by Eric Ulchakere | May 20, 2020 | Mental Health, Uncategorized
Each year millions of Americans face the reality of living with a mental illness. During May, we join the national movement to raise awareness about mental health. Each year the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) fights stigma, provides support, educates the public and advocates for policies that support people with mental illness and their families.
You Are Not Alone
NAMI’s “You are Not Alone” campaign features the lived experience of people affected by mental illness to fight stigma, inspire others and educate the broader public. Now more than ever before, it is important for the mental health community to come together and show the world that no one should ever feel alone. The campaign builds connection and increases awareness with the digital tools that make connection possible during a climate of physical distancing. Even in times of uncertainty, the NAMI community is always here, reminding everyone that you are not alone.
Throughout the month, they will feature personal stories from real people experiencing mental health conditions. You can submit your story at nami.org/yourstory. By reading about lived experience, they aim to make people feel less alone in their mental health journeys.
Resources
Share how you stay connected by writing your personal story or sharing #NotAlone graphics and messages with your community.
by Eric Ulchakere | May 20, 2020 | Making a Difference
At Apportis we are a telemedicine company based out of Dublin, Ohio and are proud to provide a custom telemedicine solution for state departments, associations, companies, clinics, hospitals, schools, colleges and more. www.apportis.com
I am proud to be on a traveling team that will visit all 88 Ohio Counties and have the honor of meeting in person with local heroes and leaders worth following all over our Buckeye state! Soon we will be heading up to:
Williams County, Ohio.
Apportis is a company on the front lines in the battle versus opioid addiction epidemic, mental health & suicide prevention for students, veterans, employees and those caught up in the cruel sex trafficking world, just to name a few areas, with our telemedicine solution. There are so many fellow Ohioans out there in our communities right now, that need HELP and we can connect them NOW.
Here are some resources for county residents in need of immediate help:
To honor stay at home rules, just like many of you, connections are made via phone calls, video conference calls, emails, social media and more. Technology is a wonderful thing. But putting forth the effort to travel and meet face to face will always be my favorite! At the proper time those opportunities for all of us will happen. Ohioans are strong and we will overcome!
I can’t wait to get up to northwest Ohio and to Williams County!
One of the organizations that we hear is making a difference is the powerful team over at:
Over time, there will be connections made and we will be good listeners to the needs of many great organizations in northwest Ohio as it relates to custom telemedicine options.
Who are a few companies and individuals making a big difference in Williams County, Ohio that you feel we should learn more about and why?
Please contact us via email: brett.bohl@apportis.com
#Ohio88 #GetHelpNow #Telemedicine
by Eric Ulchakere | May 20, 2020 | Uncategorized
Twice a year communities team up with law enforcement to host ‘National Take Back Day,’ a campaign to anonymously and safely dispose of prescription medications. Because of the current nationwide coronavirus pandemic, the DEA postponed the 2020 Spring Take Back Day, originally scheduled for April 25, 2020. However, that did not stop Apportis from participating in the event, while socially distancing of course!
Rather than the typical fashion of dropping off prescription drugs at a temporary collection site, we chose to demonstrate how to use a DeTerra Drug Deactivation System. One of the Apportis Team members (Ohio Brett) recently sold his house, but when he first began the process his realtor provided him with a deactivation kit for his first Open House. She explained that these events could often result in medicine cabinets being raided for access to prescription drugs, including opioids. Fortunately, her company had partnered with the Ohio Opioid Education Alliance, better known by their “Denial, OH” awareness campaign. This group provided the DeTerra Drug Deactivation System and a fact sheet about common ways prescription medications are abused.
So in honor of National Take Back Day, our company collected unused and expired prescriptions and performed a demo of how to use the deactivation kit. The process was simple, and took no longer than 1 minute start to finish. Just open the bag, empty all pill bottle contents, add water, shake and dispose. It felt great to know that you’re preventing these drugs from getting into the wrong hands, while participating in National Take Back Day remotely!
To see the full video demo click on the following links:
Twitter – https://twitter.com/apportis/status/1254134900401344512
Facebook – https://www.facebook.com/apportis/videos/918571695249400/
To get a free DeTerra Drug Deactivation Pouch visit: Free at home Pouch Must act before May 10th!
by Eric Ulchakere | May 20, 2020 | Uncategorized
I was sorting through my closet, since we have sooo much free time on our hands now…and I found a box of my fancy perfume lotions, just the travel sizes that come with perfume but still the good stuff that you save for a special day. I don’t even remember when I purchased my last bottle of perfume which means these are pretty old. I never anticipated it would take a quarantine for me to find those special little lotions. Even though I’ve had plenty of good moments since I purchased those perfumes, with the pace of life, I simply forgot to enjoy.
If scented lotions aren’t you’re thing then most of us can relate to having those “good bottles of wine to save for a special occasion” laying around. So, the question is what constitutes as a special occasion? Do you remember the first time you received a genuine accolade that changed you forever or the first time you found a significant other? I still do, and the memory is so clear even though the rest of life looks like a fast blur. I’m sure going to bed the night before, you didn’t anticipate that the next day you were going to meet a special person or become someone’s special person or hear something that was specifically meant for you, that was going to change your life forever. Even if you did go to bed and think that tomorrow was going to be a great day, you really couldn’t have imagined just how special & memorable it was going to be. There is good stuff – even great stuff in each day. I’m not saying break out that Dom Perignon but if you do, more power to you and relish in that enjoyment. You deserve it.
