Dr. Amanda Martin – Her Journey From Rural Oklahoma Through Team Sports To Orthopedic Surgeon


“I believe in high expectations. Children and young athletes will perform to the standard that is expected.  I believe this to the core of my being.” -Dr. Amanda Martin

[00:00:00] Amanda Martin: Team sports just develops this ability to know your role. And surgery is not done by one person. Every person involved in surgery has to do their role well for everything to go well. You have to have every bit of instrumentation that you need.

We need the engineers to create interesting new ways for us to heal the human body. We need the biologists to help come up with biologic advances. We need anesthesia. We need the nurses. We need the techs. You every single person, there are 20 people involved in a surgery. And if any one of them isn’t there, it’s not going to work.

Tommy Thomas:  Our guest today is Dr. Amanda Martin, whose practice focuses on arthroscopic surgery of the knee, shoulder, hip, and elbow.

Dr. Martin currently sees patients at the Elite Sports Medicine and Orthopedic Center in Nashville and Franklin. Now some of you are probably wondering what an orthoscopic or orthopedic surgeon has to do with the nonprofit leadership. And I think if you’ll stick around to the end of this show that’ll become clear.

I first met Dr. Martin on the 27th of December of 2017. I was experiencing significant pain in my right knee and my family practice doctor referred me to her. After the obligatory x-ray and MRI, she scheduled me for surgery. And later on in April, we decided the left knee needed surgery.

So, she did both of them.  Little did I know that I was getting an excellent surgeon, who unlike some surgeons, had a winsome bedside manner. And was a team physician for the United States Women’s Soccer Team. Dr. Martin, welcome to NextGen Nonprofit Leadership.

[00:01:40] Amanda Martin: Hi there. Thanks for having me.

[00:01:45] Tommy Thomas:  Before we dive too deep into your professional career, I want to go back to your childhood. Give me some thoughts on some highlights of growing up.

[00:01:55] Amanda Martin: Oh, man. Oftentimes we’ll hear people tell stories and talk about their struggles or things that happened in their childhood that really developed and made them into who they were in the struggle. And I don’t have that story.

My entire life was outside. Something was always broken.  Something was always cut. I was always in the emergency room to the point where my mom would say she was sure glad my dad worked in said emergency room, or she’d be concerned that people might offer some concern for me.

I had the quintessential American happy childhood. I have an amazing family, wonderful mom and dad. And I grew up in rural Oklahoma. My grandfather was a cattle farmer, and my father was a family physician and also an educator. And we just did everything as a family. 

My entire life was outside. Something was always broken. Something was always cut. I was always in the emergency room to the point where my mom would say she was sure glad my dad worked and said emergency room or she’d be concerned that people might offer some concern for me. But it was a really idyllic childhood. I grew up in the eighties when you could still go and do as a child freely and have independence.

And if you were hungry, you better figure out how to make some food. And so it really developed that sort of independent streak. And I developed it at a young age. I was the youngest child in my family. And so, I had a lot of downtime. My mom said always a nose in a book and always, doing something relatively ill advised when it came to daring and sporting type maneuvers. But it really gave me that independent streak as an early age.

[00:03:10] Tommy Thomas:   What would you say was the happiest memory?

[00:03:14] Amanda Martin: Oh, there’s too many to count. I can remember as clear as day trying to catch Santa Claus. We’re in the Christmas Advent season and just wanting more than anything to see Santa Claus.

And sleeping under the Christmas tree with my little dog Barney. And somehow, the magic of Christmas happened all around me while I slept under the Christmas tree that night. And I woke up to find all of the presents and Christmas magic had still managed to arrive despite my sneaky attempt.

I was raised in a family where there were no limits or boundaries on what I could accomplish.  At various times in my youth, I wanted to be Miss America, a Dallas Cowboy Cheerleader, an astronaut, or serve in the diplomatic corps.

[00:03:43] Tommy Thomas: With your dad being a physician, did you want to be a physician when you grew up or did you want to be a cowgirl?

[00:03:50] Amanda Martin: I wanted to be everything.  There was a time in my life where I wanted to be Miss America and a Dallas Cowboy cheerleader, and an astronaut, and I wanted to work for the civil service, and president of the United States.

 I was raised that there’s absolutely no boundaries to anything that you can or cannot do. So the sky was the limit and I ran the gamut of it. I knew I wanted to do something, and I wanted to do something that not everybody did.  But when I say as a child, it ran the gamut, it ran the gamut.

