Yo DaVitans!

It is Monday evening and I must repeat that it is a great boost to read some of the entries from other teammates!  I’m motivated by the energy, the honesty and the sense of shared goodwill and purpose. This is a good place, for me at least!

This Match the Mayor campaign is taking place at a good time, because I did the CIGNA Health Assessment and it highlighted what I already knew — that I have let my cholesterol (the bad type) and triglycerides creep up again, and need to nip that trend in the bud. So thanks for the help!

I was able to do a weigh-in this morning, at my standard time right when I wake up, with the same clothing, on the same scale. The news was much better than I expected, I weighed 190. That is 7 pounds down. I think I must be a little dehydrated so I don’t want to believe it. But the same scale had me down 6 pounds a week ago and I have moved a full hole on the belts.

This should be a week where I have an opportunity to perform well, as I am only in Los Angeles and San Francisco, and I don’t have a lot of big evening work or social events. Since it is day 72 out of the 90, I need to step up like so many of you are doing, so I finish the job like you!

One for All,

KT

(Character is higher than intellect. for a great soul will be strong to live as well as to think)

Yo DaVita!

It is now 10:30 p.m. on Sunday night, sorry for the gap in communicating to my partners in pursuit of greater health and vitality!

Last Thursday a.m. I woke up in New Hampshire. After a short unsatisfying workout I was off to discuss some interesting new business opportunities. I skipped breakfast because I had not eaten dinner until 11:30 p.m., and because they did not have any healthy warm food on their menu after 10 p.m., so pizza it was. Tasted great but felt terrible since I did not crave it. Lunch was healthy I ate ham and turkey without the bun.

I hustled off to the airport in the afternoon to fly to Pennsylvania for a meeting with some physicians who are thinking of working with us. That meeting went from 6:00 p.m. until 9:00 p.m. I had a salad and then chicken for dinner, which felt noble at the time. To the airport I sprinted and a little after 10:00 p.m. I was flying to Boston. I joined my wife at the hotel at 11:30 p.m., since she and I were going to attend our 25th Business School Reunion. But by this time I was starved, and since she and I were going to stay up and catch up with one another I ordered a cheeseburger with no bun and no fries for a midnight treat. Ouch!

My Friday started and ended with DaVita meetings, but in between I was able to spend four hours at the reunion and also got in a strong workout. I skipped breakfast again given the late night eating, and had a light and healthy lunch, which was made easier by the fact that the food was not very good or warm.

I won’t bore you with the details of the entire weekend — but my eating was reasonable, my exercise was solid, but the beer and wine added a bunch of calories on top. This morning we had a hearty breakfast in Boston (not a light one I am afraid) and flew back. I got a large amount of work done on the long flight, and had fish and vegetables for lunch.

Once home I went straight into my home office to continue the attack on my email mountain, still over 800 of them even after my progress on the plane. I also had to do my Compliance Refresher Training courses, the general one and the negotiator one. I stopped working at 7 p.m. in order to workout — at 8 p.m. my wife and I went out to a little local restaurant for dinner. I had a Caesar salad and salmon with veggies and rice. It feels great to be home!

Unfortunately I will not enjoy it for long, since tomorrow morning I get up at 6 a.m. to workout and then fly to the Casa in LA. I will let you know how the weigh in goes tomorrow a.m.!  I hope you all are doing well, and leading healthier lives!

One for All,

KT

(Speak with your life, not just your words)

Yo DaVita !!

I got a lot of work done on my Tuesday afternoon plane from Nashville, TN back to California. In case I forgot to mention it, I skipped breakfast and had salmon with veggies for lunch. I landed about 4:30 p.m. and headed into the Casa. My meetings ended at 8 p.m., and I headed up to a hotel downtown to be close to UCLA for my speech the next morning.

Once in the hotel I had chicken with veggies for dinner with some tomato soup. I ordered through room service so I could catch up on email while I was waiting. After eating I called home and also called my daughter who is in her first week of college. She is having some difficult conversations with her boyfriend from high school, as they are in different schools in different states. She just needed a little daddy listening time, which was a pleasure to provide. It is still a little amazing to think that my baby girl is now in college, and we are empty nesters.  Life’s rich pageant! Read more…

Yo DaVitans!!

It is now Monday September 22.

My wife and I went away for Friday and Saturday nights, to reconnect after my time with the Tour DaVita, and before another week of travel. It was very nice.

We got home about 11 a.m. on Sunday. I worked until 5:00 p.m. catching up on lots of stuff from when I was at the Tour. I had chicken enchiladas with healthy black beans for lunch (but only two of them!) and pork chops with asparagus and healthy rice for dinner.

