“Eliminating problems is not the answer to mental health and wellness challenges.” If you spend 100% of your time weeding a garden, and 0% of your time planting it, ultimately you will have a frustrating and barren garden. This is the basic premise that Josh Vaisman brings to the podcast as he and Dr. Andy Roark discuss how we cannot remove challenges until we are happy, and what other approaches we should consider.
LINKS
Zack Mercurio Homepage: www.zachmercurio.com/
Strategic Planning Workshop Series: unchartedvet.com/upcoming-events/
Uncharted Veterinary Conference April 21-23, 2022: unchartedvet.com/uncharted-april-2022/
Uncharted Podcast on iTunes: podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-…st/id1449897688
Charming the Angry Client On-Demand Staff Training: drandyroark.com/on-demand-staff-training/
What’s on my Scrubs?! Card Game: drandyroark.com/training-tools/
Dr. Andy Roark Swag: drandyroark.com/shop
All Links: linktr.ee/DrAndyRoark
ABOUT OUR GUEST
Josh believes all veterinary professionals deserve to feel fulfilled by their work, each and every day. Through his company, Flourish Veterinary Consulting, he combines more than 20 years of veterinary experience, a master’s in applied Positive Psychology & Coaching Psychology, and education in Positive Leadership and Positive Organizational Scholarship and a passion for guiding leaders to cultivate work environments in which people can thrive.
Fun fact – Josh is also an avid beekeeper who teaches beginning beekeepers how to tend to their buzzing buddies.
EPISODE TRANSCRIPT
This podcast transcript is made possible thanks to a generous gift from Banfield Pet Hospital, which is striving to increase accessibility and inclusivity across the veterinary profession. Click here to learn more about Equity, Inclusion & Diversity at Banfield.
Dr. Andy Roark:
Welcome, everybody, to the Cone of Shame Veterinary Podcast. I am your host, Dr. Andy Roark. Guys, today Josh Vaisman from Flourish Veterinary Consulting is back on the podcast, and we are going to unpack his idea, his theory, his position, that eliminating problems is not the answer to mental health and wellness in vet medicine. I think it’s a fascinating position. I think he makes a lot of really good points. Maybe there’s more to this than just fixing broke stuff. I don’t know. Let’s get into it.
Kelsey Beth Carpenter:
(singing) This is your show, we’re glad you’re here, we want to help you in your veterinary career, welcome to the Cone of Shame with Dr. Andy Roark.
Dr. Andy Roark:
Welcome. Welcome to the podcast, Josh Vaisman. How are you?
Josh Vaisman:
I’m doing well, Andy. Thanks for having me back. I appreciate you.
Dr. Andy Roark:
Oh my pleasure. I always enjoy when we get to talk, and I wanted to pick up what you and I were talking about last time you were on the episode. We had a really good conversation, and we got to the end, and you said, “Eliminating challenges in the vet clinic is not the answer for making our profession healthier.” And I thought that that was really interesting. And I wanted to come back today and unpack that a little bit.
Dr. Andy Roark:
We talk a lot about having healthy practices. We talk about mental health and wellness. We talk about having a positive workplace culture. And the idea that eliminating problems is not the approach that’s going to get us to a positive workplace culture, to me is, is counterintuitive. And I think it’s counterintuitive for a lot of people, right?
Josh Vaisman:
Yes.
Dr. Andy Roark:
Because we’re problem-solving people. That’s what I do for a living is I’m, “What’s the problem? Let’s run some diagnostics and better understand the problem. And now let’s remove this problem.”
Josh Vaisman:
Correct.
Dr. Andy Roark:
Walk me through why you say that.
Josh Vaisman:
Yeah. There’s so many different ways that I feel like I can approach this, and I use a whole wide variety of analogies. I’m going to pull from one that I’ve been using a lot lately, when I talk to veterinary leaders about positive leadership, the science of positive leadership, which is really a big passion for me. I start off these presentations, often, by recognizing the challenges of our work. Our work is hard, and what we do, it’s really difficult. It takes a lot out of us, physically. It’s emotionally and psychologically expensive. There’s a great deal of uncertainty in our work each and every day. And there’s challenges; challenges that contribute to risks of things like burnout and compassion fatigue and depression. And all those kinds of things. Those are real. And those realities, they’ve always existed. They still exist today. They will exist in five and 10 and 20 years.