[00:04:23] Tommy Thomas:   What was high school like? If you had to pick three words to describe high school, what would they be?

[00:04:30] Amanda Martin: High school was incredible. It was challenging and it was motivating. I went to an incredible school, Holland Hall Preparatory Academy.

And up until that point I had lived in a small town, moved to Tulsa and went to this school where Everybody was amazing. Every person there excelled in an art or a sporting athletic endeavor or academically. And people refer to your mom and dad as ma’am and sir. I was such an incredible place where everyone had a plan for their life.

It wasn’t a high pressure-cooked environment. It was very open and allowed open learning. And we had a modular schedule. So, there was time to work arts and sports into the day, but it just was a place where everybody really wanted to do something, and everybody believed they could do something, and it was such an inspirational environment.

I started playing team sports as a little bitty baby. My sister is three years older than me, and I started playing on her basketball team when I was five.

[00:05:22] Tommy Thomas: Is that where you got introduced to team sports?

[00:05:25] Amanda Martin: No, I started playing team sports as a little bitty baby. My sister is three years older than me, and I started playing on her basketball team when I was five. The eight-year-old girls and the little five-year-old Amanda and my dad coached and, he would blow the whistle and say left and you’re meant to drive down the court dribbling with your left hand.

Yeah. Sometimes the girls would be on their way back before I figured out which hand was left. But it just gave me such a gift. My brother is 11 years older than me. So he was at that time, really excelling in sports. He went on to play college basketball. And so, I was in the gym with him with little dribble goggles.

So, I couldn’t look down learning the fundamentals of the game at the age of five and six, and then running straight back to gymnastics. I started playing team sports before I even knew the benefit of it.

[00:06:12] Tommy Thomas:  Tell me about the best athletic team you ever played on.

[00:06:18] Amanda Martin: Oh, my goodness. I think they were all, going to Holland Hall, everybody was so talented. That was one of the interesting things. You came all from everywhere. When I was a freshman in high school, I wanted to try something new, and I’d never heard of field hockey and Holland Hall played the Kansas City and the Dallas kids in field hockey.

And most of those girls on my team went on to play college field hockey at University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, Stanford University of Virginia, and I had never played. I just wanted something to stay in shape for soccer. And so, I went out for it and I was a little nervous because they told me they wore a skirt.

I didn’t know anything about field hockey. And that team that I played for my freshman year is by far the most talented people I’ve ever been exposed to. And a completely new sport. It was an extraordinarily humbling experience. But it was also the most fun I’d ever had because it opened my eyes to how many other things there might be out there that I had no clue about.

[00:07:16] Tommy Thomas: So, if I could have shadowed your coach during that year and observed him or her coaching, what would I have observed that brought the best out of you ladies?

I believe in high expectations. Children and young athletes will perform to the standard that is expected.  I believe this to the core of my being.

[00:07:32] Amanda Martin: I think from a coaching standpoint, you have to have high expectations. I think that children, and I believe this to my core, young youth athletes or children, they will perform to the standard that is expected.

And if you have a positive high expectation environment, you will get wonderful results from it. And the thing that I talk about with myself, what I grew up with, my dad was a coach of all my brother’s teams. And if you surround yourself by other people who are coachable, who are willing to listen and learn and not think that they know the best and be willing to take a step back and, one of my skills was I was always the fastest. I always was the fastest and I always was more determined than anyone else. But there were times that I needed to step back from being the fastest and learn better footwork, better shooting skills, just spend a couple of hours shooting free throws over and just really listen and focus on fundamentals.

I think, to be coachable is the most important thing that anyone can be to have a good attitude and be willing to listen.

[00:08:40] Tommy Thomas: Was there a point in your soccer or field hockey career when you realized that the coach was probably trying to teach you more than soccer?

[00:08:49] Amanda Martin: Oh, absolutely. I grew up in the Bible Belt.  I grew up in Oklahoma. And, my day starts, finishes, ends, every second of the middle of the day is keeping our eyes focused on Christ. My family, my dad always said we keep the first things first. And so everything that we do is centered on am I doing this to the best of my ability?

Am I representing my family well? Am I representing my God well? And that is just where everything in my life has stemmed from. I wasn’t a good field hockey player. I was a terrible field hockey player. But I was a great teammate and I wanted to try something new because I was a good basketball player, and I was a really great gymnast.

