“Sunday dinner with my family.” Tim Greene, ROD

“I make sure I put into my todo list, and/or calendar, phone calls to my parents or friends.  As soon as I think of someone that I haven’t spoken with in a while, I add them to my “Call List”.  When I’m able, like driving to/from work, I make those calls to just say “hello”.  It’s another way I stay healthy – through my connections.” Dave Hoerman, Chief Wisdom Officer

“I love traditions.  We have traditions for holidays and events, for all sorts of things.  This way, I always have something to look forward to my friends and family with.” Mandy Hale, VP of Nursing

“My family lives overseas and in a different time zone; each Saturday morning, before the kids are up, I find time to talk to them while I prepare breakfast for the family. Not glamorous, but we always find time to talk.” Elise Duke, GVP, Titan

“Personal, face-to-face visiting, and telephone.” Yoda, Senior Vice President & Chief Wisdom Officer, Emeritus

“Weekly phone chats, shared meals, reunions, texting, and photo sharing.” Allan Cullop, Chief Information Officer

Share how you stay connected by sharing a picture or comment below.

Yo DaVitans!!

I hope you are well, and I look forward to locking arms and getting some good stuff done for each other during MTM X !!  The healthier we get, the better able we will be to help others – not to mention we will be more fun to be around!

 I am off to a good start.  The 30 minutes of exercise is an easy one for me, as many of you MTM veterans know – as I exercise almost every day all year round.   Even when I travel my assistant knows to figure out when in the day I will exercise, before it gets filled up.  The stretching timeouts will be harder for me – I am used to getting some good stretching in as part of my morning workout, but not as good as doing it later in the day.  MTM is already helping, as I have done better on this front already.

 Last Monday-Tuesday I had a 36 hour journey from Rwanda, Africa to Denver.   I was home for 56 hours, and then had a 26 hour journey from Denver to Kuala Lumpur, in Malaysia.  So the body is a bit stressed.  We have had some great meetings with our Malaysian partners, Khazanah … and our Japanese partners, Mitsui.  I have been getting a strong workout each morning, which has really helped me get thru the day.  I have had a business dinner each night, two of them with DaVita teammates which is work but so pleasant it does not feel like hard work.   Not too much, anyway.

 Today we had some important meetings with a potential Chinese partners, that we have been talking to off and on for three years.  It is pretty cool that for years they had used DaVita as a role model for building their company before we ever met them.  They were introduced at a recent large nephrology conference in China as “the DaVita of China,” .. which was a compliment for them, and it is the same for us!

 I am eating too much on this trip – when you are jet lagged and there is food all over the conference, as well as huge buffets with lots of great Asian food, it is a temptation I need to do better with.  After dinner each night is the time to do phone calls back to the states, because it is 14 hours later here than Denver. 

I hope each of you is off to a good start in Match the Mayor !  I wish a healthier life for you …
I was in a small village in Viet Nam, and talked to a Buddhist monk … he said one thing I will never forget …. Namely “one cannot pour from an empty cup”

Take care of yourself!

 Your Mayor, KT

“Planning ahead for me is key.  And I’ll add that I’m not necessarily “good” at this, but I can at least share my intentions and practices.  There are nights where I know I have a mix of work and family activities, and early morning meetings/calls where my sleep will be limited to maybe 5, or even less, hours.  That’s when I’ll purposely plan for following nights to ensure I can finish up work early evening and get some downtime with family, clear my head, and get to bed earlier, or allow myself to sleep in a little later.  I look more at trends than every single night, since there are so many variables to manage.” Dave Hoerman, Chief Wisdom Officer

“I go to bed early and stop using all electronics 30 minutes before I turn in.” Traciee Huff, FA

“Be efficient during the day. Conveniently fall asleep next to my daughter when she falls asleep.” Jonathan Lujan, Lifeline

“I have a rigid bed time of 10 pm.” Tim Greene, ROD

“My husband and I cut out the TV show that we watched each night! Instead we talk over a meal and a glass of wine and go to bed quite a bit earlier.” Elise Duke, GVP- Titan

“I schedule my days carefully, including a bed time.  I have placed a high priority and value on sleep as it is a fundamental component of good health.” Mandy Hale, VP of Nursing

Share how you get 7-9 hours of sleep in the reply section below. Happy sleeping!

