians on how to use this new electronic medical record. That was my first introduction to healthcare technology. When I was introduced to healthcare technology, there wasn’t any education I could go get for it. There wasn’t certifications. I was really just on the job learning. And even with that, healthcare technology was, I mean, it wasn’t even necessarily a career at that time. And I remember I never turned back after that. I truly fell in love with the ability to take what we were doing as a process and watching the nurses and the physical therapists and the dietitians. Every piece of that journey is I was watching it and I was training them how to now use technology in that process. And I absolutely fell in love.

Manuel Martinez: And that want or that need and enjoyment for teaching, is that what also called you and said, “I want to be a substitute teacher.” Is that something that you’ve… Did you realize it at the time or was it really this that really cemented in for you that said, “You know what? I really enjoy teaching other people and having them…” I don’t want to say it this way, but I mean, it’s the best I can come up with. It’s just like that light bulb moment where they’re like, “Oh, I understand.” And just knowing that you played a part in communicating and empowering them to be able to say, “I can do this.”

Rachel Papka: Yes. Yeah. It was the perfect blend. What was interesting is that I could have an effect on someone’s healthcare life, but then also those that were providing the care, I could have an effect on them to make sure that they were also successful and that they felt confident in making sure that they could provide the right care. So I was almost like behind the scenes, behind the curtains, which that then led to me working for a company for 15 years in the health system. And that actually the first few years is I traveled nationwide training on this new electronic medical record to the clinicians. And so I spent about three to five years as the dedicated trainer. And then as we decided within the healthcare system that believe it or not, we were going to now replace the medical record with another medical record across all of our hospital systems is where I then went on site and did workflow analysis. And a lot of individuals are like, “Workflow analysis and technology? What does that mean?” And so that is where I truly would sit down with the nurse and again, the dietician. My focus at that time was ICU and all of the ancillary. So think of your dietary, your physical therapy. So everything outside of nursing, why I got ICU as one of my focus areas, not exactly sure maybe because it’s specialized, right? And it doesn’t follow the suit. And that’s really, again, another pivotal point in my career where I learned so much just identifying, “Oh, you do it this way and we need to help you, help you, not hinder you using this technology.” And again, for probably about another three to five years doing these onsite workflow analysis and then implementing the technology and watching the transition of the entire hospital moving from one way to another way overnight.

Manuel Martinez: And that workflow analysis, are you a very structured, you like systems? Is it more I want to help solve the problem and asking questions about how are you doing this? Because in my experience in tech, a lot of times, and I think, I feel it’s changed a lot but earlier on, it used to be IT would buy something, implement something and then you just kind of force it in like, “Nope, this is what we’re going to do.” And it sounds like the approach that you took is help me understand what you’re doing. I want to, I don’t know if you were mapping this out, but really understanding, “Okay, this technology could potentially help, but I really need to understand what is the process, what’s the workflow?” And then get user input and buying to be able to do that overnight. That’s not easy and it’s not common, right? Because it takes a lot of planning and effort. What seems like overnight was probably months and months of work at a time.

Rachel Papka: Absolutely, yes. And so I think you said it perfectly, is that what used to be and what would be identified as, “Oh, you know, corporate office bought this technology and we have to figure out how to use it.” I do the exact opposite with my teams in the sense that we first need to identify, is there even a need for technology? So what is the workflow? What is the process? The healthcare technology department, that’s one of their base is that knowing all of the workflows. And that’s hard, right? That’s hard to understand all of these steps in a workflow in the process. But I think that’s where we want to make sure that technology is helpful and not hindering in the sense of, “If I implement technology, is it going to be successful in the entire route? Because what if I help this department, but then I hinder that department?” I don’t want to create more work from a different department, but I helped this department because then it wasn’t a successful implementation. And so what I learned over the years, and of course I’m very different today than I was 10, 15 years ago, mapping out these processes, is that understanding first the process. You have to absolutely know what am I even trying to implement here for the process, understanding the people. Who’s going to be the end result of this technology? Is it the users? Is it the patient? And that’s where the patient journey is incredibly important. And then you match the technology up with that. And so I mentioned early that I have a very fun job because we’re constantly evolving. So what we thought five years ago might’ve been helpful, it’s probably not the same need that we have today. We have different patients. We have certainly the age of patients are going to change, the technology is going to change, the AI is going to change. So everything that we may have thought was needed today is no longer needed. But again, that’s because we’re most importantly paying attention to the people.

Manuel Martinez: And that process, where a lot of those processes already documented, or is that something that as part of what you were doing is we have to document it because I’ve seen it where a lot of times we’re like, “Hey, we want to improve this workflow.” Or like, “Hey, this technology can help us.” Like, “Okay, where’s the pain point or where’s the need?” And I’ve come across that in my career. And earlier on in my career, I’ve talked about it before, is I understand the technology and I would get so excited. I’m like, “I know what it’s capable of.” So you’re like, “No, this can work. This will help.” But you mentioned it, right? Understanding that process and that workflow. But that’s a lot of work to document, to really understand, especially when you talked about multiple departments. So what was the approach that you took to be able to say, “Okay, you don’t have a process. Walk me through it.” And are you asking multiple people to do the same thing? Because maybe Rachel’s process is this way, my process is different, and the next person. So are you also having to find the commonality? Like, “Okay, what is really part of the process and what is just something that you’ve adapted because you find it easier?”