And just, finding out what you’re good at is important. But I think finding out what you’re not good at and deciding, can I make myself better or am I willing to not have pride and step away from this and pursue other things is also equally important. You have to know what your gifts are and know that you’re individually given them by a divine and loving maker who wants you to be successful.

And it’s important to try everything, but it’s important to really find a path that God has laid out for you and be willing to listen and be open to it.

[00:10:01] Tommy Thomas: So no matter how hard and dedicated you are to something, failure is always an option. What did you learn from team sports about that failure that has helped you as a surgeon?

Failure is always an option, but it should never be an option in your mind.  In surgery, there is no measuring once and cutting twice when you are talking about a living being.

[00:10:18] Amanda Martin: One failure is always an option, but it should never be an option in your mind. I think you have to find a way. And one thing I always say about particularly orthopedic surgeon is that it’s glorified carpentry. What I do is I saw and I cut and I work and rebuild the human body. There is no measuring once and cutting twice when you’re talking about living being.

You have to measure twice and cut once, and you have to have a plan A, B, and C. Every single thing that you do. And team sports just develops this ability to know your role. And surgery is not done by one person. Every person involved in surgery has to do their role well for everything to go well. You have to have every bit of instrumentation that you need.

We need the engineers to create interesting new ways for us to heal the human body. We need the biologists to help come up with biologic advances. We need anesthesia. We need the nurses. We need the techs. There are 20 people involved in a surgery. And if any one of them isn’t there, it’s not going to work.

And that’s where team sports are so important in understanding that you cannot do it all. If you try to do it all, you’re going to hurt your teammates. You’re going to harm. The process and learning how to function in that unit is critical in order to be successful in anything, but particularly surgery.

I think you’ll find so many people who go into the surgical fields were high school and collegiate athletes.

[00:11:43] Tommy Thomas: So you’re talking to someone who doesn’t know anything about it, except I’ve had it several times. Who’s in charge in the OR and what does the teamwork look like?

[00:11:54] Amanda Martin: So we always say the surgeon is the captain of the ship but your anesthesiologist is really your best friend.

That’s the person who’s managing your medications, putting you to sleep and more importantly, waking you up. It’s relatively easy to help somebody take a nap. The hard part is waking them back up. And then there’s all of the nursing staff. There’s your registered nurse who is there to help with anesthesia and surgery.

There are scrub technicians who set up a sterile field. There are people in the back who sterilize the instruments and wrap the instruments. There’s the nurses in the front who bring you in and go through your health history and really screen out if there’s anything we need to be aware of. Maybe it’s not safe to have surgery that day.

There are the nurses who help you recover from surgery. There’s your physical therapist after surgery is as you go on and on. There are so many people that will touch your care that you may never meet that we can’t do anything that we do without them.

[00:12:48] Tommy Thomas: If the surgeon or the anesthesiologist is the band leader, what does that look like operationally?

Are you briefing them before surgery or have a team meeting to look at everything?

[00:13:02] Amanda Martin: There are so many times where sports relate to surgical life. But this is one opportunity where medicine has really related to sports and sports medicine.

In particular, we have something called a surgical timeout. Of course, when we schedule a surgery for you, we send your history, your information, the problem, our surgical plan is made, we send all of those orders to the hospital, the facility where you have surgery, and then those orders are followed.

So it is coming from us directly. But then the entire system kicks into play. People need to call and start anesthesia screening, making sure that we’re ready for surgery. You’re safe. You have a good, safe plan. You have a plan for at home when you go home with your family. So you know, the order starts with the surgeon. Anesthesia gets involved, and then they trickle down, but they’re following orders.

Prior to a surgery, there’s something called a timeout where everyone in the room stops. There’s no music playing, there’s nothing. And we identify. This is John Doe. He’s here today to have surgery on his right knee. He has an allergy to penicillin. He has no other medical problems. Every person in the room identifies themselves.

I’m Dr. Martin. I’ll be operating on the right knee today. And we go through the entire room. Do we have all of the instruments that we need? Are there fire precautions that need to be taken? And we go through that checklist. And then when everyone in the room is given an opportunity to agree, the timeout is over and we can begin surgery.

We have gotten to the point now in sports medicine where we do the same thing prior to a game. I’m Dr. Martin. I’m with the women’s national team. This is our athletic train. This is our physical therapist. This is our emergency medicine doctor. This is the paramedic. This is the plan. If someone were to have a cardiac event, this is what we will do. If someone were to have a leg injury, this is how we will handle it. And that meeting happens prior to the game so that both medical staffs from both teams are able to get together and decide exactly how an emergency would be handled.

