Met a billion-dollar healthcare CEO a few weeks ago. Smart guy. Strong sense of duty.
He'll never be invited back.
We talked about Blue Zones.
He listened. He nodded. He got it.
And then he told me why it wouldn't work for his system.
- No control over patient behavior
- No say in school or workplace policy
- No power over Big Food, Big Sugar, or social media
- Predatory practices everywhere he looked
Every point was true.
Every point was also a cage.
Then he said something I'll remember for a long time:
"There's a lot of blame to go around. Including in healthcare itself."
He owned a little. Blamed the rest.
Tragedy of the commons, he called it.
But the thing is…
Blame is the language of the powerless.
Cast it outward, and you hand control to the world.
Turn it inward, and you drown in guilt and confuse punishment for growth.
Drop it altogether, and you evolve.
You stop seeing life as an attack.
You start seeing it as instruction.
Failure becomes data.
Loss becomes a lesson.
Pain becomes a blueprint.
That CEO had every reason on his side. What he didn't have was a way forward.
An old proverb sums it up:
He who blames others has a long way to go.
He who blames himself is halfway there.
He who blames no one has arrived.
The healthcare leaders who will fix this country aren't the ones with the best excuses.
They're the ones who stopped reacting and started building.
P.S. If you're a healthcare CEO ready to stop blaming and start building, that's exactly who we cherry-pick for our fellowship.
Drop me a DM today,
Editor’s Note: The above guest column was penned by Dan Buettner, Jr., executive vice president and chief development officer for Blue Zones, LLC. The column first appeared on the author’s social media pages.
