Welcome to the Monthly Newsletter by Amer Kaissi 

Edition #41, April 2023

Dr. Trzeciak is an ICU physician & Chair of Medicine. Dr. Mazzarelli is an ER physician and healthcare CEO. You may know them from their amazing first book: “Compassionomics”. In this new book, “Wonder Drug: 7 Scientifically Proven Ways That Serving Others Is the Best Medicine for Yourself,” they make an evidence-based, scientific case that serving others & helping them can be a wonder drug, not just for doctors, but for all of us, especially leaders. “It’s an effective treatment for scores of conditions, and there are essentially no side effects.”

As a professional speaker and researcher that studies and speaks about burnout and resilience, this book provided me with one big “aha moment”: To boost our resilience and protect ourselves from burnout, the solution is not just to escape into ourselves by going on long solo walks in nature, meditating, or taking long baths (although all these practices can be helpful). To boost our resilience, what we really need is to turn outwards towards others and make deeper human connections with them. Study after study shows that when we help others, we also help ourselves. “You don’t lose anything by serving others, you only gain,” the authors argue. “Giving is a powerful therapy for the giver, any giver”.  The secret to sustaining our giving and compassion towards others is to establish clear boundaries with them, and to not forget about ourselves in the process of giving.

I highly recommend this book because above all, it’s a scientific book, not just a feel-good one. I believe it should be required reading for leaders in all organizations.

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Dr. Amer Kaissi is a Top Leadership Keynote Speaker. He speaks about leadership, teams and culture.