[00:15:01] Tommy Thomas:  If I could talk to your team, if I could have talked to them before my surgery, what would they have said was the best thing about working for Dr. Martin, and what would they have said was the most challenging thing about being in your operating suite?

[00:15:20] Amanda Martin: I think they would have said I’m the best. No, I absolutely love my team. We pray on our patients. We always have a respectful environment.

I think they would say the best thing is that it’s going to be a collegial and happy day, no matter what people often say. My reputation is I don’t lose my cool and I’m always very thankful and grateful to the staff. And I think the worst part is they know they’re going to have to listen to funny stories because I treat the operating room like my diary and always want to tell the stories of what’s happened the day before with my kids. Mostly for laughs. And they’re mostly embellished, if you’ve ever told a fish story. But that might be the best or the worst part depending on how you look at it.

[00:15:57] Tommy Thomas: Go back to somehow along the way you decided to get into medicine.  Take us to that point and maybe walk us forward a little.

My brother was a college basketball player, and at the time the college basketball coach said, have you ever thought about being a cheerleader? And I said, how dare you suggest such a thing?

[00:16:04] Amanda Martin: Yes. So I played all sorts of sports growing up and ultimately, because I was a gymnast, I competed at a fairly high level. Had a back injury, stopped doing gymnastics. That’s when I really in high school got more into basketball, running track, those sorts of things. My brother was a college basketball player, and at the time the college basketball coach said, have you ever thought about being a cheerleader? And I said, how dare you suggest such a thing? And he said, no, seriously, Amanda, nobody likes sports more than you.

What if you were on the sidelines, you would really love it. Plus you can do flips. And so I thought about it. So it was the 90s. I was just such a tomboy. I don’t even know if you can say tomboy anymore. I was such a tomboy and just the idea of it.

I wasn’t sure but there is something magical about a cheerleading outfit because you get a little bit of pep in your step and so I ended up cheering and when I was in college, I had a knee injury and tore all the ligaments in my knee and I knew I wanted to be a doctor but I didn’t know what kind and that process was really eye opening for me and I enjoyed it and so I would tell everybody hey, you know, I think I’m gonna be an orthopedic surgeon.

And people would say, that is so cute. Don’t you think maybe you want to do peds and then maybe be a sports medicine doctor, not a surgeon. And I would just say, we’ll see. And so I really started to feel I wanted to do that. Now my major in college was biochemistry and French linguistics.

My dad said, why don’t you just take the MCAT and apply to medical school? And I did, and I was young, I was 16 when I went to college, 21 when I started medical school.

I still had a passion and a thought that I wanted to serve in the civil service. So I was still holding out, maybe I would go to law school or do a different route. And ultimately my dad said, why don’t you just take the MCAT and apply to medical school? And I did, and I was young, I was 16 when I went to college, 21 when I started medical school.

So I was very young through the process. So you know, forgive me for saying, oh, I just decided to apply to medical school and it worked out but that was how it worked. And I just, I really think that, when God has a plan for you, the path will become very straight and despite, any sort of young arrogance or anything, he will straighten the path for your steps.

And I fell into it and I knew instantly I wanted to do orthopedics. I wanted to do something where there was a beginning, a middle, and an end, and you could see a tangible result for your work. And every field of medicine is important, but that just appealed to me. I love young, healthy people. I love athletes.

I love keeping people young and healthy. I always say, boomeritis is one of my favorite things to treat because it’s people who are neglected or ignored or said, you just need to replace that. Or you just need to stop running or you need to stop doing this. Maybe you should play pickleball instead of tennis when what you want to play is tennis.

I love to serve people who want to be active and it just worked out. It just, I fell into it. I knew when I hurt my knee that I thought that was something I could do and heard nothing, but that’s not something you can do from people for eight years straight and kept my head down and my mouth shut and it worked out.

[00:19:09] Tommy Thomas:  I noticed on your bio that you spent some time in South Africa doing a rotation or an internship.

[00:19:16] Amanda Martin: I did, yes. I did my trauma fellowship in Cape Town. Many people may not know that, but at Groote Schuur Hospital which is a big hospital in Cape Town. That’s where the very first open-heart transplant was done.

At the end of my residency in New Jersey, I did a fellowship at the American Sports Medicine Institute and did sports medicine for a year in Birmingham and accepted a job to be an attendant. But there’s a space in sports medicine that I call athletic trauma, where the traumatologist at your level one trauma center, that’s used to dealing with people falling off a roof or having a car wreck.