Rachel Papka: Absolutely. So I was with the health systems for 15 years. And then leaving the health system, I went into the health information exchange. So I oversaw the health information exchange here for Nevada for about three years. And so health system, HIE. I got to absolutely share. I didn’t even know what HIE meant. When I first went to apply for the job, because I had an amazing mentor and she kind of knew that it was time for me to move from the health system. She said, “I think you need to go apply to the HIE.” Well, I tell you what, that was the quickest search I ever did. I had to figure out, right? Health information exchange. And this is so where the entire city, the entire state really, we could exchange medical records. And so if you went into an emergency room and you already had, let’s say, a CT done over at Steinberg, let’s not redo that, right? If you had x-rays done, we don’t want to have radiation again. So if you had an x-ray done within 24 hours, so that’s the entire purpose of a health information exchange is just so that we can offer coordinated care across everyone within the state. And I, again, first had to figure out what HIE meant. So there’s something for you as well. But then I left the HIE and I went to an outpatient radiology. Whoa, what? Right? And so I promise I’m getting to your question here is that going from a health system, learning the workflow and the processes, rethinking everything to health information exchange now, and then going to an outpatient radiology, I had to remap the way I think because outpatient radiology is nothing like radiology within a health system. Absolutely different. For my first year, I was spent mapping the workflows. I needed to understand the language, the terms that they were using, billing is differently. When patients come in, they’re differently. We’re not the same as a physician office because we may see you once a year. So the entire mindset of what I had as a patient journey completely changed when I went into outpatient radiology. And so that’s actually like what I did is that I don’t know if you’re familiar with Lucid Charts, but Lucid Charts became my best friend. Bless you. It became my best friend because, and that’s a tool that we constantly use right now is is map it out. You need to map that process and you need to understand the pivot points. Are we doing a different process if we go left versus right versus if the patient answers yes, depending on what journey we’re following, you needed to be able to map that out. So I actually spent my first year to two years in outpatient radiology doing completely data flows.

Manuel Martinez: Wow. And do you think had you not had the exposure to these different entities and the way they worked, do you think that you would have taken the same approach that you did at that point? And when I say that same approach is now understand like, oh, these are different. They work completely different. I have to really map all this out. Or do you think, again, at this time, you’ve been in your career for quite a while. So a lot of this comes with experience and saying, okay, I don’t know everything. Hey, there’s more than one way, but it sounds like the same time you’re like, oh, wow, this is completely different. You worked with these two entities and again, bigger organizations, bigger workflows. And you’re like, okay, if this is how it works at the big level, oh, I can easily replicate this at the smaller outpatient. But it sounds like that was not the case.

Rachel Papka: That was not the case. Yeah. I really do believe that every opportunity that I’ve been given in my career has been exactly the way it was supposed to go. So I would understand all the differences. I think that had I not had those years within the health system, I wouldn’t have understand the uniqueness of one, the very importance of the clinicians and the care that they provide. I think I absolutely needed to make sure that I understood that. So I wasn’t coming from only a technology perspective. At that time is I still remember to this day when I would go into the rooms and show the nurses on how to use the barcode med reconciliation. And I would move the pillow for the patient if I needed to. And I’d have a conversation with the patient that made sure that I understood the clinician side of it. And then when I went into the health information exchange, this was a lot more of being on the vendor side now. So understanding why would you, healthcare system, want to pay me money to give me your records? So it was understanding the need for continuity of care. So that’s where I understood from the health information exchange how important it is to not have gaps within a patient’s life cycle. And then as I moved over to outpatient radiology, I think the biggest difference, one that I pulled from there is now for the first time in my life, I’m part of my community. So even all those histories in the past, and I traveled and I had young kids and my husband would take care of them, I was making healthcare better for their community. So now I took a completely different approach in outpatient radiology, one understanding that it was radiology. Secondly understanding that when you go to radiology, you have a 50-50 chance of getting bad news. Like you don’t visit radiology center because you’re healthy or because your ankle doesn’t hurt or you don’t have headaches continually. And so it was a whole different idea of thinking about healthcare, moving over to radiology, but then also taking care of my community, right? And my parents and my kids and my neighbors. And so now we’re like at a whole different heightened level to make sure that we do everything right. And so without all of those previous experiences, I don’t think that I would be as successful as I am and understanding all the differences and putting those pieces together. Because I do kind of go back into the, for so many years of my career, my mom couldn’t tell anybody what I did, right? She thought I was in billing. My dad was absolutely proud, but still couldn’t explain what I did. My husband would kind of get it right here and there. So for all these years, right? I didn’t live in technology and I didn’t live in operations. And still even today, a lot of times are like, what do you do?

Manuel Martinez: Right?

Rachel Papka: Like what is your absolute role? And I think that’s where the passion comes from is that I don’t fit in one lane. I get to ensure that the patients and the users, I can give them the best experience possible and that’s the ultimate goal. And without being able to have all those experience in the past, I don’t think that I would be able to do that today.

Manuel Martinez: And I see so many similarities in kind of in our career trajectories and similar to you. Like I worked in the larger enterprise that was on the customer side, the vendor side, you know, the support side, like all these different things. And I think you’re a hundred percent right. You may not realize it at the time, but it sounds like you were very open to trying new opportunities. Now, again, some of it having a good mentor to say, hey, I think you’ve outgrown this and you know, maybe explore these other things and opening you up to opportunities that you just weren’t aware of, right? Like sometimes we don’t know what we don’t know. And similar to you, I’ve had some of those people that I was always on the customer side. So when I had my first experiences, you know, I had a solutions engineer and I had a technical account manager for VMware and they would see, you know, a lot of the way I would communicate with them, you know, my personality and they’re like, you would be really great on the vendor side, right? Like doing this and helping support. And I’m like, no, no, no, no, like that again, that exposure and just again, when you talk to the people, they’re like, oh, the vendor, right? Like that’s the evil, you know, it’s the dark side. You know, I’ve heard a number of those things, but once I was on there, I was like, oh, no, I get this because now I get to help and impact not just my organization, but all these other ones. And again, it takes a while to get there, but now I see, oh, everything that I’m doing there and everything I’m doing now, I can help impact my community as well.

Rachel Papka: Right. And there’s, I don’t know, that feeling of being part of your community, right? And I remember, you know, an individual being asked and I just, I just always go back to it is, is that it’d be really hard for me to, to, to move on. And it’d be really hard for me to not stay within healthcare where I could have an effect on my community. Now, again, my community could look different, right? You know, maybe I’m not in Nevada for the rest of my life, but, you know, I think always being able to have an impact on your community is something that I value and something that’s extremely important to me.