I am now up to something like 18 nights without a dessert, I will have to go back and check. That is good for me.

This morning I got up at 5:30 a.m. and headed into the office. But first I weighed myself, the first time in about nine days. The scale shows that I am down six pounds! I don’t believe it actually, even with all the Tour riding I think I must have been low in water weight. But I hope it is only a pound or two off.

I won’t know until next Monday, because today I got on a plane at 2:30 p.m. to fly to Nashville, TN. Before heading to the airport I got a short workout in, 20 minutes on the lifecycle, plus a little lifting and stretching, plus one set of sit-ups. Now I am getting lots of work done on the plane, and have a meeting at 9 p.m. when I land. Then I will do some email, call home, and go to bed. Tomorrow I don’t know if I will get a workout in because I am giving a speech at about 8:30 a.m. — don’t know if I will get up in time.

The week has significant travel — today to Nashville, TN, tomorrow back to Los Angeles in the morning and then a long drive to Orange County in the afternoon, both in California. Then I fly on Wednesday to New Hampshire to look at some new Home Hemo technology, on to Pennsylvania to visit some physicians on Thursday, and then Friday to Boston, MA for a number of meetings with some consultants and suppliers. The good news is I was able to put those meetings in Boston at the same time as my 25th Harvard Business School Reunion. My wife and I met at business school, she and I were in the same first year section, so she will be flying out on Thursday to join me.

All in all this type of week does not bode well for the diet. We shall see. I wish for all of you a strong Match the Mayor week! Or beat the Mayor as the case may be!

One for all,

KT

Yo DaVita !!

I will cover the last 36 hours of the Tour DaVita first. Then I will fast forward to Sunday, September 21. 

Day three was the EPIC day. To complete the entire Tour you needed to do 71 miles. To complete the bonus Tour you needed to do 105 miles. All of this after visiting a Green Bay dialysis center in the morning, so no early jump on the distance. 

The visit to the Green Bay Fox River Center was wonderful! The Mayor of Green Bay spoke, a State Senator spoke, Diane the FA spoke and two patients spoke … there was a lot of speaking!  The center is very nice, with a lot of natural light in the treatment room. They also had some great “valences” on the windows that I have never seen before, but now we will make all of you aware of them, they brought some nice positive energy and color into the room. 

The Tour was reported on TV yet again, which was fun — they caught a snippet of another one of our police escorts that we had in a few situations to keep everyone safe. 

The morning ride was beautiful, much of it along the water. Lunch was at a special place for me, a tiny town (population about 10) of Thiry Daems. This is where my Great Great Great Grandfather settled when he emigrated from Belgium in 1856. He came, bought land, then went back a year later to get his wife and family. The town is named after him because he was…. you guessed it, The Mayor!  Daems was the last name of the catholic priest. So they had Thiry Daems just like when we had Thiry Yoda (for those who did not know it, Yoda was, and is, a Catholic Deacon). Too bad there were no Mello’s around. 

The farm we had lunch on is owned by some distant relatives of mine that I had never met. The farm has been in their family for 150 years. They were wonderful people. I also got to see the graves of several of my ancestors, which was pretty thought-provoking. 

I also had to take a couple business calls. The combination of all this stuff meant I did not leave lunch until 1:30 p.m. By far the last person to leave lunch who was doing the Bonus Ride, meaning I had about 68 lonely miles to go. Until Cedric Tuck-Sherman appeared, one of our Marketing Vice-Presidents. Cedric was one of the strongest riders in the entire group, but he had decided to “sweep” the back and see what he found — and he found me. He rode with me all the way to the end, and turned what would have otherwise been brutal into something that was…. well still brutal but a lot less so. 

We rode the last 45 minutes in front of a van so we could see the road in the headlights. We arrived in camp at 8:15 p.m., where about thirty wonderful teammates were yelling and clapping at the camp’s gate. What a glorious day!!! 

The next day was a “short” 25 mile ride that was beautiful along the water for awhile. We ended in Algoma, all of us riding in together, escorted down Main Street by the police, with a BIG percentage of the town’s children released from school to cheer and welcome us! We handed out Snappy and Reggie gifts, and whistles which no doubt made their teachers very happy for the rest of the day. 

We had a short but rousing closing event, and then everyone boarded buses to start the trek home. 

What a journey it was. “The Ride of a Lifetime” we call it. It was a testament to the power of the human spirit. A testament to the beauty of our imperfect Village. 

One for All, 

KT 

(Tis better to light a small candle than curse the darkness … Confucius)

Yo DaVita !!

I did not get to bed until after midnight on Monday — too many operating details to worry about, and it was too much fun to have little conversations with teammates from all positions around the Village.