They’re used to those broken bones and they’re like, congratulations, you’re alive. You can walk. And then the sports people are like, oh, I’d rather fix your ACL. I don’t know about your broken leg. And there was just a really beautiful in between place. And I felt like I wanted to do another year of trauma so that I could bridge that gap and understand these fractures in young, healthy people.

If we’re treating them like athletes and rehabbing them the way we rehab our soft tissue injuries and athletes that was an area I could make a difference in. It was a space where there’s not a big comfort zone. I always feel like if you’re just quiet enough to listen, you can identify where the needs are.

So I went to Africa and it was great.

[00:20:34] Tommy Thomas: So as a person of faith and I would assume a reasonably competitive person, how do you balance your competitive nature with your faith? Or is that a struggle?

[00:20:45] Amanda Martin: No, it’s a struggle. And being a surgeon, it’s a struggle every day. I saw a meme the other day and I loved it.

And it said, I think that every Christian, particularly American, a cultural Christian, we have this gospel of prosperity in this country that’s just habit here.  I think you should wake up in the morning and get over yourself. I know that sounds crazy and I don’t mean it in a negative way, but I think it is such a great place to start. Immediately humble yourself.

Every achievement you have, every thought you’ve had, everything you’ve done is coming from a creator. And so I wake up now, I am competitive. I have a lot to do in the day. I get up at three in the morning because I need my time. And I spend that first hour in the Word. And the first thing I do is pray to be humbled.

Pray Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. That is something I’m really focusing on this year. It’s Your will, not mine. And, really submitting first thing and then remembering that I am a creation, I was created for a purpose and humbling myself to know what that purpose is and do everything I do that day for that purpose.

And it is competitive. I really believe it. And my mom, every day of my life said, do it to the glory of God, do it to the glory of God, and it’s just so rope as part of my experience, but I think you make your bed to the glory of God and you tie your shoes to the glory of God. It just became a habit and, habits become a way of life.

And, so everything that I do, I think about somebody who’s watching it and has an expectation that I do my best. I will not always do my best. I’m not the best at everything. I’m horrible at certain things. But everything I take the time to do, I do think it should be done to the best of my ability.

Because that’s how I honor my Creator.

[00:22:36] Tommy Thomas: So I want to ask you a risk question. Frederick Wilcox said, Progress always involves risk. You can’t steal second base with your foot on first. What’s the biggest risk you’ve ever taken in your career and how did it turn out?

[00:22:52] Amanda Martin: I think I took a huge risk leaving the American Sports Medicine Institute to come to Nashville.

I’m married to a songwriter, and we have two beautiful kids and he said, I have to move to Nashville. And I said, I have the best job in America. I don’t want to leave it. It was early in our marriage. We’d only been married a few years, and I had a newborn baby and a one-year-old.

And it was really developing a career where I wanted it. I was really happy with where I was. I was traveling with the national youth program at the time and working with major league soccer. And that was a big one. And I just had to step out on faith that God would make it right.

There are a lot of people out there that do things because it’s a job. And there are some people out there that do things because they feel that is their talent, that serving mankind is their gift.  Dr. Burton Elrod is one of those people.

And I met Dr. Burton Elrod, who is the founder of Elite Sports Medicine and just really found a kindred spirit. Someone who just loves God and serves his community. There are a lot of people out there that do things because it’s a job. And there are some people out there that do things because they feel that is their talent, that serving mankind is their gift.

And Dr. Elrod is one of those people. And it just, we fell in line, the practice was taking care of the Titans at the time. And it was just very like-minded people who love their families and love their community. I just felt like it was a risk worth taking and it wasn’t easy. It’s hard to come to a big city, once you’ve established practice and it took me longer than I thought it would, but I feel like I’ve really become a part of the natural community and I wouldn’t have it any other way.

[00:24:20] Tommy Thomas: How did you get involved with the women’s soccer team?

[00:24:25] Amanda Martin: I have a second little tip if anyone is listening for success and that is always show up and always say yes. You have to be willing to raise your hand and say, I’m good enough and I want to try it, and be available and be willing to do hard work.

When I was a fellow, I was assigned major league soccer as one of the clubs, when you go to the ASMI, there’s going to be University of Alabama, University of Auburn, so many opportunities. And I said, I’m going to do soccer. This is a path. There’s only 25 NFL teams.

