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PETE FARMER, M.D.
Profile in the Rancho Santa Fe Review newspaper in MSWord
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My name is Pete Farmer and I’m a Warrior Coach.
This introduction is designed to give you a sense of who I am, how I got
here, and the results I produce.
The dictionary describes Warriors as people who show vigor and courage in taking the actions necessary for their idea to prevail. Industry-leading executives and executive teams are Warriors who consistently win because they drive for results, even though those results demand rapid adaptations in themselves, their organization and its people.
The definition of “coach” I like best is the great football coach Tom Landry’s who described a coach as “the person who has you do what you don’t want to do so you can be who you want to be."
The mission of Warrior Coaching is to enable people in an organization to aggressively adapt, with ease and exhilaration, more rapidly than their competition. No longer afraid of change, people will begin to have fun as they adapt at an ever-more-effective rate.
I call this “Peace and Agility in the midst of the Fray”:
· Peace: The clarity to stand in the chaos of life and deliver without distraction or fixation.
·
Agility: The earliest detection of the greatest opportunity or
most subtle threat plus the
energy and resources to seize the moment. The flexibility
to move among various styles
of leadership and communication, so the
most effective choice is natural and effortless.
·
Fray: The complications and opposing forces that limit or deflect
the implementation of
our ideas and visions, preventing their expansion and fulfillment.
Think of the rodeo bronc rider whose goal is to win the
event by being great at riding the most challenging horse.
His sole interest is increasing his ability to be “easy in the
saddle” (Peace and Agility). He has no interest in smoothing out the bucking of the horse
(The Fray). The increasing ease of
moving with the impacting forces allows him to brave the bucking of an ever more
challenging horses.
The quality and depth of peace and agility, particularly in the most stressful situations, are essential discriminators in human performance. They may mean the difference between winning and losing in sports and in business. They may mean the difference between a great stage performance and a disaster. They can enhance a business relationship or ruin it. My 30 years in emergency medicine have made it clear that being “easy in the saddle” is key to effectiveness in any environment that demands collaborative high performance. By staying true to our unique strengths, talents and passions, we forge an exciting competitive edge for swiftly accomplishing the biggest challenges of life.
Directing emergency departments, teaching in a variety of
training facilities and leading teams in the practice of emergency medicine have
provided the background to develop the competencies required for effective
leadership and high performing collaborative teams. Emergency medicine requires rapidly developing trust with
patients while rapidly developing a clinical diagnosis and resolution.
The approach I brought to emergency medicine is, therefore, my approach
to coaching. Using validated
assessments, in a very short period of time you will get a clear picture of your
strengths, weaknesses, emotional competencies and passions in life.
Furthermore, you will define your distinctive contribution to the teams
in your life - whether at work, your family or in your community - giving you
the wisdom to make better choices and take action in the right way at the right
time.
Effective communication has been found to be the most
important characteristic of high-performance collaborative leaders and teams.
An operating principle in my work is that “Anything can be worked out
in conversation!” Is that true? Most of the time. Is
it an approach that increases the likelihood of valuable interchange?
Absolutely! My commitment to
communication has been expressed as the Keynote Speaker at a Health
Communications Conference discussing “The Art and Science of Listening” and
by publishing articles and book chapters on listening and effective
communication from the point of view of both practitioners and patients.
Playing hard in life has been my style, whether in Jungle
Escape and Survival Training, climbing Mt. Rainier in a blizzard or running the
last mile of a triathlon. Working
with people who know the difference between “serious” and “significant”
makes it possible to have fun doing intense work with markedly greater results.
This style of coaching has been developed over my years of interest in what it takes to reliably and consistently produce excellence. In addition to extensive personal evolvement through reading and learning from my many mistakes, my education has been formally enhanced as a graduate of Marquette School of Medicine and Coach University, and through my work with the Professional Coaches and Mentors Association, Conversant, TTI Performance Systems and Landmark Education Corporation. Current certifications include:
· Professional Certified Coach, by the International Coach Federation
· Certified in Emotional Competency Inventory, by Hay McBer
· Certified Professional Behavioral Analyst and Coach
· Certified Professional Values Analyst and Coach
·
Diplomate, American Board of Emergency Medicine
Previous memberships in the American Medical Association, California Medical Association, and the Medical Societies in San Diego and San Francisco have been a great influence in forming my point of view. Current memberships include:
· Professional Coaches and Mentors Association
· International Coach Federation
· Fellow, American College of Emergency Medicine
· Society For Professional Well-Being
· Wilderness Medical Society
· UDT/SEAL Association
Often a client finds his or her life out of balance and
wants to achieve the same kind of success in his or her personal life as in
business. Prior to 1997 my kids
knew me as the man who came to dinner and went on vacation with them.