Therefore the 6 a.m. LOUD wake-up music over the campground felt early, especially given it was 4 a.m. California time.

Tuesday’s ride was a tough one. It was the shortest of the three full days, “only” 67 miles. But there were a reasonable amount of hills, and a WICKED headwind for most of the day. In addition, the afternoon was much tougher than the morning, which is always psychologically challenging, especially as we did not know this when we rolled out from lunch.

The highlight of the day for many of us was visiting the Shawano clinic. One of the nurses, Renee Heder who was present at the groundbreaking ceremony of the Shawano clinic in 1992 is now the FA of our Titletown clinic in Green Bay. One of the city officials actually had a copy of the newspaper article and picture from the groundbreaking so we could see what Renee looked like in 1992. Renee was also on the ride, so that was great fun. Many of the teammates in these clinics have been in dialysis for more than 15 years!

One of the Shawano patients had some beautiful thanks to convey to his caregivers. The Mayor and Town Chairman also conveyed much gratitude for our local care giving and the awesome contribution the Tour was making to fight kidney disease in America. The local school band did a great job of welcoming us as well, they seemed to get a little nervous as 221 dirty riders surrounded them more and more closely with each song.

The evening brought us to Lambeau Field in Green Bay. Our first night ever on the Tour where riders stayed in motels/hotels (by the way we had five nephrologists on the ride, and many spouses!).  Lambeau Field is impressive. Donald Driver, our outside speaker, was a big hit, although he took a lot of shots at little old me!  I can’t understand why the audience seemed to like that so much, it only encouraged him to do more….. We did an open mic, we did some “We Are Here” cheers, we conveyed thanks from a DaVita Village Network (DVN) recipient and more.

Donald and his agent were so “impressed and moved” by their DaVita experience that they offered to go to the Packers the next day and request donations of Packer stuff for DaVita to auction off to raise money for the DaVita Village Network.

All in all it was a full day!

One for All,

KT

(Funny thing in life … both those that say they can do something difficult, and those that say they can’t … are usually right)

Yo DaVitans!

It has been awhile, no time to write on the Tour DaVita, plus it is difficult to do laptop stuff in a tiny tent!

First, the bottom line on my weight here on my first morning home … I don’t know. I rewarded myself with pizza last night, which means I always retain a lot of water for a couple days. So I will next weigh myself on Monday morning.

The Tour was GLORIOUS once again. We had 221 riders from all over the country, and in all positions within the Village. Most of them rode far more than they EVER thought they could or would. They have raised about $450,000 so far.  The Tour helps to support The Kidney TRUST charity, which is dedicated to building awareness to fight kidney disease.

I got in Sunday night about 10:30 p.m., and was shown to my tent. Reveille was played at 6 a.m., so we all crawled out into the early morning chill, ate some breakfast and got the outline of the day’s ride. We gathered at the starting point, did one final loud “One for All & All for One” and set out on an 81, that’s right, an 81 mile ride.

It is important to emphasize that it was NOT important to ride every mile. The ONLY important thing was to ride as far as you could, with every mile leading to more contributions for a great cause. In fact, in camp, a totally fine answer to the question “How far did you ride today?” was “As far as I could”.

We called that “The Spirit of the Ride“. Each day we would ask ourselves three questions — What will we create? What will we respect? What will we remember? The answer to each question, yelled out by 221 wonderful teammates, was “The Spirit of the Ride.”  That phrase means many things, among them the fact that on the ride we would watch out for each other, help each other, support each other, be a strong community and a moving Village.

And it happened! Just like last year! People made new and great friends; people picked each other up right when they thought they could not go another mile.

After the first day, people showered, ate a good dinner and then met in a big lodge for an evening meeting. Each night we had some “We Are Here” cheers and an “open mic” (microphone) session where people could share their experiences and thank teammates who were Special to them that day. Beautiful stuff….

The local TV stations and newspapers covered the launching of the ride (and each following day as well it turned out), which made it very Fun.

More on the ride in my next entry, have a good day!

One for All,

KT

Yo DaVita !!!

A quick snippet on this beautiful Sunday morning, it sure is good to be alive!

Yesterday afternoon I did set a new Personal Best (PB) of 27:34 on the Old La Honda Hill, beating my previous record by 23 seconds, a humongous jump in this boy’s book anyway!

So even if I am behind in weight loss, the increased exercise intensity is sure working out.

I had chicken, soup, and a couple of small crab cakes for dinner last night and two bites of my brother’s cheesecake, so it still counts as the 10th night in a row without dessert. I had my normal breakfast at 7:15 this a.m. and then I dashed to my office to get some work done, so I could get 20 minutes on the lifecycle (average level of 6.7) and a little lifting/stretching before I run to the airport.

