In this episode, Dr. Corey Waller traces his path from emergency and street medicine to leading systems change in behavioral health. He reflects on how saying yes to new challenges shaped his mission to build structures where the easy thing is the right thing. Corey shares insights on the evolving field of addiction treatment, the balance between ethics and business, and how real impact comes from creating systems that outlast any one person.

Key Takeaways:

• Saying yes opens doors to growth and purpose, helping leaders discover new paths and create lasting impact through curiosity and action
• Lasting change comes from building systems that make doing the right thing the easy thing and endure beyond any one individual
• Ethical healthcare thrives on good tension between medicine and business, where collaboration and accountability drive sustainable impact
• Humility and openness fuel continuous learning, allowing leaders to set aside ego, listen deeply, and grow alongside their teams

Chapters:

1. 00:00 - Saying Yes to Every Opportunity
2. 05:10 - Building Systems That Make the Right Thing Easy
3. 09:04 - Balancing Heart and Business in Healthcare
4. 14:11 - Finding Balance Through Ethical Tension
5. 16:24 - Staying Grounded While Striving to Grow

Listen to our podcasts at:

https://www.shorecp.university/podcasts

You'll also find other Microcap Moments episodes, alongside our series Everyday Heroes and Bigger. Stronger. Faster., highlighting the people and stories that make the microcap space unique.

Other ways to connect:

Blog: https://www.shorecp.university/blog

Shore Capital University: https://www.shorecp.university/

Shore Capital Partners: https://www.shorecp.com/

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/shore-university

This podcast is the property of Shore Capital Partners LLC. None of the content herein is investment advice, an offer of investment advisory services, or a recommendation or offer relating to any security. See the “Terms of Use” page on the Shore Capital website for other important information.

Michael Burcham: 00:00:18

Welcome to Microcap Moments, a podcast from Shore Capital Partners that highlights the stories of founders, investors, and leaders who have taken on the challenge of transforming ideas and small companies into high growth organizations.

Michael Burcham: 00:00:32

The journey of building and scaling a business takes one down many unexpected paths.

Michael Burcham: 00:00:37

It's a journey where we learn from our mistakes fall down often, but have the entrepreneurial grit to pick ourselves up and persevere.

Michael Burcham: 00:00:44

Within this series, we will share these stories of success and failure of the challenges and the rewards based by those who dare to dream big.

Michael Burcham: 00:00:53

And through their lessons learned, we hope to inspire others who are on a similar journey of becoming, growing, and leading.

Anderson Williams: 00:01:01

In this episode, I talk with Corey Waller, who's a physician and Executive Partner with Shore Capital Partners, whose focus is on behavioral health.

Anderson Williams: 00:01:08

Corey talks about his career journey and all of the places in healthcare saying yes has taken him.

Anderson Williams: 00:01:14

From physician to emergency medicine to street medicine to tactical work with the Federal Protective Services to starting clinics and editing influential books, and the list goes on.

Anderson Williams: 00:01:24

Corey looks for a gap and fills it with the goal of leaving behind something that others can take and own without him.

Anderson Williams: 00:01:30

He provides incredible insight on the relative nascent of addiction treatment as a field and how little infrastructure and few systems there are to really support it in a more traditional clinical model, Corey talks about the need to build a system of care where the easy thing is the right thing.

Anderson Williams: 00:01:46

He also shares his initial negative reaction to private equity and really any business in healthcare and how common that response was in his circles, but also how this idea of buildings systems and particularly sustainable and scalable systems that don't require heroic individuals in every position help change his perspective.

Anderson Williams: 00:02:04

He now sees the opportunity for what he calls quote, good tension that's critical for delivering ethical and sustainable

Anderson Williams: 00:02:11

healthcare.

Anderson Williams: 00:02:11

I'm, uh, Corey Waller.

Corey Waller: 00:02:13

I'm Physician and Executive Advisor for Behavioral Health.

Corey Waller: 00:02:17

I work with the other partners and the VPs in helping to really solve problems related to the delivery of care, the payment of care, and the politics around that care.

Corey Waller: 00:02:26

And as such, I have to do everything from a line-by-line evaluation of the One Big Beautiful Bill all the way to having some one-on-one conversations with the uh, providers to see if I can get them to chill out a little bit.

Anderson Williams: 00:02:37

And you've had an expansive career.