Falling off a ladder produced serious foot injuries that made working as
an Emergency Physician impossible despite six surgeries.
(This is not the recommended method of pausing to examine one’s life.)
My family now knows me as the loving and caring father who is oriented
towards assuring that they have every opportunity for a happy, healthy and
productive life.
Anadara, my oldest daughter has moved to New York City after graduating this year from Syracuse University as a voice major and theater minor. While they enjoy sports and playing in jazz and concert bands, my son, Kyle, and youngest daughter, Megan, are also excellent students. They are all a wonderful joy to be around.
Frequently
Asked Questions
Why coach Warriors?
Ultimately, it’s because I like working with people who are willing to
risk themselves. Being a warrior
myself also has a lot to do with it. During
my four years in the Navy, I was in charge of a medical unit that treated up to
200 U.S. and South Korean Marine casualties per day and was the Senior Medical
Officer for the Apollo 13 recovery. On a Special Warfare Submarine I worked with SEAL Teams,
Underwater Demolition Teams and South Vietnamese Commandos.
In the community, I have worked for eight years in a high-crime city as a
volunteer policeman relieving the workload of regular officers.
I carried a gun, drove red lights and siren and rolled in the dirt
arresting guys half my age. With
the International Medical Corps, I worked in a refugee camp teaching Afghan
freedom fighters to be medics. For
relaxation, I enjoy studying Iaido, the martial art using samurai swords.
What is the Performance Dynamics Center?
The Center is a collaboration of people in the business of radically
improving a client’s performance through providing coaching, new information
or needed services. All associates have a demonstrated commitment to
excellence and a track record of making a big difference for their clients.
Services include the spectrum from nutrition to physical therapy, from
bringing alignment to a company’s commitments to the special niche of
non-profit organizational success. The
focus is always enhancing performance – whatever it takes – while enhancing
the quality of life.
What’s it like working with you?
Working on the phone is the usual method although face-to-face meetings are
scheduled whenever they add value. Part
of the process of “Branding” (establishing the product we are in the world,
a la Tom Peters in his book, Brand You 50) is to define eight words that
describe us. Clients
characterize working with me as:
· Compassionate accountability
· Insightful authenticity
· Lighthearted intentionality
·
Relaxed rigor
What
results do clients report?
My clients report dramatic results.
More importantly, so do the people around them.
The results will be as unique as the person.
What gets produced in coaching will be a function of the gap between
where a person is now, where they want to get to and their willingness to do the
necessary work. A common example is
shifting from “flying off the handle” at “the morons” in the company to
redirecting their passions as a resource that produces a better product with
less effort. Unsolicited client
comments include:
·
"You've made the most dramatic
improvement in an executive that I have seen with any coach or consultant
in my 30 years of being in business."
Chief Executive Officer
Turnaround consulting
·
"We've saved $7.5 million as a result of your first four
months of coaching."
Chief Medical Officer
Healthcare Management
·
"Thank God there are people like you that take this on as
your life's work and passion! My sessions are increasingly valuable
personally and professionally!
Physician Executive
Emergency Medicine
As a way of concluding this introduction, here are a few quotes that
have generated valuable insights for me and will give you an idea of what I
consider important in life:
“For a long time it had seemed
to be that life was about to begin – real life.
But there was always some obstacle in the way, something to get through
first, some unfinished business, the still to be said, a debt to be paid.
Then life would begin.
At last it dawned on me that these obstacles were my life”.
Father Alfred D’Sousa
The reasonable man adapts himself
to the conditions that surround him...
The
unreasonable man adapts surrounding conditions to himself...
All progress
depends on the unreasonable man.
George Bernard Shaw
“The
normal man seeks for self respect in the eyes of his fellow men
While the warrior seeks for impeccability in his own life and calls that
satisfaction.”
Carlos Castaneda
When being interviewed at the end of
his long life, after most of his friends and colleagues had long since passed
away, the reporter asked which famous statesman, author or philosopher George
Bernard Shaw missed most of all. Shaw replied, "The person I miss
most is the man I could have been."
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