Manuel Martinez: And that, I don’t know if I want to call it confidence or I don’t know if it’s just kind of, again, the mentors, but what, I know in the one case you said you had a mentor that kind of pushed you on and said, hey, kind of move into this role. And some of these other pivots that you had done to kind of lead to where you’re at now, was a lot of that you just kind of saying, I want to do more. I want to be exposed to more. Or was it just things that at the time almost feel like serendipitous, like, oh, this, this is, this is available. This is for me. And I guess I’ll just do it. And it worked out.

Rachel Papka: Yeah. I believe the path is already written. I truly do believe that. And I have been so blessed over my career and the individuals put in my life. I mean, sometimes I can’t even express the gratitude that I have for them. So early within my career, I had the mentor that I mentioned earlier. We just went through a big transition at Steinberg, right? We are now acquired by Intermountain Health. And even during that moment, I still spoke to that same mentor. That’s how long she has been in my life. We still connect to this day. And then I’ve also had some individuals that I’ve connected through possibly being, being on the vendor side. And these individuals have turned into mentors as well. And so most recently, probably over the last, I’d say three years, I have a second mentor in my life. Not even like I didn’t search out for one. I didn’t say I’m looking for a mentor. It was one of those that you immediately say, I trust you and you can see me for exactly who I am. You’re going to be able to see my flaws. You’re going to be able to kind of talk me down when I’m emotional, because I’m a very emotional, passionate individual. And you’re going to be able to kind of sort me through and to say, Rachel, we can get you where you need to go, but you need to slow down, right? And you need to get out of your own way. And that’s most recently a mentor. But then I’d also like to say I have a business coach also. This business coach has become one of my, I would say closest friends. And not closest friends is that, you know, I’m telling her everything going on in my life and so forth, but it’s a different level in the sense that she’s there to help me within my career. But I think we also reached an understanding that unless you know who Rachel is, unless you know what’s important to Rachel, then I’m not going to be able to open up to you as a business coach to help me become a better individual within my career. So I have really just within this path, not looked for mentorship, not asked for mentorship, but I’ve been so blessed. And I remember my father telling me very early on, if somebody asks for you, you go. And that’s actually how I ended up at Steinberg. Wasn’t even looking, didn’t even write outpatient radiology once again, right? And I was asked. And a lot of what’s happened in my career has been me being true to myself. Now don’t get me wrong, I’m a bull in a China shop and I’ve had to work on that, right? Or I’ve had to make sure that I don’t come on too strong or I have to make sure that it’s not my idea over everybody’s idea. And that’s something I had to work on and I’m still working on. But through the years, I’ve had these amazing individuals just be placed in my life to help me pivot when I was supposed to pivot. And I think when you look back on that, mentoring can come in so many different forms. And I think that we put mentorship in a box and we think mentorship is an individual that’s supposed to be there to get you to the next level and hold your hand and so forth. Whereas my experience with mentoring, I didn’t even probably realize I was being mentored. It was so natural and it was so vulnerable that I was probably growing with these individuals, but not even necessarily realizing it was happening. It wasn’t so intentional, but it was, again, just naturally happening for both sides. And these are friendships that I still have so many years later. Wow.

Manuel Martinez: You mentioned, and this is probably one of the first times that I can remember, a mentor and a coach. So if you wouldn’t mind kind of explaining a little bit in your experience what the differences are between the two. And if you have a mentor, why would you also need a business coach? What needs? Because I have an idea of where the differences are, but I’m curious, your take as far as, for someone who’s thinking, “Well, I have a mentor, why would I need a coach?”

Rachel Papka: And I do think they blend, I think, at different points. I think, so when a business coach has been introduced, I mean, most recently, but then also in the past as well, is that it was, I would like to say that it was specific because of an event. So business coach has introduced possibly a new acquisition or we’re going to change the executive team or possibly HR concerns. So sometimes business coaches are introduced based off an event. Other times business coaches are introduced because maybe that company sees that they want to grow you into a new role. And so it’s very specific to that career and that company unless you go seek out a business coach yourself. But even with that, you’re seeking out a business coach with something in mind. Possibly I want to change careers or I want to go into consulting or I want to do career downloads. There’s normally a specific event. And that’s where I see it different as a mentor is a mentor is almost one of those, do you have any cricket kind of right on your shoulder? Like no, you shouldn’t do this, but I think you should do this. No, you shouldn’t do this. And then also I think learned you at a very deeper level. A mentor may be somebody that you’re spending hours and hours and hours with like I did during implementations. And so they could see my highs, they could see my lows, they could see possibly in the moment being able to mentor or also be able to pick up the phone and be completely vulnerable and say, “Hey, I just walked out of the room completely crying. I couldn’t even contain myself. I think I just had a panic attack. Can you please walk me down?” Right? That’s like a deeper emotional level. Whereas maybe I would still call my business coach on that. But the business coach, if I called and said, “Hey, this just happened to me,” it might be in a different of, “So can you help coach me with these individuals so it doesn’t happen again?” Okay. Right? I might still get that from a mentor, but the mentor is going to, you know, console a little bit, be a little bit more empathetic and then possibly not trained though. Right? Business coach is trained and definitely is going to say, you know, “Let’s give you some tools to do this and let’s help you understand why you reacted that way.” A mentor, and again, in my mind, maybe doesn’t have all the tools, will still help you and give you suggestions, but is going to console you as well.