Society is going through a dark time right now; job losses, financial worry, mental/depressive battles and health issues to just list the very tip of the iceberg. The day before COVID was even a word in our vocabulary, let alone a prison of quarantine, we were carrying on – as we should – with our day to day. Now we are in quarantine with lots of time to think, and I’m sure most of you need to do some sorting as well (someone needed to hear that), so decide that today and tomorrow and every day after that is going to be that one day that stood out for that special reason that day was meant to happen. Stay focused, stay strong, keep your head up, it will all work out, you are not alone, call someone, ask for help, and allow tomorrow to happen so we can continue to allow life to give us those magical moments.
Tomorrow is always a good idea but for now, this today was yesterday’s tomorrow that you were so excited for…how are you going to remember it? Embrace your moments and thank life for allowing you to experience the special ones. I know it’s a cliché thing to say but it is true, you don’t know when your allotted time of moments on this earth is done so go on and use a few pumps and not just a dab of that good lotion – and enjoy!
by Eric Ulchakere | May 20, 2020 | Values
Slea’ = Celtic for Spearhead (Javelin)
Slea’ is our family: aligned.
The people that work at Apportis, our partners – HighBridge Consulting, Capital Success, Expeed Software, Futurety, Wellness Wishes, Time 2 Change Counseling, Wellness Collective, The Floriss Group, Focus on Funding, Rev1 Ventures, a few others that I cannot mention but you know we value you, and certainly our clients. This is who we are.
I have taken the term Slea’ and put it in our unique context, our tribe and what management practices are needed to create and reinforce our tribe.
The idea of strategic alignment is and always will be a much bandied about business term. There are oodles of books on Amazon you can order to help build strategic alignment at organizations. All are worthwhile, but our approach is a bit more primordial. Ours stems from the Maori term “whãnau.”
For Maori’s, Whãnau is your extended family. Your tribe.
In Maori mythology it is symbolized by the spearhead, an image derived in turn from the flight formation of birds. A spearhead has three tips but for it to work properly, all the force must move in one direction.
For a flight of birds to operate at its most optimal efficiency it needs to become a beautiful machine; one bird leads, another follows, one tires, another takes the lead, in an endless synchronized support system. This is the core of our strategic alignment efforts. All of us in alignment and optimizing each component to deliver on our purpose and strategy.
Why does Apportis call it Slea’ and mix Maori mythology with Celtic words?
To be honest, I had the privilege to work for an Irish owned company for nearly 5 years and I admired their quiet resolve. There were certainly command and control components of leadership in place, but it was never demonstrative or ego driven. They would relish efficiency, and their approach was exploratory and inquisitive, all ideas from anyone within the organization were examined. You felt connected to the whole. So I did a little mixing of Maroi mythology and added a dash of a little Irish magic!
Also, Apportis is headquartered in Dublin, Ohio. It is crazy about the Irish Culture. Honestly, come visit for the Dublin Irish Festival held every August! But I digress… : )
Here is a simple way to test if your organization has a strategic alignment and is positioned for success.
Ask yourself these two questions:
- How well does your business strategy support the fulfillment of your company’s purpose?
- How well does your organization support the achievement of your business strategy?
As a start-up emerging into the market this year, we have had to rely on the second question to support our mission. The uniqueness of start-ups, the pivots, the testing of opportunities, and the multitude of near misses mixed in with the wins begets a strongly aligned team. Apportis would not be here today without the input and support of everyone working here and with us. Our tribe.
If you want to learn more about these two questions there is a nice article in Harvard Business Review (2016) that is worth the read:
https://hbr.org/2016/05/a-simple-way-to-test-your-companys-strategic-alignment
We now have a strong vision of what Apportis is to become, but how do we get there from here?
Simple.
Apply our cultural lenses to our everyday actions, 24/7. Rinse and repeat.
To quote Owen Eastwood, a performance coach who worked behind the scenes with the New Zealand All Blacks Rugby Team (there are a lot of rugby players at Apportis):
The steps in developing a high-performance culture that reinforces our tribe are:
- Select on Character
- Understand your strategy for change
- Co-write a purpose
- Devolve leadership
- Encourage a learning environment
Eastwood goes on to state the that sixth and most important step is to begin to turn standards into actions. How do we get the six core values of Apportis to leap from the page and into practice?
Peer to peer reinforcement is key.
I, as the founder of the company, can say “this is what we do, no questions asked,” but our strategy and purpose cannot permeate our actions until those that work for Apportis can honestly have conversations about these values to each other and to me. We must hold each other up to these lenses and relish that the consistency in what we do will help develop our strategic advantages.
I could write for ages on each reinforcing action we do at Apportis… maybe that requires another series of posts.
Are we there yet? No. Do we have all the answers? Again, no.
But I can state that our tribe is aligned, and together we are unstoppable, Slea’.
Buckle up and let’s enjoy the unfolding of our journey.
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