Greetings to the Good People of DaVita,

KT here in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.  Sorry I missed day one, but I had 3 flights totaling 28 hours of travel to get here on Sunday, and I am still a bit jet-lagged as it is 14 hours later than Denver and I began a full work schedule within a few hours of arriving here.  It is exciting to be with our Asia-Pacific team!

I worked out when I arrived Sunday afternoon, as well as both Monday and Tuesday mornings.  I am excited about re-checking my goals – but right now I can barely keep my eyes open.  I look forward to catching up with all of you tomorrow!

One for All, KT

Greetings to the Good People of the DaVita Village!

It is hard to believe this will be the tenth Match the Mayor.  The MTM team has put together a distinctively holistic program this year, that should be fun and helpful as we all strive to create and maintain healthy lives.

This year’s “menu” is much longer, including things like developing a personal mission statement.  I have done pretty complete drafts of personal mission statements a few times over the last 20 years – although I have never ended up with one I stuck with, they were all quite similar and the process helped clarify what I care most about.  So there was a lot of value even though I never ended up adopting one and keeping it in my daily folder.  It will be interesting to see what I generate this time, I am somewhat nervous to be doing it publicly.

Once again I would like to lose weight.  Sounds a bit like a broken record.  I am at 194 as of this morning, all muscle except for the parts that are fat.  On the meditation front I started doing daily tracking of 5 minutes of total quiet/breathing time a few weeks ago – this has already meant I am doing it 3-4 times a week instead of one.  I also started tracking my personal journaling, where my goal is once a week.  Since I started tracking I have moved from about 1.5 times a month to once every week.

On the work front I am going to start tracking a “mindfulness score” for each meeting/call I am in/on.  I did that once before and it helped.  I write down the scores right after each meeting or at the end of the day, and I keep the scores to watch for trends.  Quite humbling on some days, as I realize I am letting stress or fatigue or whatever lead me to not be my best self, and start emptying people’s cups instead of holding them neutral or re-filling them.

I will do my little blog about every 2-3 days, probably about this length.  As always I will try to answer many of the posts that come from you guys, but I will always read all of them, each and every one.

I just finished a good summer – unfortunately I had another surgery which forced me to cancel a few of my favorite summer activities, plus go 10 weeks without exercise except for walking.  Two of the cancelled activities were my annual mountain bike camping trips, the second year in a row a surgery has done that to me.  But I am largely recovered at this point, and slowly working my way back into shape, exercising daily as has been my norm for 20 years now.  Still eating too much late night ice cream, perhaps I should make dealing with that one of my MTM objectives.

My 29 year old son and 27 year old daughter are both fine, as is my wife Denise.  We got some great family time this summer.

I look forward to joining with you and thousands of other DaVita citizens across the world, locking arms and pursuing healthier lives together.

One for All & All for One.  Your Mayor, KT

QUICK ADDENDUM – Germany, Poland and the Netherlands had the highest % of participation this year!  Germany and Poland also had the largest absolute numbers, with 36 and 23 respectively.  KT

Yo DaVita !

The end of MTM 9 !! 

First the details.  It is Saturday late afternoon.  We are up in the mountains, doing a business school mini-reunion with 9 couples.  We all graduated together way back in 1983.  Wow, that is a long time.

Today Saturday has been strong – 26 PT sets already, plus an hour of strong cardio.  That is good because yesterday was the worst day since I started therapy.  Only 4 sets.  I did get 75 minutes of strong cardio, including a great hike up a very steep hill, really pushing it.  Also zero meditation minutes.  Thursday was a bit better, 12 sets, and 22 minutes of cardio and 10 min of strong meditation.

I have been so rushed this MTM I have not written quite as much as earlier years.  Next year I will be back in fine form.  Regardless of my writings, 3300 of us working together to live healthier lives is such a cool thing.  I so so hope MTM helped you be a tad more thoughtful about your own life and health.  It certainly does for me, especially when I know I am going to write about it for thousands to read.