Manuel Martinez: Got it. No, yeah. And that was kind of my idea as a mentor, I guess, to kind of simplify it. They’re a little bit more invested in kind of you as a person in your career as a whole. Whereas, again, your point, like not that a business coach wouldn’t, because again, mentors that blend, but they are more targeted for a specific event or a specific outcome. Like I’m trying to, I want to move into a leadership role or I want to lead people. I need coaching on the tools, the knowledge that maybe I don’t have the experience, but you can help me get to that point. Now, a mentor can probably do the same things based on their experiences, but like you said, they’re not trained in, “No, I’ve done this. It’s a repeated process that they know works and can help you.”

Rachel Papka: Yeah. And I think that at times too, maybe negativity may come with a business coach, right? At times, why did they ask me to go get a business coach? Why am I not worthy enough? Am I not valuable enough? Oh, I did something wrong. And so let’s send Rachel to a business coach, right? So sometimes it could come from a place of…

Manuel Martinez: Felt doubt.

Rachel Papka: Yeah. But I love my business coach. I mean, I absolutely, yes, came from a certain event, but right at the moment where I was offered a business coach, I looked at it as an opportunity to say, “I’m only going to get better.” Right? I mean, I have things I have to improve on and there’s areas that I know I’m weakened. And so if I can be provided with somebody that’s going to help me grow and respond better and again, just continue to be a better version of myself, then bring her on. Right? And so again, it’s just gratitude. Sometimes I just feel so blessed.

Manuel Martinez: And that self-awareness to understand that there is room for improvement, right? And kind of looking at it the positive way, is that something that you think just came from experience? Is that something you’re used to? The reason I say that is because looking back now, I was like, “Man, I was always pretty open to feedback and from other people.” I think mine comes because at a young age, I always played sports. So I always have a coach, right? There’s already somebody who’s telling you, like, “There’s times that you just… You don’t agree with it and you don’t like it? Like, what do you mean? I did it well, but they’re trying to help you improve in smaller areas.” Like, yes, maybe the outcome was successful this time, but if you do these steps and… Or do these things, you can be that much better. So I mean, I have one coach in particular and he at one point even became kind of like more of a mentor. Like, he would coach, but he just… He was invested in me. Now it helped that his son and I were friends, but he did a lot of coaching for me. But even after that, once I was no longer one of his players, he was invested. He was somebody I could call, like, “Hey, I have this type of situation in my body.” And to your point, right? It kind of blended from coach to mentor, like, “Oh, hey, if you take this approach, if you take that.” So looking back now, when I see people that are resistant, I’m like, “What is it that makes a difference?” I’m just curious, like, did you have that earlier on from, you know, playing sports or what made you self-aware to say, “I can get better,” even though, like, it may feel uncomfortable at first. Like you said, there’s that doubt, like, “Wait a minute, why? Like, I think I’m doing well.”

Rachel Papka: Yeah, you know, I definitely didn’t always have it. Right? I do remember probably, I’d say maybe 15, 20 years ago when I was first introduced to like a 360 assessment.

Manuel Martinez: And what is a 360 assessment?

Rachel Papka: And you know, I’m not even going to explain it very well, but it was kind of looking at your strengths, your weaknesses, your trigger points, kind of like a disc assessment, same type of idea, right? And I remember that, again, it was being introduced because I was seen as difficult. Right? And so a negativity came with that. And then the way that… And obviously, I still like remember this to this day, right? It kind of like ingrained in me is that the way it was kind of introduced and then the way that it was reviewed with me, I felt very depleted. I felt very like I couldn’t do anything right. I couldn’t, you know, almost like I was being scolded in a way. Right? And not paired with a business coach and not paired with an ability to kind of get better. And I just didn’t connect with the individual. Right? So like, let’s say you do the assessment and then you’re going to come back and you’re going to give me the results. And then you’re going to maybe put it in a form where I’m like, okay, you’re not making me feel good right now. Right? And so I remember that very first time doing it. And then I remember for years and years and years after that is that I had such a strong personality. Right? I’ve been told a strong personality. Or I would be told bull in a china shop. Right? That I have amazing ideas, but I just come into it very strong. And so after years of very constructive criticism, and I feel like that was the turn is when somebody would be willing to sit with me and actually give me constructive criticism. But if you just came and just kind of like blow and hit me, I would be seen as, well, Rachel’s so emotional. You can’t even tell her what’s going on. But it was more from, well, you just hit me out of nowhere. And my response is emotion. And I would, and I would break down and I would absolutely, you know, tears would be flowing and I, you know, it wasn’t that I wasn’t receiving, it was more of a, you just hit me. Right? You just really knocked me down. And so I think as the years went by and I continued going through that, I realized I need to continue one to be able to figure out how to control my emotions. And so if I get knocked down, how am I going to handle that? Right? But then secondly, it was around, I can always be better. If you’re going to give me constructive feedback, I’m going to take it. But please don’t do in a manner to where you just made me feel invaluable. Right? Or you made me feel like I didn’t have any worthiness. Or in the years that I’ve provided, you discarded that. And so that’s where I think I was able to, and quite honestly, because of the coaching over the last, you know, year or so, and because of the great mentors in the last few years, is that I had to identify, am I open to constructive feedback? That’s the very first thing. Are you going to be open to it? I am open to it if you’re going to provide it in a positive manner. I am not open to it. And I will become emotional if you out of the blue just decided to knock me down. Right. And that’s where I think I found the difference in going through it. Where you also asked about, like, did I play sports? And you know, was there that? Everybody that knows me very well is I am so competitive. I’m highly competitive. So it wasn’t even always about being open to it and getting better. I think when you have that competitive streak, you’re like, oh, yeah? Okay, well then let me show you because I’m going to go get up and I’m going to be even stronger than I was before. Right? Is that like fight or flight type of mentality? And I think when you are competitive, it’s the fight mentality. Right? Okay, you knocked me down. I’m going to get back up. But as I realized over the years is, can I have less, like, knocking me down? Can I have less punches? And how do I do that? Okay, well then how can I be a little bit more open and trying to figure out really, like those around me and figure out how I can understand what that style is or what that individual needs or right? So it wasn’t even so much learning about myself, but I have to learn about everybody else around me. I remember again, very early on in my executive career at my current role is about a year in I had my evaluation and my doctor told me, “Rachel, you’re one of the most intelligent people I’ll ever meet. You’re great with technology. You have implemented and you’ve changed so much. Now it’s time to work on the people.” And I went, “Oh, okay. I hear you. I got you.” And again, that was another turning point for me.