Anderson Williams: 00:02:39

We talked previously in your Everyday Heroes episode, a bit about your background, but for anyone who hasn't heard that, will you just talk a little bit about your professional journey that brought you to this place?

Corey Waller: 00:02:48

Sure, I think most of my journey could be summed up by saying yes to everything you're given an opportunity to do, right?

Corey Waller: 00:02:54

You don't gain anything by saying no.

Corey Waller: 00:02:56

So every time I was given an opportunity to say yes, I said yes, and I still pretty well do that.

Corey Waller: 00:03:00

And I think it started with well, I'm gonna go to medical school.

Corey Waller: 00:03:04

That's great, that's a lot of work and time and effort, but it's a real privilege to be able to do that.

Corey Waller: 00:03:08

And then I went to emergency medicine, but then I was offered an opportunity to go do some tactical stuff, which I didn't even really know what that was at the time, with Federal Protective Service, and said yes to that and got some training and really dug in on intervention and interdiction on the drug side and weapon side of what they did in as medical support.

Corey Waller: 00:03:27

And then when I had an opportunity to learn about addiction, I was like, sure, I'll take a look at that and see how it looks.

Corey Waller: 00:03:31

And then went and did that, and then pain and coalesced all of that really into building a career around identifying things that needed better structure and things that needed support that generally didn't have financial support at the beginning.

Corey Waller: 00:03:44

So trying to come up with a good story of why it needs to exist.

Corey Waller: 00:03:47

How it positively improves that, and I think as the first medical director for the Grand Rapids Police Department, now they've had one ever since because we found the value in that piece.

Corey Waller: 00:03:57

When I built a clinic at the health system I was at for high cost complex patients, they've gone from one clinic now to 25 clinics throughout that health system dedicated to that population.

Corey Waller: 00:04:06

And then when I moved on to addiction and pain, they now have an annual course dedicated to that based off of one of the books that I edited around pain and addiction.

Corey Waller: 00:04:15

Having to understand the components of those together.

Corey Waller: 00:04:17

So I think most of my focus has been around finding a gap and filling that gap with really validated approaches to care or intervention, and then trying to create something that lives without me afterwards.

Corey Waller: 00:04:29

And I think that's ultimately what got me here is coming in as really a true clinician.

Corey Waller: 00:04:34

You know, I'm back in the emergency department seeing patients now, and thanks to John letting me to go work some 24 hour shifts, I'm a little crusty on the phone sometimes.

Anderson Williams: 00:04:42

Congratulations, you get to go work a 24 hour shifts.

Corey Waller: 00:04:44

That's right.

Corey Waller: 00:04:45

But I'll tell you, it feels like an immense privilege to be able to sit in a room with some exquisitely.

Corey Waller: 00:04:51

People about finance and business and then sit there and try to put that together with, well, I had a patient the other night who was this sick and this kind of stuff and needed this help when they left the ER, but we didn't have it.

Corey Waller: 00:05:02

How do we fill that gap and really bringing that to the portfolio companies in a sense of what is a real practical thing we can do to help people.

Anderson Williams: 00:05:09

And as you talked about systems and structures, I think we've talked before.

Anderson Williams: 00:05:13

Can you talk just a little bit about just the perspective that a lot of people wouldn't really think about, but the pain management and addiction treatment industry, so to speak, is relatively nascent when it comes to systems and support.

Anderson Williams: 00:05:24

It's something that we've all, I think, known personally, family-wise or otherwise, but don't necessarily think about it being a relatively new industry in that sense.

Anderson Williams: 00:05:31

Will you talk a little bit more about that system and support.

Anderson Williams: 00:05:33

Side of things.

Corey Waller: 00:05:34

Yeah, I would say that, you know, the cowboy days for addiction are still in full swing.

Corey Waller: 00:05:39

They're winding down for pain, but at the same time, you know, everything in medicine comes down to identifying a patient, assessing a patient, treating a patient, and getting them good enough in that disease process to then kind of leave standardized care.

Corey Waller: 00:05:52

Those same four components are no matter what area of healthcare you work in, those four things have to happen.

Corey Waller: 00:05:56

And in pain, we've almost figured that out as far as how we find patients that really do need pain intervention.

Corey Waller: 00:06:03

How do we do good evidence-based assessments of what their needs are, and then apply the therapies that we have, whether that be medication or intervention or surgeries.

Corey Waller: 00:06:11

Follow that up with physical therapy and get them functionally back.

