Being Bold

Disclaimer: It was pointed out to me that this post sounds like it might be in competition with my current job. In no way do I desire to leave my current job. This post is my attempt to encourage advocacy through sharing one instance where I have advocated for my profession. 

Today, I met with someone about doing music therapy at the local hospital on my day off. I work 4 10-hour days to cut down on driving time and I thought, "Hey! I've got a day off, I might as well use it to get some more experience." So, a few weeks ago, I called up the manager of the pediatric center and told her about what I'd like to talk with her about. This is me being bold. It may not seem like it to some of you extroverts, but I did something which was contrary to my typical personality. First of all, I made the initiative to make the call. Second of all, it was a cold call. We had never spoken before. Lastly, I asserted myself as someone who can help provide a specialized service. It was hard for me to essentially say, "I would like to help make your services better." It's usually easy for me to downplay myself, but I couldn't do that this time. If I wanted to be taken seriously, I knew I needed to take myself seriously (another bold move on my part).

To my surprise, the manager was not only interested, but said she'd like to meet with me ASAP. When we were done talking, I called up her secretary and scheduled our meeting. Then I began researching, reading, and freaking out slightly.

The meeting was today. We met over coffee and it was a meeting genuinely filled with excitement and ideas. It turned out that she has much bigger plans than I initially thought (this time she was bold). I came in with the idea of just working with the pediatric and birthing centers. She was thinking bigger. We started talking about how music therapy can be more than a "treatment" for patients, but can create a supportive culture in the work place and even be preventative medicine on many levels. We discussed how music therapy can compliment medicinal pain treatments and, sometimes, keep medicines from needing to be used. As the meeting progressed, we became more and more excited.

We parted after about an hour with a follow-up visit in the works. She wants my resume, scope of practice, a job description, and access to some research articles. I left the meeting feeling very empowered and optimistic. I'm not going to quit my "day job" (not that I want to, anyway), but I feel that big things might be in the works. And it all came about because I decided to be bold, call someone I didn't know, and tell them I want to help.

If I can be bold, anybody can. I'm not an extrovert. I'm not overly sure about myself most times. I'm not entirely sure why I called, but I did and, if nothing else, I helped make someone else excited about music therapy. We'll see what happens from here on out.

If you have the time, post a comment about a time when you were bold (be it with music therapy or life in general) and how it worked out.