Manuel Martinez: And it’s funny you mentioned it, right? Because I’ve had a lot of conversations where we talk about communication and being able to do that effectively. And this is probably one of the first conversations where you’ve talked about it on the receiving end, right? Because a lot of times we’re like, “Oh, as a manager, I did this.” Like a lot of times it’s self reflection. Like I didn’t communicate effectively and here’s what it led to, but it sounds like your experience, at least in that timeframe was you were the recipient of ineffective communication is what I’m going to say. Because they didn’t know how to… I’m going to say it’s communication and also emotional intelligence. It’s understanding that, “Hey, when I approach Rachel this way and I give her this type of feedback,” because in their mind it probably is feedback. Like I’m getting this, “She’s emotional and she’s all these things,” but it’s, “Okay. Is it just 100% Rachel or is it also the person delivered in?” Because it sounds like you were open to it, but the way that you’re approaching it is not going to work for me. Maybe if they would have approached me like that, I would probably have been like, “Okay, sure. No problem. Not a big deal.” But understanding that you can’t deliver the same type of feedback or criticism to every individual. I know that this is the first time I’ve kind of… Again, I’ve heard it from the receiving end is you’re just making the problem worse. So really kind of understanding like, “Hey, we all need to work not only on how we deliver feedback, but also how we receive it.” And then it sounds like you took the emotional route, but did the business coach and all these mentors eventually kind of equip you with the ability to go back and say, “Hey, the way that you’re giving me this… You can’t do that.” Because at some point they may not know. They just, again, they’re blaming it on you, but at some point you have to go and say, “Hey, you know what?” And kind of stand up for yourself and say, “You know what? I can take the feedback, but you can’t just come and bam and hit me with it. Here’s how you should approach it. Here’s how I would be able to take that in a more open and reciprocal kind of format.”

Rachel Papka: Yeah. Yeah. I think really what the training has been is that knowing my own social style, right? And then knowing the social styles around you. So to your absolutely point is how I’m going to deliver my messages. So if I know their social styles or I know how that they want feedback, then I can be successful in my feedback to them. But not everyone is going to take the time, right? Or the effort or the desire to learn possibly your social style, my social style, right? So absolutely. And I love how you said emotional intelligence because, I mean, again, I will tell you years and years ago, we didn’t spend time on emotional intelligence. Probably most recent in the last 10 years is how important that has been, right? Your social style, your emotional intelligence, your constructive criticism, how to do feedback, the feedback sandwich, right? I mean, we’ve spent a lot of time on this. And so, yes, I think that what I really… And I’m kind of in the middle of it right now actually kind of going through this is that knowing that that style is going to come at me, now I’m trying to figure out how to receive it and not react. And so realizing that I can’t go to every individual and say, “This is the way I need you to give me feedback. And this is the way you have to tell me. And please don’t come at me because it’s going to happen.” So knowing that’s inevitable and is going to happen, now what I’m working on is, is what is my response going to be? Or trying to figure out my triggers. So I’ll share with you just like one area is that my coach had asked me, “Do you always have something with you? Do you find that you always have a go-to or what is that one area that kind of helps you with that?” And what I actually realized is it’s my water, right? And so I noticed now that, sorry, is that if I start to get emotional or I start to fill my eyes well up, what we’ve been working on is grab your water and take a drink. Because I don’t, you know, I maybe don’t have a ring that I was constant to or I don’t have a fidget or right? So that was the one thing that I realized that I constantly have that I can take a drink to try and bring my emotions down. Or, you know, I have to also recognize that if I’m not going to be able to contain it, then I need to say, “You know what? I’m not in the right place today. Can we go ahead and talk about this tomorrow?” But that’s hard. That’s hard for a highly innovative, competitive, result-driven individual. And that is me, right? So it could sometimes be seen as like, well, again, that fight attack. So wait, you know, I’m okay with constructive criticisms. I’m, you know, okay with constructive, like, feedback. I’ll have crucial conversations. I’m okay with all of that. But if I’m being emotional, I need to not fight. I need to not have that fight, competitive, result-driven, right? Because I’m like, I want to resolve this now. I need to remove myself. And that’s something that I’m working on right now. But that’s a lot easier for some individuals that, again, all kind of repeat it, result-driven, competitive, innovative, right? Like, I want to see something happen now. And so just understanding one is like, what’s that one thing that you can do when you’re feeling highly emotional or highly upset and, you know, figuring that out? And it probably took me, I would say, about eight months to say, oh, okay, right? I do always have my water with me. So instead of taking that deep breath, now I’m going to grab my water and then drink it and then maybe that will calm me down.

Manuel Martinez: And it’s really just finding something that’s going to help ground you and keep you present in that moment and say, okay, hold on. Like there’s something going on and just taking that, like you said, I’ve heard that all the time is the breath, right? Take a breath, you know, a couple seconds to just kind of really process and being able to go. But I like the idea of a water, right? It’s just you’re kind of doing the same thing. And I’m sure it’s probably like cold water, right? And it’s just that, I don’t want to say it’s a shock to the system, but it’s like a pause. Like you’re pausing yourself to say, okay, wait a minute. Before I, before again, I get competitive and I try to go through and resolve this, like, let me take a second and figure out, okay, what should my next step be? Maybe it is continuing the conversation. Maybe it’s, hey, you know what? I can’t, I can’t. Like I know that even taking that pause, it’s not going to, it’s not going to be enough. Let’s come back to this in an hour or maybe tomorrow, right? Like just let me prepare myself so that I don’t escalate the situation.