Corey Waller: 00:06:15

But in addiction, we're still frustratingly in this space of everybody's bright idea is what we're gonna do today and still doesn't fit the true scientific nature of approach.

Corey Waller: 00:06:27

And how do you find that patient?

Corey Waller: 00:06:28

Well, it's been Google.

Corey Waller: 00:06:29

It hasn't really been the standard.

Corey Waller: 00:06:31

Oh, you were at the hospital, you were sick.

Corey Waller: 00:06:33

You should come see because you need specialty care.

Corey Waller: 00:06:36

You know, it's family members freaking out 'cause they're scared, one of their loved ones is gonna die.

Corey Waller: 00:06:39

It's that person finally waking up in the street with half their clothes off going, maybe I should get some help.

Corey Waller: 00:06:44

You know, this is terrible.

Corey Waller: 00:06:45

And I think that's where addiction is still in its adolescence where it's trying to mature to a point where it's predictable and consistent.

Corey Waller: 00:06:53

And that's been my role, especially, you know, not only with BrightView when I was working there to build those systems, but also as the Editor in Chief of the ASAM criteria, the book that directs levels and intensities of care nationally.

Corey Waller: 00:07:03

And we publish the update for adults.

Corey Waller: 00:07:06

We're about to publish adolescents and then justice involved, and I'm finishing editing adolescents right now and should be done at the end of August.

Corey Waller: 00:07:13

But you just have to define what structure is, and I don't think we've done that in addiction.

Corey Waller: 00:07:17

We're close, but once you define the structure, then you can start to compare and contrast how one person runs that structure versus another person.

Corey Waller: 00:07:24

And I think we're still in that tug of war between what does the structure look like and what is the system willing to pay for?

Anderson Williams: 00:07:30

And you've kind of worked.

Anderson Williams: 00:07:31

This from all angles.

Anderson Williams: 00:07:32

You've been sort of working the streets and drug enforcement right?

Anderson Williams: 00:07:35

Through being a physician and then working with BrightView.

Anderson Williams: 00:07:38

How has that shaped your understanding of the system and how you're thinking about what you're doing now with Shore and that level of work?

Corey Waller: 00:07:47

Well, a couple of themes that I think I've been able to pull from seeing, from handcuffing someone to treating them, to like going, treating them in the streets when I was doing street medicine in Camden and just being out in the ether.

Corey Waller: 00:07:58

What I have found is that patients don't decide to have bad things happen to them.

Corey Waller: 00:08:02

Like whenever somebody shows up and sees me in a clinic or in the emergency department, generally speaking, their day is worse than mine.

Corey Waller: 00:08:08

Like it's a real privilege for me to be able to see that and and imparting that on the providers that see these patients is that, look.

Corey Waller: 00:08:14

I'll tell you, if you go out and take a look at the world that they're in, it's pretty bad.

Corey Waller: 00:08:17

And if you can just chill out for a second and actually focus on how to peel that out of them, like, what's going on?

Corey Waller: 00:08:24

How do I support that and where do we go?

Corey Waller: 00:08:25

Then I think ultimately you can build a system that works best and then from the provider side, instead of whipping them for a KPI that looks neat on a spreadsheet actually recognizing that if you build the system where the right thing is the easy thing, it will always happen.

Corey Waller: 00:08:40

And so anytime that we don't hit a KPI, anytime that we don't, I try to impart this on operators and anybody who will listen to be honest.

Corey Waller: 00:08:47

Is that before you think it's the provider not hitting the KPI?

Corey Waller: 00:08:50

Let's back up and think about how the system is not allowing that to happen and rethink how we're setting up this system where the default is meeting the budget, where the default is, meeting that KPI, where the default is creating a happy provider in that setting.

Anderson Williams: 00:09:04

Yeah.

Anderson Williams: 00:09:04

I have to think it's also part of the story of the evolution of how you treat people too, right?

Anderson Williams: 00:09:08

Like how do we think about how we set them up for success?

Corey Waller: 00:09:11

A hundred percent.

Anderson Williams: 00:09:12

And, and not just us up for delivering something that we say should work.

Corey Waller: 00:09:16

Right?

Corey Waller: 00:09:16

And I think that translating that into anytime that I would hire a new doc or nurse practitioner, pa or nurse, or any of those things, one of the questions I would always really ask is like.

Corey Waller: 00:09:25

Do you define yourself by this job?

