Meet One of Our Account Executives: Interview with Harmony Healthcare’s Aren Nilsson

 

What motivates you to get up and work smart each day?

Meaningful success involves a combination of hard and smart work. To me, working smart creates more time, my biggest limiting factor. Increasing efficiency creates more space in my workday that results in reduced stress levels and reduced potential for burnout.

My motivation to work smart is a supporting process to my primary goal: being a better employee (and person) than I was the day prior.

Imagine you have 24 hours of free time and not a worry in the world. Paint a picture of how you’d spend that time and why.

A whole 24 hours would be a special treat! I couldn’t imagine spending it with anyone other than my wonderful girlfriend Jamie. During the day, you would find us in the middle of Tampa Bay floating on our boat with Rambo, my 3-year old yellow lab. The night would start at Texas De Brazil and would conclude with a full 8 hours of sleep.

In my past life, we’d be tearing up the clubs in Ybor City or Soho. However, at the ripe old age of 27 I like to think those times are behind me.

Aren Nilsson

Tell us about one lesson you’ve learned in the past month.

We can all speak up for what we believe is right, but many times what we believe to be right is left unsaid. Voicing our truth needs to involve tact, especially when the subject matter is sensitive.

This month I’ve read and applied the book Crucial Conversations to approach a tough situation. Through careful consideration of the other side’s point of view and finding common purpose, the situation was addressed and resolved in a matter that left both sides satisfied. The lesson? Seek first to understand before seeking to be understood.

I love solving complex situations involving people. With the growing use of technology and AI, I’m confident that emotional intelligence is and will remain one of the most in-demand skills. These sorts of hands-on learning experiences are the best way to prepare for humanity’s collective future, and I always welcome the opportunity.

Tell us about one of your proudest moments.

Honestly, this is going to sound cheesy, but it’s true. One of my proudest moments was getting my job at Harmony Healthcare. Five years ago while employed in nightlife security, working for a company like Harmony was a dream in every sense of the word: a nice thought, but probably not possible.

Through refocusing my bodybuilding goals to building a career, my corresponding professional accomplishments allowed me the platform to have my talent sought out. On March 12th of 2018, I received a LinkedIn message from Harmony’s Corporate Recruiter. At the time I was an Executive Recruiter, and I applied all the tricks of the trade to ensure I got the job.

For the next 3 weeks, I spent my free time after work studying up on Harmony, including its background, its leadership’s background, and its near-term and long-term goals. My research further confirmed my hunch: this is exactly the type of company I always wanted to be a part of. I came into my interviews overly prepared, but never have I wanted something more.

Two years later, I’ve realized that preparation has paved the way to true passion. As an Account Executive, my role is to provide actionable solutions to our hospitals’ most complex issues involving their revenue cycle. The right solution can be the difference between a hospital remaining open or shutting its doors to their community. Our solutions involve real people – expert consultants – who in turn can provide for their own families through the projects we connect them with.

As my passion is helping others, I can’t think of something I’m prouder of than this opportunity right here.

What’s on your wish list for the next 5 years?

I’ve known Jamie for 5 years, and we just celebrated our anniversary on January 25th (Gasparilla for the Tampa natives out there). She finished her first year of chiropractic school with 3 more to go. With that said, I promised myself I would wait for her to finish school before I plan on proposing. My wish is to take her hand in marriage shortly after she graduates and then have our first child.

For full disclosure, I’m shooting for a total of 12 children, but would settle for a happy medium of 4.

Aren Nilsson

What is a favorite memory from your childhood or adolescence?

Up until I was 7 years old, my family lived in a woodsy neighborhood in Palm Harbor, FL. Stories of Huckleberry Finn and Dennis the Menace influenced me greatly. Catching lizards, climbing trees, and fishing were my favorite activities, and I spent as much time outdoors as possible.

Looking back, fishing was particularly fun, as I never went home empty handed. With the intentions of making our time on the lake as exciting as possible, my dad invented a whole new type of fish species: green fish, as he called them. It was my favorite type, as I always managed to catch several during our day.

Years later I realized that these “fish” were actually giant clumps of algae spread throughout the lake. The “lake” was truthfully more of a pond, and I’m not sure any actual fish lived there.

Still, my dad was able to make the experience incredibly rewarding. To this day, it’s my favorite memory of childhood.

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