Rachel Papka: The whole sleep on it overnight. Did you like when, when you were younger, be like, why did they tell us to sleep on it overnight? Right? They just don’t want to talk to me about it or they’re just avoiding me. I tell you what, it does wonders. It is so true. Sleep on it overnight. And if it’s still gnawing at you, maybe one more night. And then at that point, if it’s like for me, if it’s still that important to me and I haven’t been able, then I need to have the conversation. But I think that highly sensitive topics that I know I’m going to get a response from the other end. I guess here’s a perfect example, right? And so there’s a sensitive topic. And so I went to my colleague and I said, hey, are you in a good mood today? Are you a little cranky because I want to talk to you about something sensitive. So if you’re kind of cranky, then we’ll just not do it today. And he said, let’s do it another day. And I said, fair enough. And I walked out and right, because we’ve learned that about each other now, I would have never done that in the past. I would have been like, I need to talk to him about this and it’s important to me. So I’m going to just make sure that you hear from me. And I was like, no, we can wait another day. Because if I hit him at the wrong time, right, then I’m going to get the crankiness or I’m going to get, you know, maybe not a clear mind and maybe they’re not the result that I’m looking for or maybe not an open conversation. Right? So I was very, again, like grateful for him to be honest with me and say, not today. I went, okay, not today.

Manuel Martinez: But I think that that it does two things, right? One, you prevent that, you know, that conflict. But two, at the other point, like making them aware and say, okay, no, I’m not in the right state of mind. They’re at least aware that the conversation is coming and say, hey, no, not today. And they can sing to you like if someone had come to you like, okay, now I can prepare myself and understand that this conversation is coming. Again, it’s not a negative thing. It’s just it’s something we have to address, but we both have to make sure that we are in the right state of mind to be able to have that conversation and have a desirable outcome as opposed to, like you said, I need to talk to you right now. I don’t care how you’re feeling. It’s like, hey, are you not in a good mood? And I just want to make sure that we’re both in good moods because they might come to you tomorrow and say, hey, I’m in a good mood and be like, you know what, I’m not now like, let’s wait another day. Right? But it’s, and again, just not keeping it secretive, not saying like, oh my God, what’s going on? It’s like, hey, it’s just it’s something we need to discuss. But again, I want to make sure that we’re both in good moods so that, again, we work towards a desire of welcome.

Rachel Papka: It shows a vulnerability and it shows, I think that as leaders, we would maybe see this as a weakness. And I think that the more that we as leaders can continue to be like, I’m just like you, right? I have areas I need to work on. I have strengths, but then I have just as equally as weaknesses. I’m going to mess up. I’m not going to get it right. I’m going to maybe say something to you that I wish I wouldn’t have said. I think just being so open that our peers and our employees, our team members, our caregivers appreciate that so much more. And I think that if we can continue to be vulnerable and say, I’m sorry, I didn’t do that right, and then say, I’m sorry, I will go get continue coaching for that. That’s where we as leaders need to continue. And I think it’s not a weakness. I believe in coaching and I believe in mentoring and I also believe in showing my weaknesses to those that are going to continue to build me up and not use my weaknesses to push me down.

Manuel Martinez: And I think you’re right. It does the almost the opposite effect, right? You would think like, oh, I’m going to show this is going to show weakness, but it almost shows strength, right? Because it says, wow, this person is confident enough to admit, hey, I didn’t approach that correctly. And I’m not saying it’s easy because I’ve had to do this. I’ve had to go back and I’ve gotten to situations and come back and said, okay, you know what I mean? Like I didn’t handle that right. And coming back and genuinely apologizing and knowing like, hey, you know what? This wasn’t handled properly. Apologizing and again, apologizing isn’t a form of weakness if, but again, you also have to make sure that you really genuinely mean it. Like if I would just, I go through it. I’m like, hey, I’m sorry. And then the following week I’m doing it again. Are you really sorry? Or are you just apologizing as an excuse for that bad behavior? Like, and again, I’m not saying that it’s…

Rachel Papka: I’m like, oh, let’s talk about that one.

Manuel Martinez: Because again, and it might happen that we don’t want to try it. Like, hey, I’m still working on it. Again, I’m not saying that the second time it happens, like, nope, you’re doing this on purpose. And I think you can, people can tell when it’s genuine as opposed to this is just an excuse for bad behavior.

Rachel Papka: I don’t know that you can always tell.

Manuel Martinez: Really?

Rachel Papka: Yeah. And the reason I say that is because there may be that individual that is working on themselves. And that they are putting in the effort and then they recognize, but they don’t know how to quote unquote fix it. Right? Not that we need to be fixed. Right. And they don’t know how to get the tools or they don’t know how to find the individuals. And so the repeated behaviors, they may find themselves like, okay, like, generally I am sorry. And then right again, it repeats it and repeats itself. Whereas that person may be in the middle of actually trying to work on themselves. And so it is genuine. However, they haven’t found the way to correct their actions yet. Or they haven’t been even given an opportunity. Right? I mean, maybe, maybe there’s the constant putting up the fight, right? Or the constant imposter syndrome or the constant, right? Like they don’t know how to handle the reaction that they’re given. And that’s again, we’re coaching comes into. And that is where mentoring comes into. Because if you constantly do the same thing, it doesn’t mean that you’re not going to be successful. Right? But at what cost? Right? And so I think there is like, they are genuine, but they maybe don’t know how to be something different and are still working on growing. And I think a lot of that is, again, kind of comes into is like, why are we differentiated in our jobs? Or what equals successful? Like, right? Like if you were to go through LinkedIn and find individuals for your podcast, what stands out? Right? But what made that person stand out from somebody else? I don’t know. Like we could go into this. You know, like, and sometimes it’s very interesting in the sense of that person may have a, let’s say a negative stamp on them or a positive stamp on them. But do we give them opportunity to continue to work on themselves? Or do we just say, well, they’re not genuine and they just keep doing it anyways?