Corey Waller: 00:09:27

Or is it just a job?

Corey Waller: 00:09:28

And interestingly, most people don't have a ready-made answer for that.

Corey Waller: 00:09:31

So if they hesitate and come up with some blah, blah, blah, then you know that it's just a job.

Corey Waller: 00:09:35

But it's amazing when you ask somebody that question, who, this is who they are, this is how they define their ethos.

Corey Waller: 00:09:42

You know, they get a sparkle in their eye.

Corey Waller: 00:09:43

They have an in-depth answer.

Corey Waller: 00:09:45

They typically have a nidus moment in their lifetime where this was where they decided this is what they're gonna do.

Corey Waller: 00:09:51

I mean, those are the people that you want delivering care.

Corey Waller: 00:09:54

You want the business to happen in the background.

Corey Waller: 00:09:56

Like I always tell my, uh, CFO and operators that I work with, I'm like, don't ever tell the provider who loves their job, what impact they have on the budget.

Corey Waller: 00:10:04

They don't need to understand the P&L.

Corey Waller: 00:10:06

You just need to set up a system so that the passionate work they're doing flows into the P&L.

Corey Waller: 00:10:11

But don't ever say, you know, if you saw a 2.2 more page, we gotta make that margin.

Corey Waller: 00:10:15

Like that's the worst thing you can say to an impassioned person who wants to help another human being.

Corey Waller: 00:10:19

What you say is, you know, we have some people waiting out front that could really use your help.

Corey Waller: 00:10:23

What are some ways we can move a little faster?

Anderson Williams: 00:10:25

Yeah.

Corey Waller: 00:10:25

And you take that way, take the thing that they want to do, and they'll tell you.

Corey Waller: 00:10:29

They'll be like, well, if you just pop in this other room, get me a medical assistant and help with that.

Corey Waller: 00:10:32

And using that partnership rather than just.

Corey Waller: 00:10:34

The, what I always talk about is there was this episode of The Simpsons and Homer gets hired by, gives my age, I guess, although it's, it's transcendent age, right?

Corey Waller: 00:10:42

Yeah, yeah.

Corey Waller: 00:10:42

It's four years old.

Corey Waller: 00:10:44

Um, but uh, there was an episode where he was hired by another company and the boss there said, I need you to increase productivity.

Corey Waller: 00:10:50

So he just walks in the room, goes, Hey, can you guys go faster?

Corey Waller: 00:10:53

And they go about 7% faster, but that's only gonna get you so far.

Corey Waller: 00:10:57

And sometimes I see that that's the most sophistication out of a young operator and trying to help them to see like, look, I appreciate asking, and they'll try to please people want to, but there are things you can do to build that system around them to make their default faster.

Corey Waller: 00:11:11

Yeah.

Corey Waller: 00:11:11

Rather than having them somehow feel like they're doing something wrong.

Anderson Williams: 00:11:14

Yeah, for sure.

Anderson Williams: 00:11:15

So this is obviously very difficult work, the world where from emergency medicine to pain medicine to addiction treatment, and your experience with BrightView was the first time you've been a part of this work that included private equity.

Corey Waller: 00:11:29

Yeah.

Anderson Williams: 00:11:29

Will you talk about your concerns that you had going into that, and then obviously you're sitting here today as an Executive Partner with Shore, how your perspective has evolved given all that you've done.

Corey Waller: 00:11:41

I appreciate that question in the sense that I'm still suspect of all business in healthcare and not from a negative, like I hope it dies kind of thing.

Corey Waller: 00:11:48

But I think we have to be worried about it.

Corey Waller: 00:11:50

And when I first took the job, I said no for six months because it wasn't exactly the pinnacle of an emotional, iconic life to say I'm a doctor who's an executive at a private equity backed addiction treatment company that owns its own lab.

Corey Waller: 00:12:04

'cause I had worked in all nonprofits.

Corey Waller: 00:12:06

It wasn't about getting paid, it wasn't, it was just about doing the work.

Corey Waller: 00:12:10

There's a pretty solid naivety in that, in a sense that there is work that has to get done, but at the same time, there also has to be a business structure around that in order to continue that work long term.

Corey Waller: 00:12:19

And I felt like when I did come in for working with BrightView, what I found were a lot of dedicated people who wanted to build the business.

Corey Waller: 00:12:26

So that it didn't require the overtly impassioned individual to still get people care, because not everybody is that.

