It’s Halftime: Let’s Huddle Up for an Invitation and a Challenge

“I’m halftime for 2025!” said July 2nd    

This past Wednesday, July 2nd marked the midpoint of 2025.  That means 182 days of 2025 were behind us and 182 were still ahead.  Which made me wonder, with this opportunity for pause and recalibration, if your “first half” of the year self could speak to your second half of the year self, what advice would it have? 

For me, I think it would remind me of the energy I have experienced and insights I have gained when I leaned into my “word for the year,” which is liminicious.  As a reminder, liminicious is a Latin-inspired made-up word that combines “liminal” (threshold, boundary) and “icious” (suffix meaning "full of" or "characterized by”).  The intention of this word was to capture the essence of the transitional or even transformational space I have entered in taking on a significant interim leadership role at work and the dynamic, unpredictable, and creative (“juicy”) energy doing so has had on both my professional and personal life.  My “first half self” would also remind me of the many times when I fell back on old patterns and stories and “missed” that same energy. 

The good news is that I have my PeerRx partners, who have been there to help remind me of when my “limin” has and has not been “icious.”  They know my intentions, my goals, my dreams.  They know when I am living out of my "D Game" rather than my "A Game."  They’ve heard the stories – and the rants.  They’ve ridden the highs and lows with me.  They have been my professional lifeblood and at times, my emotional lifeline.  They have insistently been by my side when I was tempted to try and go it alone. 

Remember that the inspiration for the PeerRx process was the recognition that the work we do in healthcare will regularly create the conditions that can put us “off-course” and potentially “drain” us regarding any and all aspects of our personal and professional well-being.  Under such circumstances, we risk becoming distanced from meaning, identity, priorities, perspective, and from each other.  We can become isolated and feel alone.  That is why it is essential to schedule regular time for recovery and recalibration, and also why we need others in our lives who we connect with regularly to provide input, encouragement, accountability, and collegial companionship.

If you are reading this, you have likely benefited from many of the aspects of the PeerRx process listed above.  As we enter the 2nd half of 2025, I would like to challenge and encourage you to “share the love” with you colleagues.  Specifically, in the next week, I would invite you to share your PeerRx experience with 3 colleagues and encourage them to sign up with a Buddy.  Since finding/asking someone to partner with is historically the greatest challenge to participation, perhaps you could brainstorm some possibilities with them or make some recommendations.    

As those who know that connection is part of the “secret sauce” of a rewarding professional journey, we owe it to our colleagues to do all we can to help them embrace this secret as well.  Let’s keep reminding each other that “No One Should Care Alone,” and then follow though to make sure it happens.  Welcome to the “2nd Half” of 2025.  Together, let’s make it the best half yet.