Manuel Martinez: Got it. Yeah, I guess I’m just kind of talking about my own experiences where I’ve seen kind of both, right? I’ve seen the people were like, and again, I could be completely wrong. Where it’s just, I feel like you can, I feel like I can tell when somebody is, again, they might still be repeatedly doing it, but you can, it looks like they’re making an effort. Like it may not be the exact same mistake, but it’s pretty close where you’re like, okay, like there’s a little bit of variation. Whereas I’ve seen, you know, and maybe it is, maybe some of these things are just longer where I’ve just felt like, you know, this is like, it’s exactly the same. There’s no change. And even the apology, like at some point, like just feels like empty. Empty, right. And maybe that’s where I feel like it’s not genuine. You’re just like, oh, I’m sorry.

Rachel Papka: Sure. Yeah.

Manuel Martinez: Are you sorry? Or it’s just like, you know, where’s opposed to like, hey, you know what, I apologize. When they make a little bit more effort as opposed to like, hey, I’m sorry, I won’t do it again. Hey, I’m sorry. Like at some point, you know, I’m like, are you though? Yeah. Like it just feels very empty. Like, and that’s where I meant from the genuine part. Again, maybe it is just taking longer. So maybe I will have to learn to probably not judge as much, you know, from that standpoint and really be more open to understanding and saying, hey, maybe this is just taking longer.

Rachel Papka: It is difficult, right? Even that goes into do we really know what’s going on behind the person, right? Or do we really understand, you know, the I’m sorry, is that because, you know, they lack communication or is that because they lack the ability to empathize? Is that right? I mean, yes, I’m not saying that we should be okay with the repeated actions. And absolutely right. There needs to always be consequences to your actions. I agree with that. But are we always too quick to judge?

Manuel Martinez: Right? No.

Rachel Papka: I don’t know.

Manuel Martinez: We don’t know.

Rachel Papka: Not for us to figure out today.

Manuel Martinez: Not today. Oh, that’s awesome. So I know I’ve asked you a ton of questions. You’ve given lots of great stories, insights. Is there anything that we haven’t touched on yet? Maybe something that we kind of glossed over. So I know we kind of got to where you’re at now. So I don’t know if there’s anything that we might be missing as part of the conversation.

Rachel Papka: You know, I think the only thing that I would probably share is that when you see a successful individual, right? Do you think they like what made them successful? And we all had such a journey and we’re all in a journey still. Right? I think what I would like share today and being vulnerable is that I’m not the same person I was last year. I’m not the same person five years ago. I’m not the same person 10 years ago. When I started my career, I did not have chief innovation officer anywhere on my vision board. Right? I did not have chief health informatics officer anywhere on my vision board, nor did I have outpatient radiology anywhere on my vision board. But what I did have was a vision board. And what I still do every single year is I sit down with my kids and I reflect what went well last year. Right? Because we had the vision board from last year and we had these grand ideas and these grand things that we wanted to happen. Right? And so going back and reflecting on that and saying, what really went well last year for me? Not went bad. What went well? Focus on the what went well and then create the vision for the next year. And that vision can be anything. And I like to remind each one of us of that and instill that type of annual kind of like, again for me, as I’m a very big family person. So sitting down on New Year’s Eve, and again, we haven’t been able to do it every year because some of the kids are out of state now, but I still have memories of sitting down on New Year’s Eve reflecting and creating a vision board with my family. And so in your career, in your personal, in your professional, I would still say, first off, always reflect on the good. Spend as much time on what went well and stop spending so much time on what didn’t go well. And then any type of vision board, right? I think I’ve seen you do your AI vision board, right? An electronic vision board. Go to Hobby Lobby if you need to and get the paper and the cutout and all the newspapers. Any type of thing that you can do, do it with your teens, do it with your family, you know, put your favorite show on and do it by yourself. But I think the one thing that we don’t spend time on is reflecting and projecting.

Manuel Martinez: And as part of that, and the reason I ask is, yes, I did the AI one, but that was something new to me. Prior to this year, I had never created a vision board. I didn’t know enough about it. I had heard people say, “Hey, I created a vision board, I created a vision board.” I’m like, “Yeah, okay.” It wasn’t until a good friend of mine, Janetta, and she had mentioned that how she had repeatedly done this, and then she goes back and says, “Hey, here’s the things that, again, similar to you, what went well.” She doesn’t dwell on, “Oh, I didn’t accomplish it. It’s like what went well?” And what she does, and one of the things that she challenged me to do this year was on the things that went well, reflect on what are the actions that you took to make it happen. Because it’s not just like, “I want this,” and it’s just going to happen, right? I’ll use a perfect example. I want to be a TEDx speaker. I put that on there, like, “Oh, this would be great,” and I saw the application this year and I applied probably like two weeks before the submission deadline is when I found out, probably submitted it maybe a week before the deadline. Now, I didn’t get selected, but then I looked back. I didn’t dwell on it, but at the same time, I did reflect in that moment when I got the email and said, “You know what? I didn’t deserve it because what are the steps that I took to get to there?” I applied. Okay, is that really enough? Hey, maybe now for next year, here’s the steps that I’m going to take towards doing it. Like, some of the other ones, and it’s really she said, “Pay attention and write down at least on a monthly basis, if not sooner.” Like, one of my other ones is, “I want to do a handstand. I want to be able to do a handstand.”

Rachel Papka: I love it.