There’s 25 NFL doctors. Soccer is the fastest growing sport in America, and it’s the one that I love. I’m going to make my mark in soccer. So I volunteered to do research for major league soccer. I went to New York, and I just piled through hours and hours of injury film. And the kind of nitty gritty stuff that no one wants to do is my research project.

And made those relationships. And to this day, I still work for major league soccer, the director of education. I run their annual education meeting for all of the team physicians. We have that coming up next week in Fort Lauderdale. And it was because I was willing to show up for no pay, no title, no nothing, and just really do nitty gritty work.

And that opportunity led me to meet the national team physicians. And I came in starting with the under 20 women and started traveling with them. And that’s hard. That as a young surgeon to be gone for two or three weeks at a time, it is a big sacrifice for your practice financially for your partners.

And it was just something where I fill my cup doing sports medicine, working with great people really just makes you want to be great too. And so it’s just relationships and being willing to say yes, being willing to do something that maybe somebody else doesn’t want to do can lead to really great things.

And it did for me. I raised my hand and said, I’ll do that. And this is where I am 15 years later.

[00:26:08] Tommy Thomas: Yeah. I remember, of course, you were through with me on my knee, but I was still seeing you every two or three months. And you had to go to France for two weeks with the women’s team. That’s a chunk of time.

[00:26:21] Amanda Martin: Yeah, it is, and this year, now that my kids are getting older, this year, for World Cup, it was all the way in New Zealand, and t’s something I do, but it’s something they do too. They have to be willing to say, we’re going to let our mom go and do this because I’m still the mom.

And you have to find a way and build a tribe full of people who will help you to do it. And you have to be willing to ask for help. And I asked my kids now before I take a chunk of time, I say, is this okay with you guys? Because this means we may not do a vacation or we may not do something else.

And they always get a say.

[00:26:55] Tommy Thomas: So wrapping this thing up. What counsel are you giving young people about careers and then obviously you would have a bit toward medicine, but I think you’ve probably got a global perspective also.

[00:27:12] Amanda Martin: I think one of the most tried and true things that people say is find out what you love and do it.

And I think that’s important, but I would also say humble yourself, find out where your talents are, find out where your skills are, do everything you can to develop them, and then create a pathway that allows you to provide for your family, your community, your church, and the kingdom of God. And if you can check off all of those things, you are going to have a fulfilling and happy life.

It just can’t be, I want to do this for me. It has to be, what am I doing for my Creator? What am I doing for my community? What am I going to do for my family? And I think you have to be practical about it, be honest with yourself about the things you want.

If money is something that’s important to you, that’s okay. You need to choose a career path going down that way. If time is important to you, you need to recognize it right away because you will be burnt out and miserable if you do something that doesn’t allow you to do the things that feed your soul. Really humble yourself and pray and think about the next 40 years and always be open to change if it’s not. Because we have to, I have to be serving before we can serve ourselves.

[00:28:28] Tommy Thomas: I’m a firm believer that leadership lessons are transferable to the nonprofit sector from countless other occupations. In previous episodes, we’ve talked with two- and three-star generals from the army in the air force, as well as a fighter pilot. Each of these guests share valuable transferable leadership lessons. I wanted Dr. Martin as a guest because she brings life and leadership lessons from organized team sports and medicine. Particularly the operating room. If you’re a nonprofit leader, I hope you picked up on a few ideas from this conversation and are able to contextualize them into your particular situation.

Thank you for joining us today. If you are a first-time listener, I hope you will subscribe and become a regular. You can find links to all the episodes at our website: www.jobfitmatters.com/podcast.

If there are topics you’d like for me to explore, my email address is [email protected].   Word of mouth has been identified as the most valuable form of marketing. Surverys tell us that consumers believe recommendations from friends and family over all other forms of advertising.

If you’ve heard something today that’s worth passing on, please share it with others. You’re already helping me make something special for the next generation of nonprofit leaders. I’ll be back next week with a new episode. Until then, stay the course on our journey to help make the nonprofit sector more effective and sustainable.

“Failure is always an option, but it should never be an option in your mind. In surgery, there is no measuring once and cutting twice when you are talking about a living being.” -Dr. Amanda Martin

 

Links and Resources

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Next Gen Nonprofit Leadership with Tommy Thomas

The Perfect Search – What every board needs to know about hiring their next CEO

Elite Sports Medicine + Orthopedics (Franklin, TN)

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