It is a sad experience that when somebody, anybody, comes up with an original project the practical application of which has the potential to contribute to the benefit of all humanity, there will spring from the ever-rustling undergrowth of public ignorance a raft of instant experts to attack the subject that they have only just heard about and therefore, of course, know nothing about. An experience, familiar to all too many of Life’s adventurers, is that that such instant experts, know-alls ego-defensively opposed to the success of any project which they themselves have not originated — and, indeed never will — will instead set themselves to fight to the death the originality of others.
MediLiVes, a project in its infancy which must be protected and nurtured to global maturity, is such an important originality that we must be prepared to respond intelligently, courageously and humanely to any and all opposition, no matter how apparently clever, to achieve our project’s globally necessary aims.
Knowing that for every human being our mind is our toolbox and our heart is our willingness to craft our lives into our destinies allow me tell you a story about the intelligence of your own minds and the courage of your own hearts.
This story is called ‘The Bridge’:
A common scene in many adventure movies is that of the heroes, the good guys, while being chased by the bad guys who, being in opposition to the success of the heroes’ quest and determined to destroy that success, come to edge of a deep, terrifying gorge, a chasm across which stretches a very rickety, badly damaged, dangerous and obviously ancient rope and wooden bridge. Despite their fears crossing the bridge is their only possible means of escape to safety.
They look into the terrifying chasm and can see, faraway deep at its base, a river winding between crocodile-infested banks. From this height the crocodiles, basking ever-hungrily on the banks, appear tinily obscure. The good guys, led by their hero, have no alternative but to risk crossing the shaky bridge before their fearsome opponents catch up with them and destroy them. They set out.
The hero, intelligently, courageously and with selfless concern for others, guides the steps of those others. Some of those others, however, allow their fears to hamper their concentration on the hero’s leadership and, losing their grip on the precarious materials of the bridge, fall into the chasm of their pointless fears, often dragging down others with them.
For those who fall, as they fall, the crocodiles on the banks of the river become increasingly less tiny, less simply apparent, no longer obscure and very, very real. The crocodiles slither from the comfort of their restful banks.
Life eats life: the crocodiles feast both on those who, having lost their nerve and reacted to their fears rather than by responding intelligently and courageously to them and by doing so overcoming them, have not only themselves been destroyed but have also, tragically and unfairly, destroyed the lives of those whom they have dragged down to share their fate.
Those of the good guys who have understood, followed and emulated the intelligence and courage of their hero’s leadership have, by their doing so, led themselves to safety.
The crocodiles, yet again well-fed on the indecision, weakness and panic of the fallen, go back to sleep and bask on their comfortable banks for their next unwary meal to fall.
So what’s that got to do with MediLiVes?
We are all familiar with the popular illusion of the faces and the candlestick. You can only focus on the illusory “candlestick” by defocusing on the illusory “faces” and vice versa. As one side of the illusion becomes the focused content of your attention the other becomes its defocused context.
It’s a good analogy for a certain overwhelming problem in problem-solving itself. The problem is that if we become mesmerised by the problem we defocus on the solution. We try to fix the problem rather than solve it: we do that by reaction rather than response.
Re-actively we can tend to become mesmerised by looking wildly for solutions. Then not only do we defocus on rational problem-solving we also simultaneously defocus on the dynamic changes in the structure of the presently ignored problem. This means that our supposed solutions no longer present a valid desired outcome.
MediLiVes looks for the solutions within the problems.
So what’s the problem that it is MediLiVes aim to solve?
All over the world there are millions of people who do not have ready access to healthcare. In the developing world sickness can mean starvation, thirst and death for whole families of our fellow human beings. Every day they have to face crossing their uncertain bridges of potential death from sickness and worry, overstretched bridges to limited medical resources. Experiencing a world that ignores their needs, that they feel sees their lives as insignificant, they can fall prey to so-called “civilisation diseases” such as chronic anxiety, anger and despair, alcoholism, drug addiction, violence, suicide and even the horror of family annihilation.
The doctors, nurses and managers available to them are overworked, often underfunded and remotely situated from those who need their help and that of other medical specialists. MediLiVes remote-monitoring healthcare devices can ease those burdens.
These devices can not only diagnose health issues remotely and put patients in touch with the right medical professionals but also track and prognosticate the development of their conditions, a strategic essential in the efficient usage of available healthcare resources.
MediLiVes’ hardware offers devices to blockchain opportunities in globalised secure health-information exchange; to reductions in the frictions and costs of current intermediaries; and to clearer and immediately available decentralised data so as better to assess, plan and deliver more resource-efficient and cost-effective value of healthcare; to ease the population pressures on doctors and auxiliary medical professionals. This is not an exhaustive list.
The MediLiVes Project aims will result in improved healthcare outcomes not only for patients but also for all stakeholders (e.g. funding agencies; medical staff; administration staff; supply-chain optimisation; maintenance costs).
The heart, the driving force, of MediLiVes is a factor, all too often ignored, ridiculed or dismissed by people who unwittingly set themselves up to fail at the core, critical leadership necessities of their lives’ endeavours. That driving force, that absolutely true core necessity of all truly human decisions, is a simple moral imperative to maintain fearlessly and at all times that we, human beings, are one life. In working to care, to promote, the equal significance of the lives others we care for ourselves.
At the heart of MediLiVes is this imperative to work to do whatever is in our personal and team power to help others. This imperative is expressed both in our dedication to our project and in our philanthropic commitment to those suffering; to those who need not only structural technical systems to care for them but also — and just as importantly — recognition that their individual and collective human significance is neither less nor more than that of any other human being’s. In this matter MediLiVes’ aim is the realisation of all peoples’ common birth-right to securely inviolable, healthy human dignity. That’s the ‘care’ bit in ‘healthcare’. If we are not here to care for each other then what exactly are we here for?
The distributed ledger of the Blockchain offers open, transparent, distributed communication rather than linear systems-ordering. Distributed communication thus allows a model for distributed leadership.
You will never actually know that you can lead others if you don’t believe that you can lead yourself. Or to put it more bluntly: You can’t lead others if you don’t take personal responsibility to lead yourself.
True leadership is to lead others to lead themselves to their own true leadership… and thus for them similarly to lead others. And that is the power of MediLiVes.
This point of this story is that the path to achievement, the leadership path away from fear, is to cross the bridge of your conditioned circumstances and lead others so also to do — constantly remembering that the alternative to achieving your destiny is to suffer your fate.
By the way:
Future MediLiVes stories will be post-scripted with a course of tutorials on basic, intermediate and advanced decision-making and leadership. Most of the early entries may seem old-hat but it’s always a good idea to explore their reasoning so as to set the groundwork solidly before building.
Written by: John McKay (Chief Operations Officer, MediLives)