Manuel Martinez: And people are like, “Well, what’s the benefit of that?” Well, to me, it was, “Well, that means I have to get healthy. I have to exercise. I have to work out.” So it was like an end goal. It wasn’t like, “I’m going to get in shape,” because that to me felt very like, “Okay, what?” But if I say, “All right, I want to do a handstand. I can’t just plop over and do that. I have to build up strength to be able to do that,” and she goes and reflect and say, “What have I done towards that goal?” Oh, okay. So that when you go to reflect at the end of the year, “Did I accomplish it or not?” Is it just because I needed more time? Or is it, “I didn’t do… I worked out once a week and that wasn’t enough. Maybe for the next year, I need to do two or three,” or whatever that might be. So is that the similar type of reflection that you’re talking about? Or is it just kind of saying like, “Hey, this went well and…”

Rachel Papka: No, you hit it. You hit it on exactly, right? And I think though the very first time you may do a vision board and you may reflect, it’s going to look different from the second time you do that and the third time you do that, because I think you grow and I think you understand. And I think you have individuals that will kind of guide you and help you. Like, “Okay, let’s not just say, “Oh, it happened,” but it didn’t happen,” right? And so having conversations like this in the sense of like, “Oh, that’s how you did your vision board and that makes sense and I’m going to look at it a little bit differently.” And so yes, I think the very first time that somebody does a vision board looks very different than their 10th time that they did a vision board and it has maybe some different meaning to it or maybe it’s one thing on a vision board because it’s so highly important to them, right? Every year and every reflection I think is going to look a little bit different. I would ask you one question too, is Manny, do you believe in manifestation?

Manuel Martinez: I do now. So in the past, I was like, “I don’t… Again, I’m going to say I didn’t because I didn’t understand it. I didn’t know what manifestation was.” There’s a book called Manifest. It’s an orange cover. It literally says manifest on it. And it talks about the science behind it. And I read the book, because again, recommendation from somebody, I read it and was like, “Oh, oh, there’s a science behind it.” And you start to… I’m one of those people, like I have ADHD, so I am very much… If something interests me, I will deep dive into it. And that’s what I did, the science. So self talk, the vision board, the manifesting. And manifesting isn’t just like, “I want to make a million dollars.” That’s what I thought manifestation was. It’s like, “Okay, no, I want to make a million dollars. What am I going to do to get to that point?” And you map it out, but then you do vision boards, you do these things to put that in there. One of the things I just discovered or I heard about and I haven’t seen it yet was mind movies. Have you ever heard of those? No. Personally, it’s very close to a vision board and what you’re supposed to do, and I haven’t googled it yet, I have a list to work on it, but you take images, part of your vision board. So if it’s like, “Hey, I want to be a TEDx figure.” Maybe it’s a picture of a TEDx stage or you can use AI, put yourself…

Rachel Papka: Oh, yes, yes, yes.

Manuel Martinez: And you make a movie, put music to it, and apparently it’s something that’s like a minute or two and every morning, so similar to looking at your vision board. I don’t know where you have yours, but I printed out the one that I did and it’s just a piece paper and I even have it. My desktop’s kind of cluttered sometimes, but it’s my wallpaper. So occasionally I have to remember like, “All right, let me just take a look at this and bring it back.” But apparently you just watch this movie every day, minute or two, and it’s replaying and your brain doesn’t know the difference between fiction and reality. Interesting. So apparently, and this was somebody that was recommended by like a billionaire, says, “Hey, do a mind movie.” I was like, “What is this?” So I kind of glanced at it and I was like, “Oh, it’s just, again, similar to the vision board. It’s just something you watch.” And you’re like, “Mmm, mmm, mmm, you start your day? Okay, great.” And again, your brain is… So my friend, Jeanette, is the one that had told me about the manifestation and vision boards and she was like, “Man, your brain is so amazing. It’s working even when you think it’s not.” You’re not thinking about making this podcast successful, but if that’s something on your vision board and it was, it’s like, “I want to have a podcast studio. I want to be able to employ people. I don’t know that I want to make this a full-time career, but I have now set the goal of saying, “You know what? I want to make this into a business to… I’ve hired some interns. How do I get them to a point and build people up to…?” Again, going back to the community thing. And I look at that and I’m like, “Okay, this is my purpose is I want to do this.” And now I can see that being in a movie and saying, “Okay, yep, yep, yep, it’s going to get there.” And your brain, when you’re sleeping, when you’re not thinking about it, it’s thinking, “How am I going to accomplish this? This is something I’m supposed to do. How do I achieve it?”

Rachel Papka: I love that. Mind movies. All right.

Manuel Martinez: So, what did you find out about manifestation?

Rachel Papka: So well, I’m going to go read the book now. But my belief behind manifestation, right, is it’s the positivity, it’s the putting it out in the universe, it’s the constantly thinking that it could happen and it’s a possibility and so forth, right? I don’t have as much science behind it like you did, but I think I’m going to go read it. But that’s just something that I’ve always believed in as well, is manifesting. And so, yes, you can’t… I agree with you. You can’t just continually say, “I want this, I want this, I want this,” or put it out in the air and say… But it kind of goes back to my initial comment, right, is that the path is already made for us, right? And so, it’s just kind of up to us if we’re going to take the left side or the right side to finish our journey.

Manuel Martinez: And I love that everything you shared and the fact that you brought up is you see people that are successful. But a lot of times, and I try to share the things that didn’t go well and say, “Yes, you and I, they see you as a chief innovation officer.” And they see, “Wow, this is amazing.” You didn’t know that that was going to happen, but you did the little things over a long period of time to eventually get to that point. And now somebody might see that and say, “I want to do something like that.” Okay, what are you going to do to work towards that or something similar? I appreciate all the information and the stories you’ve given. This has been better than I thought it was going to be.

Rachel Papka: Absolutely exciting. Thank you.

Manuel Martinez: Thank you. And for everyone that continues to listen, watch, and support, again, thank you for continuing to listen to our guests and plug in and continue to download the knowledge. Thank you. I can still get at least a little bit of recording and it will just be like it’ll be static. I got to send a picture of just like when you’re talking, I’ll put picture view. And when I’m talking, I’ll have it switch to like the picture of me. Yeah. Do you want to… And you don’t have to keep it, but do you want to try to record a 30 second like a snippet of how this didn’t work out? I’m okay with that. Yeah. And we’ll can still do it again.