Corey Waller: 00:12:32

Some people, it is just a job, and if that's the case, I still want them to do good, but that requires really good business acumen.

Corey Waller: 00:12:39

It requires building a system where the default is to see that person next and to do a good job and give that feedback.

Corey Waller: 00:12:44

And so once I found that the powers to be were malleable in that conversation, then I felt much more comfortable working in this space.

Corey Waller: 00:12:51

And then like most things, anytime I'm given an opportunity, the answer again is yes.

Corey Waller: 00:12:55

And so watched everything on the Shore University and watch you guys do a great job putting that out and really tried to learn the language of the P&L, what add backs mean, how these things go together so that I could have a conversation with my CFO and, and the COO in a way that, you know, worked.

Corey Waller: 00:13:11

And it, it still doesn't always connect because I have a scope of practice that I need to hold, and they have a scope of practice that they need, but it's good tension.

Corey Waller: 00:13:18

And that tension needs to be there to find the right and ethical way to deliver healthcare.

Corey Waller: 00:13:23

And that's one of the reasons that I said yes to coming here is because I think there needs to be a voice at the table that does raise the question with answers, not just poking at stuff, but you know, is this ethical?

Corey Waller: 00:13:34

Where are the guardrails?

Corey Waller: 00:13:35

How do we build really good, predictable, ethical healthcare in a setting where we wanna run a margin in a setting where we're hoping to have an EBITDA number that allows us to sell a company onto the next thing?

Corey Waller: 00:13:47

'cause I think those things can coexist, but they have to be done in an active way.

Corey Waller: 00:13:52

They don't just accidentally happen.

Corey Waller: 00:13:53

And so I feel like my role here is one, to identify some real good opportunities based on that and find some potholes in some of the data that we see just from a doctor perspective, but really to help identify what those ethical guardrails are and how we move forward with truly honest, ethical companies and the delivery of healthcare.

Anderson Williams: 00:14:11

Well, and I love the idea of tension that you're describing because I do think that I worked over a decade in the nonprofit sector and you have people who I describe as Heart Forward.

Corey Waller: 00:14:21

Yeah.

Anderson Williams: 00:14:21

And they live their roles.

Corey Waller: 00:14:23

Yeah.

Anderson Williams: 00:14:23

But it's really hard to sustain when your operations are weak or your financials are weak, whatever.

Anderson Williams: 00:14:29

And you have people that are not at the top end of the economic ladder that are working all heart, every day.

Anderson Williams: 00:14:34

Not just sustaining those people, but sustaining the systems that make their work, as you're describing, not a grind, but facilitates their work.

Corey Waller: 00:14:42

Absolutely, and I think that, you know, in a true yin and yang kind of balance pathway for this, you really have to balance a combination of the MD and the MBA.

Corey Waller: 00:14:50

You can't have too much of the MBA and you can't have too much of the MD. And I always told the COO, I was like, look, I realized that if I was given full reign in this place, I would probably run it into the ground by adding cool new medical things that we want to do.

Corey Waller: 00:15:02

But I also know that if you took over, you would basically run all of our patients away because they wouldn't want to be seen in what felt like a factory.

Corey Waller: 00:15:09

And so not everything is a focus factory model of care.

Corey Waller: 00:15:12

And we have to build in these moments of pause, these moments of introspection and have that be a part of it.

Corey Waller: 00:15:17

I, I call it deliberate inefficiency.

Corey Waller: 00:15:19

And that deliberate inefficiency is allowing you to move from one patient where you just had a, you know, can be an earth shattering conversation about the death of their family member, the end of life decisions that we have to make, and then you move to the next patient.

Corey Waller: 00:15:33

You know, you need some moments to compartmentalize that.

Corey Waller: 00:15:35

So it can't just be bang, bang, bang.

Corey Waller: 00:15:37

So trying to figure out how to recognize there's a limit on some of this to know that you helped a company do its work better and more consistently, not just on an EBITDA number, but to know that that equals better care for people.

Corey Waller: 00:15:49

I mean, that's the holy grail of healthcare is where better care equals inappropriate profit margin.

Corey Waller: 00:15:54

And if you can put those two things together in an ethical way, I mean, that drives everybody in that business because medical providers are driven by making people better.

Corey Waller: 00:16:02

Business providers are driven by, you know, making a business better, and they both have to have that feedback.

Corey Waller: 00:16:08

Like I get emotional feedback seeing from the patient, but my operator doesn't get to get that from patients.

