My dad, the accidental thought leader

Meet my dad, Spencer Craft – an accidental thought leader.

Dad was a GP for decades, and now works in skin cancer medicine (check out baysskin.co.nz if you need a skin check) as well as urgent care. Recently, Dad went to his 40 year med school reunion.?

And before he went, the organisers contacted him and asked if he would speak to his ex-classmates.

But here’s something you should know about my dad: he HATES public speaking (I know, a bit ironic considering what I ended up doing). At my sister’s wedding, I gave the family speech, and at mine and my younger sister’s, Mum and Dad did it together – written by Mum of course.

So asking him to speak to a group of people is a pretty big ask.

But what they asked him to speak about was what made it hard to say no.

When a problem can’t be solved…

You see, a few years ago, when my mum was struggling with a condition called Menieres, which caused horrendous migraines, the two of them came across a guy called Chris Toal who asked Mum if he could help her. He pressed on three acupressure points and her migraine disappeared instantly. Huh?

He ended up sending her to his business partner (who our family lovingly refers to as Danny the Magic Man), who was a skilled deep tissue massage therapist. Within just two sessions, Mum’s migraines were gone and she could come off her medication – and my dad’s mind was blown open.

He started researching the interaction of the brain, nerves, muscles, and fascia (he tells me that’s the tissue that holds all our organs, blood vessels, bones, and muscles in place – as you can tell, I did not take after him in following a scientific career) and before long was examining patients differently.

Chronic pain patients who had seen multiple therapists, surgeons, psychologists, pain specialists, and neurologists; patients who were on endless meds to try deal with the pain.

He started sending these patients to Chris and Danny – and all of them improved dramatically.?

Learning to think (and diagnose) differently

Today, he sees patients every day through general practice, urgent care, and his skin cancer clinic whose pain doesn’t fit into the usual Western medical model – and he treats them differently. During his training, he was taught to test function, do bloods, do imaging & treat with surgery or medication – and he still does that. But he also checks for tender or tight areas and tension bands.

He learned that thinking laterally can offer medical professionals insights and help them find ways to assist their patients in a way that mainstream medicine didn’t teach him or his peers.

In case you hadn’t guessed, I think my dad’s pretty awesome. But the cool thing is that the organisers of his med school reunion thought so too – and that’s why they asked him to speak.

Going against his natural instincts

Now, his first response was to say no. He had a stutter as a kid, and it can still come out sometimes when he’s stressed or under pressure. Plus my mum (who’s usually his double act for speeches) wasn’t going to be at the reunion, so it would just be him.

But he knew that he had an important message to share – and that if he REALLY wanted to help more people, he could do that by spreading this message with other doctors who were treating patients.?

So he said yes.

What followed was a bit of a panic, and a team effort between him, my mum, my brother, and I to help him get his speech ready – but he wrote it, he practised it, and then at the reunion, he delivered it (with only a mild sense of utter terror).

And the impact was instant.

The ripple effect of sharing your thinking

As soon as he finished talking, Dad had doctors come up to him and say how thought provoking it was.?

They asked where they could find practitioners who could help their patients with these problems. They hadn’t heard of this way of treating patients before but were eager to find out how to help patients who had limited success with other treatments. It got them thinking about complementary medicine in a more open way than they’d considered before – and many of them have since let him know they’ve put some of it into practice in their own work.

Now, my dad could have said no to the speech. He could have gone to his reunion and happily avoided putting the pressure on himself. But he didn’t. He said yes. And in sharing his ideas – in spreading his message – he was able to contribute far more and have a far bigger impact than he could have had had he just kept this knowledge to himself.

THAT’S the power of sharing your ideas. Because when you share an idea, you never know who else is going to pick it up and run with it – or who they might impact in doing so.?

It’s why I love thought leadership so much – because by continuously improving your ideas and then sharing those ideas with others, you can do so much more than you could if you just kept your thinking to yourself.?

It’s not just about benefiting yourself or your business (although sharing your ideas does open up massive opportunities for you) – it’s about all the people you can help in doing so.?

So are you having the impact you could be having? What ripples are you starting with your ideas?