How to Get Rich In EMS
You are only as rich as the enrichment you bring to the world around you. -Rajesh Setty
Me: “So how do you like your job as an EMT?”
Random EMT: “Well, it’s fun … but you’ll never get rich doing it, that’s for sure.”
I’ve heard the remark before and if you’ve been around for any length of time, I’m sure you have too. So I figured now, in this, one of the first posts of the year, I’d go ahead and reveal to you the secret to getting rich in EMS.
Yes, I’m here to tell you that the people who make these statements are absolutely wrong. Well, perhaps not wrong for themselves. Their statement is true … for them. As long as they wake up each day and come to work with the fundamental belief that they will never be rich working in EMS, they are correct. But the same doesn’t have to apply to you.
I know this because I’m rich. And I got rich working in EMS. I started working my first EMT job in 1989. Over the past two decades I’ve become rich in every way I ever wanted right here in EMS.
OK, so now you want to know what rich means right? Just what kind of rich are we talking about? Sure, let me tell you what rich means to me.
I have abundant friendship, love and family in my life. I am able to make meaningful connections with a staggering variety of people. In a given week I might have conversations with school friends who have known me for almost all of my life, my family and relatives both immediate and distant, business associates and fellow firefighters, the little old lady in the convalescent home up the street, the medical director for the state of New Hampshire and some dude who runs EMS systems in New Zealand.
Beyond my friendships, I have a large home and pleanty of time to spend in it. I am able to travel several times a year to wonderful places with my family and friends and I can set my own schedule on two-thirds of my days.
Yes, I even have money. Sure, I could always use some more, but I have plenty. Between my primary job, my EMT class, my speaking, my writing and my consulting, my income often scratches the six-figure mark. That’s more money than I ever imagined I’d make in a year when I started my first EMT job way back when.
Now would you like me to tell you how I got rich? I’d love to.
As I write this, I’m drinking a cup of home roasted coffee with a wonderful view of the rocky mountains out my back window. The sun is dawning on a new day and a new year. As the Rockies come aglow with the dawn, it occurs to me that the sun is also rising on a new decade. My third decade in EMS. I imagine that this will be the most spectacular one yet.
I never developed a specific plan to become rich doing EMS work. I can’t say exactly how I did it, but I know I’m rich. I feel it every day. And it fills me with a sense of appreciation and a desire to pass it on to other people.
If there was one thing that made a huge difference in my success, it is this. At some point I started showing up to work and asking myself this question, “How can I be more valuable?” That’s a critical question. You may be under the mistaken assumption that people pay you for your work. They don’t. People pay you for your value.
If your labor happens to be the only thing of value that you bring to the table, then that is all you’ll ever get paid for. You’ll wait for the next annual raise and maybe a promotion. You’ll always be paid is slow growing increments.
So on your next shift, while you’re driving around or sitting in quarters, start asking yourself, “How could I be ten times more valuable to my employer?” That’s right, we’re not just talking about being a little bit more valuable. We’re talking about being a LOT more valuable.
Try this one, “How could I be ten times more valuable to someone other than my employer?” This question will open your eyes to all the other opportunities out there in EMS. There are many.
I’ve asked this question again and again and it just keeps paying off. When my first consulting opportunity landed in my lap, I could have turned it down. (Many others already had.) But I showed up and asked myself, “How can I be really valuable to these people?”
When I became I writer I started reading the magazines and asking myself, “How could I be really valuable to this magazines readers?” And, of course, when I started my blog, I started with the question, “How can I be incredibly valuable to people in EMS?” This blog … every post … is my answer.
If you look around this blog you’ll find that I’m not to terribly concerned with making money here. I’m focused on creating value for my readers. And I have faith that the richness will follow. It already has. It always does.
Ten years from now we will arrive at the end of this decade. We have no choice. The future is coming. If you wish to find wealth in this decade begin by figuring out how you can enrich the world around you.
When you find the answer to how to be amazingly valuable to the world around you, you’ll know. What happens next is nothing less than magical.
Now it’s your turn: What do you think? How do you plan to be more valuable in the coming decade? Do you believe that you could be rich in EMS or are you convinced that it isn’t possible?
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I plan to become more valuable in the coming decade by educating myself on quality management and performance benchmarking in particular.
I do believe I could be rich in EMS. For example there are so many untapped opportunities especially in EMS research.
I agree with your philosophy. We are the masters of our own destiny, positive attracts positive, negative attracts negative…all you have to do is change your default mindset. A few years back, I found myself starting to get a bit whiney and grizzled. One day, I challenged myself to look at every job differently. I viewed every job from the perspective that every patient was trying to teach me a lesson…all I had to do was uncover what that lesson was. It opened my eyes and it had some great spin offs. Jobs became interesting again and I found that I smiled a lot and those smiles were returned to me….cause and effect. Richness is subjective. You spend what you earn. At the end of the day, when you are on your last ambulance trip to hospital, I doubt many of us would confide to the paramedic…”I wish I had earned more money”. Many of you will have heard confessions from dying patients. My experience is that many reflect on lost opportunities to connect and spend time with family. Food for thought.
@Graeme “I viewed every job from the perspective that every patient was trying to teach me a lesson.”
I agree that this can be a very powerful shift in perspective.
@Timothy EMS opportunities rain down from the sky … but few people see them and fewer act on them. good luck.