First Thing, Last Thing, Middle Thing

Today, I invite you to raise your beakers in honor of Mr. Ron Frary. A Veteran, legitimate genius, and educator who deserved far more respect than he probably received from decades of angsty high school chemistry students.

Let's be honest, fifteen year old me did a healthy amount of talking in Mr. Frary's class. In his signature mechanical tone he'd report to my parents, "I move her seat and still she just keeps talking. She will not learn chemistry."

Well, he was right. I don't know the atomic number for bromium and I couldn't name a compound if my life depended on it. I certainly didn't become a chemist, but I did learn many valuable life lessons in his class and they have absolutely nothing to do with bromium:

? I learned that you don't need to talk to get your point across.

Mr. Frary would just stop talking. When students weren't dedicating themselves to the work, he'd warn, "People, people, people how will you have jobs if you cannot calculate the coefficient??" then he would just stop talking. For days. He would emphatically wave his arms around and aggressively point at scribbles on the whiteboard. You can bet your beakers that mouths closed and ears perked up in an effort to avoid the dreaded 1/64 deduction on your exam.

? I learned that details matter.

Whether you're lining up decimals, dressing a wound, or sending a birthday card you need to know that the details count. In Mr. Frary's class, you were graded on the degree of horizontalness (don't worry, it's a word) in your equation line, the verticalness (also a word) of your decimals, and the readability of your penmanship. His attention to detail served me extremely well in the military where we literally do pushups for not "paying attention to detail" and when I wrote my first strategic business plan and that one time when I misread the map and got lost in Minneapolis in the middle of the night. Also, you're far less likely to lose an eye if you combine the correct chemicals in the lab.

? I learned that everyone has something unique to give.

Sometimes people are a freakishly skilled at naming chemical compounds and solving equations, while others are skilled at communicating those complicated concepts out to the world (in a language that makes sense). I would even argue that you need both types of humans to move the work from concept to completion. I see this all the time in healthcare. An example: A genius researcher defines the metabolic behavior of a neutrophil which helps us determine one cause of neurological disorders (yay!), that researcher counts on the skills of a translational researcher to expand their work and pair it with clinical practices (another yay!), then a healthcare writer puts it into publications that clinicians can understand so that educators can prepare curriculum that effectively communicates this fancy new finding to everyone from nurses to public health leaders to normal human beings who can actually understand it. Ultimately, lowering everyone's risk for nasty neurological disorders. It takes a village.

? I learned that you do the first thing first and the middle thing last.

I didn't take notes when Mr. Frary was waving his arms around for a week, and let's be clear...it was literally my fault he stopped talking in the first place. But I do recall him telling us "first thing, last thing, middle thing." He was referring to the order of operations when naming a compound. Positive ion first, then the suffix, then finally you add in the middle number bits. I know, I know, you don't care. But hear me out. When I think of "first thing, last thing, middle thing" I often think about goal planning and prioritizing. It's a nice little moniker that keeps you from getting ahead of yourself.

?? First, define your aim (or, "thing" in Mr. Frary's words).

James Clear does a lovely job of describing this in his book, Atomic Habits. Don't jump in to defining a "goal". First, you must define your IDENTITY. Instead of saying, "I want to lose twenty pounds" you might say, "I want to be the type of person who moves my body everyday." Start with the first thing.

?? Second, define the outcome you want to achieve.

Now you get to dig into the goal bits. What does the end-game look like? Maybe you even describe the near-term, mid-term, and long-term projections. 365 days down the road, what might cause your failure? Details matter.

?? Third, define the specific action steps you'll use to achieve the "thing".

Here's the real meat of the thing. Really think this bit through, identify all the different details and contexts that will make you successful and lead you to your defined outcomes, and ultimately your aim.

See? You can do chemistry too!

Reader, you probably didn't have the chance to learn from Mr. Frary so I’ve attached everything you need to know about chemistry below (thanks to my sister's thorough notes) However, I'm sorry to report that you won’t understand a lick of it without attending Mr. Frary’s punishingly silent chemistry class. You can find him happily volunteering at Sanford Health and teaching at the LSS Center for New Americans most days of the week.