Until next year, all the best!  One for All & All for One.    Your Mayor, KT

Yo DaVita !

It is 8:30 Tuesday night, I am soon to leave our cabin in the mountains.  We have been having a kidney care retreat the last 30 hours.  It has been great, we hit a lot of subjects, including our strategy, our multi-year objectives, integrated care, PD, clinical outcomes, village programs, executive hires, etc.  Whew!

We also had each person go over what the love most about their job in the village, and what they most wish was different.  We also talked about perhaps arranging for special speakers on parenting, that everyone in the village could enjoy and learn from, if they so desired. 

I also had an AWESOME PT day.  31 PT sets already.  Plus 32 minutes of cardio.  10 minutes of meditation, sitting on the deck looking at the mountains, with the aspens changing colors and the wind blowing gently, it was beautiful.  I will not get home until 11 pm at the end of a 2 hour drive, and have to get up early, so I probably will not do anymore.  Monday I did 22 minutes of cardio, and I need to check my notes for PT sets.  Zero meditation minutes.

I hope you all had a great MTM start to your week.  3400 people taking accountability for their own health, that is so wonderful! 

One for All & All for One, KT

Yo DaVita !

It is Sunday morning.  Yesterday was 32 minutes of cardio, 15 minutes of meditation, and 28 sets of PT, a very robust mix.  My Range of Motion continues to improve, I drove a car for the first time in 97 days yesterday.  Just a simple drive to visit my mom, which is only 7 minutes away on quiet roads, so I did not risk having to make a sudden and significant move with my arm.  Felt amazing!

I started yesterday by working on a speech for the Colorado Women’s Foundation.  They are inviting us back after we did the same last year, which is quite unusual but we did well.  At last year’s event i/we announced our goal of having a majority of our Board of Directors be diverse (meaning female or men of color) within 2 years.  If we do so we will be in the first 2% of the entire Fortune 1000, although I need an update on that data.  We are now at 50%, so getting close.  Out of 22 Colorado Fortune 1000 companies we are one of the three that have at least 3 female directors.

Friday was a strong day for a week-day, 20 PT sets, plus the normal 25 minutes of cardio.  Zero meditation.  Friday night was a benefit for the Boys and Girls club, Saturday night was watching Stanford play USC in football (a Stanford victory) with 6 friends and a great Qdoba feast.

That is it for me. I need to get some work done, then do cardio, then head to my PT who is doing a special weekend session for me, then a meeting with JR, then off to the Bronco’s game with JR and his 2 boys, then a dinner with a medical group, after giving them a tour of our wonderful Casa.  If any of you have not visited our Casa, I hope you get to!  It is a strong physical manifestation of our Village philosophy, and our Mission and Values.

My weight was down to 192.6 today, as I am now at 11 days without dessert and 3 nights with no food after 10 pm (unless I had not had dinner).  I had hit a high of 195.4 a week ago, so this is good.

I hope you are all achieving your MTM goals!  Your Mayor, KT

Yo DaVita !

It is Thursday am, I am on a plane back to Denver.

As you know I started my day yesterday in the normal fashion, with cardio and PT.  Once I got to the Casa we had a big event with the Secretary of Labor and the Governor, at our own Casa, announcing a new apprenticeship program, pretty cool.  I gave a little opening, then the luminaries spoke.  We had over 250 attendees, big success!

Then I had a series of meetings on marketing, our shareholders, the upcoming board meeting, 2 potential acquisitions, etc.  At 4 pm I was in the air flying to San Francisco, where the annual award for clinical excellence at Stanford Health system is named after my wife.  Pretty cool!  She was Chair of the Board for a long time.  We got home about 10 pm.

I started today in normal way, 25 minutes of good cardio, and then 9 sets of PT, I did not have any of the right weights or straps for a bunch of my regimen.

Today will be meeting to meeting once I land, and tonight DaVita is getting an award on its community building work, with 1000 people and Vice President Biden on hand (Biden is coming to give the keynote speech, NOT because of us).  Cool!

I hope each of you are doing well on your MTM goals!  3300 of us, working together!  I want to go the rest of MTM with no food after 10 pm(unless I have not eaten dinner), and no desserts period.

All the best, KT