Ouch

My knee started hurting again this week. That’s when I became more sympathetic to some PR pros I’ve been frustrated with.

Here’s how those two things go together:

Back in November, I had to ice my right knee every night for an hour because it hurt so much. I’m kind of an expert on knees because I’ve had five operations on the left one. I finally found this great knee surgeon who is the doctor for the U.S. ski team – I knew he could fix my right one, too.

I blocked off my next three-week gap between speaking engagements, which was in February. And I called the surgeon’s office to schedule the surgery. They were like, “Uh, you actually have to come in and get seen before we’ll put you on the surgery schedule.”

At the appointment he breezes into the room, I start telling him how I need surgery on the right knee like he did on the left one. He has me lie down, then he’s nodding as he bends and pokes my knee, half- listening, and then he goes, “Does it hurt if I press right here?”

And I jerk bolt upright yelling “Ouch!”

I look at him like, “See, I told you it’s jacked up” and he brushes off his hands and announces:

“You don’t need surgery.”

What?! He goes on to explain how this one muscle is enflamed and I need this one shot and then I need to do these particular stretches twice a day.

I was pretty shocked – he just turned down about $5K from a patient who was practically demanding surgery. It seemed too simple that these basic stretches could make a difference.

But wouldn’t you know, after doing the stretches for a few weeks, my knee felt great. I was back to hiking a lot and doing active stuff with my kids again.

I felt so back to normal, guess who has been forgetting to do his stretches? I mean, it takes a full eight minutes. And it seems so simple, how could it make that much of a difference? But it obviously does.

My laziness here is why I’m now a bit more understanding to the PR pros who tell me they know what they should be doing, they just don’t get around to it. Specifically, they know they should be regularly consuming the content produced by their key target journalists, and engaging those journalists about it. But stuff gets in the way . . .

These same pros often look to me for a quick fix that will change their pitching dynamic forever – almost like a surgery. But the enduring answers come with simple actions, performed consistently.

Have you engaged with your key targets about their content yet today? Or are you going to wait until the pain of not getting the placements you deserve gets unbearable?

I did my stretches this morning 🙂