Corey Waller: 00:16:12

They don't get that juice.

Corey Waller: 00:16:13

So their juice has to come from hitting a KPI, hitting a budget, doing those things and recognizing that's just as important to the team as me sitting across from a patient and helping them move through a crisis in their life.

Anderson Williams: 00:16:24

For sure.

Anderson Williams: 00:16:25

So when you think about where your work is today and you think about the complex systems that you've worked with on all sides of the medical world, really, I won't even try to compartmentalize it to addiction treatment 'cause you've mentioned so many other things.

Anderson Williams: 00:16:39

How do you stay focused?

Anderson Williams: 00:16:41

How do you stay optimistic?

Anderson Williams: 00:16:43

How do you stay faithful that you can have the kind of impact that you've built a career trying to get?

Anderson Williams: 00:16:48

When you think about just what potentially, to me could feel like just an overwhelming, insurmountable challenge, how do you personally, professionally stay motivated and driven?

Corey Waller: 00:16:58

That's a good question.

Corey Waller: 00:16:59

And you know, we talk a lot about the business's north star, right?

Corey Waller: 00:17:02

Personally, I think you have to have your North star.

Corey Waller: 00:17:04

What are my guardrails?

Corey Waller: 00:17:06

What are the things I will and won't do?

Corey Waller: 00:17:07

What are the things that I will happily walk away from a job for?

Corey Waller: 00:17:10

Like, what are those hills that I'm willing and happy to die on?

Corey Waller: 00:17:13

And I will push as hard as I can up until that point, at which point you pivot.

Corey Waller: 00:17:18

And here I've never been pushed to any of those limits, but I think that most of that is having that larger North Star of what do I wanna accomplish when I'm laying on my bed?

Corey Waller: 00:17:27

And this is like the last few breaths.

Corey Waller: 00:17:29

Well, I know that I've done the most that I could have done with like the one shot at this I had.

Corey Waller: 00:17:33

And that has to do with my kids and my wife and work and really honoring this really moment in time you have to deliver everything and leave it on the field.

Corey Waller: 00:17:42

I mean, when I ran track, you know, I ran the 400-meter hurdles and that race hurts, especially at the end.

Corey Waller: 00:17:47

But you know, in that last stretch, whether or not you're truly leaving it on that track.

Corey Waller: 00:17:51

And I feel like that's what this whole point is, is to push it forward and make sure that when you've done a job, however small or however, a shift in the ER, small task of giving somebody information, was that done at the point where you would look back and be comfortable that you gave it your all.

Corey Waller: 00:18:07

And I think that's what drives me on a daily basis is have I done the best I can with what I got?

Anderson Williams: 00:18:12

When you think about a young executive, maybe a, a younger doctor, someone who wants to find a career of service and impact, what advice do you give them based on what you know, what you've experienced about how to approach, whether it's business or medicine, just any sort of key words of wisdom that you come back to, to people who are looking to build a career that matters, that has an impact on a difficult industry?

Anderson Williams: 00:18:36

Any advice?

Corey Waller: 00:18:37

Yeah.

Corey Waller: 00:18:37

I think the biggest thing is the Say Yes.

Corey Waller: 00:18:39

Those opportunities usually only come up once and then they're gone.

Corey Waller: 00:18:42

And so if you don't say yes, you don't get a chance to hang out on a Black Hawk with a bunch of people who did cool operation stuff you don't.

Michael Burcham: 00:18:49

Like you do.

Corey Waller: 00:18:49

Right?

Corey Waller: 00:18:50

Yeah.

Corey Waller: 00:18:50

You know, just like on Saturday, you know, you don't get to experience other people's worlds unless you say yes to that.

Corey Waller: 00:18:56

I think that as doctors, especially those of us who've, medical school and residency and extra training and fellowships and you know, all of these things.

Corey Waller: 00:19:05

We have a sharpened blade of skill for that specific piece.

Corey Waller: 00:19:09

You have to exercise these muscles for other things, meaning I need to know about finance.

Corey Waller: 00:19:14

I'm never gonna be a CFO, but I need to have a cogent conversation with that human being.

Corey Waller: 00:19:18

I need to understand operations.

Corey Waller: 00:19:20

I need to be able to walk through all of the key conceptual frameworks of the five S's and doing a Kaizen and Lean Six Sigma, and I need to know those things.