At the airport I hope to take off at 11:30 a.m. for THE TOUR DAVITA!!!  I also hope to get a lot of work done on the plane.

One for All,

KT

(Wow, I have a wonderful life … I only wish I had noticed it earlier  … Anonymous)

Yo DaVitans!

Two BIG messages for you on this wonderful Saturday.

Number one, THANK YOU!  Last night I craved pizza and ice cream. If I were not able to picture 548 of you and our joint effort, I would have done just that.

Instead I had chicken, cauliflower, and wild rice. THANKS!!

Number two, I AM BACK IN THE HUNT. I weighed in this morning at 193, down 4 pounds. It is Day 56 of 90, so I cannot be counted out yet.

I had my normal reasonable breakfast today. Starting at 9:00 a.m., I did some DaVita stuff, including a call with Ben Lipps, the Chairman & CEO of Fresenius, discussing public policy issues. It is 1 p.m. now and I just finished a chicken and beans lunch. I will soon finish my DaVita work for the day.

Next comes a bike ride up the venerable Old La Honda Hill — I may go for a new personal record underneath my current best of 27:57 … I think I told you a new record eluded me last weekend when I was comfortably ahead of the record pace after 26 minutes, in other words very close to the top of the hill … and wanting to make sure I beat the record I attempted an aggressive gear switch to gain more power … and the chain came off, my shoes were clipped to the pedals, I fell to my left, right into the path of a car coming down the hill … I waved to the car as I went down, trying to make sure they noticed my predicament … obviously they did or I might have had some difficulty in writing this missive.

We are not to be denied our rightful spot as THE GREATEST DIALYSIS COMPANY THE WORLD HAS EVER SEEN.

Damn straight.

One for All — not just a slogan to some of us.

KT

(A ship in the harbor is safe. But that is not what ships were built for)

Yo DaVitans!

It is mid-day Friday now. Last night was my seventh in a row without a dessert. That is good for me.

I turned off the lights about 20 minutes after midnight last night, and got up at 6 a.m. to get a few emails done before heading to TMC (Team Music City, our big neighborhood in Nashville, with about 440 teammates onsite). I listened to voicemails on the speakerphone as I ate my two eggs and ham, with shredded wheat and a sliced banana. This was a heavy egg week, I rarely have them at home or when I am down at the Casa DaVita. I left the hotel at 7:15 a.m.

My body is unhappy because it did not get exercise yesterday and even more unhappy that I did not start today with it. That is one reason it was even more important for me to have fish and a small soup for dinner last night, otherwise I knew my body would be even more unhappy. I will get exercise tonight when I get home to San Francisco, before dinner.

I arrived at TMC at 7:15 a.m. It’s fun just to walk in TMC’s lobby. It has lively music playing (don’t worry, the music does not intrude into the workspaces). There are great DaVita pictures and colors and a warm friendly feeling.

First event was a filming of a video that is going to be available for centers and other neighborhoods to describe our Village Programs — meaning the DaVita Village Network, the Village Paradise Awards, the We Are Here Awards, the Bridges of Life Medical Missions, Shining Star Caregivers, etc. If you decide to get it, please flip me or Coach an email with any comments, so we can make the next version better.

The second event was a town hall meeting with the TMC team. I got to see them give out four awards and then I answered questions for awhile. I also told them how proud they should be that DaVita once again led the industry to victory with the recent Medicare legislation. I also had the pleasure of telling them that DaVita was the only public healthcare service company to be named to Modern Healthcare’s Best 100 Places to Work in healthcare ranking. Also, DaVita was recently named the 23rd most influential healthcare organization with respect to public policy. Good stuff, you all should be so proud of what other people think of what you have accomplished!

The third event was a DaVita Way of Managing (DWOM) town hall. DWOM is one of the most popular classes in DaVita University. After that town hall I had a private meeting with one exec, and then a phone call with a search firm that we are considering hiring to find another person for our Board of Directors. My lunch was healthy- namely salmon, broccoli, and wild rice, with a little bit of sauce so I would not gag on the dryness of it all. The flight home to California was productive as I attacked my 510 email backlog, a compensation/performance outline for an executive, and a negotiating strategy for a deal we are working on.

I will be getting on the scale first thing tomorrow morning — remember that is my weigh-in time, same scale, same time, same clothing … because my morning weights are far more stable than any other time of day. I hope I did better on the road this week than I did in the mountains last week.

One for All,

KT

(Fear knocked at the door. Faith answered. No one was there)