One of the first things boys learn is this: You must WIN.  An endless line of male sports stars have coined now-trite slogans including: "Winning isn't everything. It's the only thing." 

  Apparently, beating others was woven into male DNA from ancestors who killed to survive. Many men never evolved beyond that. 

   This high testosterone nonsense has no place in caregiving – particularly in hospitals with Christian traditions. Jesus (history's greatest "loser" along with modern followers like M.L. King & Gandhi, both jailed & assassinated) taught love, not fear.

   Nevertheless, non-profit leaders are obsessed with beating enemies. My predecessor as CEO of Baptist Hospital demonstrated that before I took over.

   "Your job is to defeat the evil empire," he told me, gesturing towards HCA's flagship hospital two blocks away. 

   Obviously, the enemy in health care is disease not the hospital down the street. Every ounce of caregiver energy must be focused on healing not hating.

   Erie Chapman Foundation trains leaders how to practice the mission of every hospital: Radical Loving Care. Every hospital that has engaged it has succeeded. 

   But you see the point already. If you heal with love you always succeed, even when the patient dies. Lead with love & you will always "win" even if you get fired (as I have been) for you will have lived Love. 

  We all get scared. We all enjoy winning.

  It is when Fear rules that life fails. "God is Love."

-Erie Chapman

P.S. As for the HCA hospital, over my next four years at Baptist thousands of women shifted their hospital preference from Centennial (and other hospitals) to Baptist – NOT because we were trying to "beat" the other hospitals. It was because we lead with Radical Loving Care  – for staff as well as  patients.