Corey Waller: 00:19:27

So I would say, get out of your known comfort zone where you're gonna be the smartest dude in the room no matter what.

Corey Waller: 00:19:34

You can still be that, but you have to be vulnerable and learn from people who are 15 and 20 years younger than you.

Corey Waller: 00:19:39

And I would say that's one of the biggest barriers for physician leaders is that we're always immediately older than everyone because we went to med school and residency, and so we're sitting in a room where somebody's 15 years younger, but not 15 years dumber.

Corey Waller: 00:19:51

They're smart.

Corey Waller: 00:19:52

And so there's a lot you can learn.

Corey Waller: 00:19:53

So you have to really wind back the ego and allow for that learning to happen.

Anderson Williams: 00:19:58

Say more about that, because I think there's, to some degree, and maybe you have your own personal reflections, but it requires a bit of ego to come in and do what you've done and be a doctor and invest in that.

Anderson Williams: 00:20:09

How do you balance that?

Anderson Williams: 00:20:10

Go back to the idea of tension.

Anderson Williams: 00:20:11

How do you balance that idea of, no, I have been trained to be an expert, but I need to listen to someone who's talking about the P&L, but I need to listen to someone who's talking about operations or what have you.

Anderson Williams: 00:20:22

How do you personally, how have you navigated that?

Corey Waller: 00:20:25

Poorly, mostly.

Corey Waller: 00:20:26

I mean, honestly, I, I think.

Corey Waller: 00:20:28

So, I would say that without question, I waved my ego like a flag earlier in my career as I've gotten older and recognized that most people could not care about, they don't care.

Corey Waller: 00:20:38

It is just irritating and, uh, to most people and to yourself.

Corey Waller: 00:20:41

Like, you hear yourself say something and then you apologize immediately.

Corey Waller: 00:20:43

I'm like, oh my God, I can't believe that still came out.

Corey Waller: 00:20:45

So I think that being successful in whether it be being the best surgeon or being, you know, the best operator or being that is about understanding that it is about confidence, not cockiness.

Corey Waller: 00:20:57

And the confidence comes from doing the right thing consistently so that you know what that right thing is.

Corey Waller: 00:21:02

And when something bad happens that you know that core so well, that you're able to quickly utilize that knowledge and pivot to how to fix that problem.

Corey Waller: 00:21:10

But I think it doesn't require ego, other than if you're talking about the Freudian baseline ego strength, the ability to have it.

Corey Waller: 00:21:17

But as soon as that ego moves into not being a nice human being, you immediately start to destruct the thing you've built.

Corey Waller: 00:21:24

And sitting in a table and I see colleagues of mine where they know a lot of things and.

Corey Waller: 00:21:29

The best advice I ever got, which I struggled to use, is to be quiet.

Corey Waller: 00:21:33

And this is from a, uh, it was a Chief Medical Officer from a big health system, was so wonderfully compliant in being a mentor for me and allowing me to say stupid things on a regular basis.

Corey Waller: 00:21:43

But his advice to me was, there are times in which it's best for you to just be quiet and it's not because you don't have something to say, not 'cause you don't have an answer.

Corey Waller: 00:21:50

It's not 'cause you probably couldn't fix the problem.

Corey Waller: 00:21:52

It's that other people can also fix the problem and they need to be allowed to fix that without feeling like they have a parent over their shoulder.

Anderson Williams: 00:22:06

If you enjoyed this episode, check out more from Corey Waller in his Everyday Heroes episode, as well as other Microcap Moments stories at www.shorecp.university/podcasts, or anywhere you get your podcasts.

Anderson Williams: 00:22:19

This podcast was produced by Shore Capital Partners.

Anderson Williams: 00:22:21

With story and narration by Anderson Williams.

Anderson Williams: 00:22:24

Recording by Austin Johnson.

Anderson Williams: 00:22:26

Editing by Reel Audiobooks.

Anderson Williams: 00:22:28

Sound Design, mixing, and mastering by Mark Galup of Reel Audiobooks.

Anderson Williams: 00:22:32

Special thanks to Corey Waller.

Anderson Williams: 00:22:34

This podcast is The Property of Shore Capital Partners, LLC.

Anderson Williams: 00:22:37

None of the content herein is investment advice and offer of investment advisory services, nor a recommendation or offer relating to any security.

Anderson Williams: 00:22:45

See the Terms of Use page on the Shore Capital website for other important information.