Josh Vaisman:
And then I paint a picture. I say, “Imagine that, tonight a miracle happens. Literally, you go to bed, and overnight, a miracle occurs. And tomorrow you wake up to discover that all veterinary debt has disappeared. It’s all gone. All of your student debt; even your mortgage payment; it’s all gone. No more debt. And then, you go to work to discover that your boss has tripled your salary. Boom, just like that; snap of a finger. As a practicing veterinarian or a practicing veterinary technician, you’re now making more than most of your human medical cohorts.”
Dr. Andy Roark:
Mm-hmm (affirmative)?
Josh Vaisman:
Oh. “And you don’t have to work a minute over 35 hours a week to make that pay. That’s it. You get to 35 hours, period; you go home, if you even have to work that many hours. And there’s no more double books. One appointment at a time. One after another. No more emergencies. No more squeeze-ins. No more day admits. Easy peasy throughout the day. And by the way, every single one of your clients has also gotten a triple increase in their salary. So, they are now ready to say yes to every one of your recommendations.” What a glorious scenario, right?
Dr. Andy Roark:
Yeah. Have a good day.
Josh Vaisman:
Eliminating almost all of the problems that we identify in veterinary medicine, in one fell swoop, with this great miracle. And I tell this story, and I look out at the audience. And I see the reactions in their face and the nods and the smiles and the thumbs up. And everybody’s happy because this would be great. And I completely agree, it would be absolutely wonderful. And then, the next thing I say is, “Raise your hand if you agree with this statement: if this miracle scenario happened overnight, everybody in veterinary medicine would be happy, joyful, and fulfilled.” And no one raises their hand. Why is that? Because the elimination of those problems, while wonderful, while helpful, while beneficial, isn’t cultivating what we’re trying to grow.
Josh Vaisman:
There’s a difference between eliminating something that’s a problem and growing what you intend to have or hope to have.
Dr. Andy Roark:
Yeah. Yeah. No, I agree with that. I lean a lot into evolutionary biology in these things. I definitely look at happiness through a science lens. The truth that I have settled on is, I believe we are ruled by natural selection. I believe that that has made us, as human beings. And contented species are dead species; they die. They stop exploring. They stop pushing themselves. They stop innovating. They stop doing things to colonize new areas. They are content, and they are dead. And that is why I believe that we, the way we are made, we are not made to be content. I think we are made to be slightly unhappy all the time. I do!
Dr. Andy Roark:
And people hear me talk. This is why I gravitate to a lot of the Buddhism teachings. Because one of the key tenants there, that people hear me talk about, is “life is suffering.” And they go, “Oh, that’s really morbid.” And I’m, “I don’t think it is. I think you should accept it, and you should decide how you’re going to suffer because that is empowerment.”
Dr. Andy Roark:
Kind of a twisted worldview, but that is a core tenant in my life that I’ve come to, over the years. And so, yeah, it’s a hundred percent true. When I come in, and the magic has happened, and my salary has gone up, and all these things are great, I think I would be happy. And other people would too, for a couple weeks. A couple of weeks. It’s called the hedonic treadmill. You can’t just be happy. Whatever you’re doing becomes the new norm, and then it becomes boring, or it becomes unfulfilling, or there’s a new stress or struggle.
Dr. Andy Roark:
At some point, you would get frustrated, and you’d be “My job is not as challenging as it used to be.” [crosstalk 00:06:57]Find something to be unhappy about.
Josh Vaisman:
Yeah, absolutely. Actually, you’re bringing up a really wonderful point, Andy, when you talk about this hedonic treadmill. That’s built on our incredible capacity, as living creatures, to adapt to our situation. “Hedonic adaptation” is what psychologists refer to that. But I like to use the example of olfactory adaptation. When you walk into the treatment room, instantly, as soon as you walk back there, you know somebody’s expressed anal glands recently here. You know. But then you spend a few minutes in treatment, and all of a sudden, you don’t notice the anal glands anymore. And it’s not because those molecules have disappeared from the air; they’re still there. It’s just that you’re body’s adapted to it. We’re built the same way, psychologically. We have to be able to adapt.
Josh Vaisman:
It would not be beneficial to us to be bouncing creatures back and forth. In fact, that’s what we call “mental illness, bipolar disorder,” when we go from extremely ecstatic to thoroughly depressed in one fell swoop, moment after moment. That’s not helpful; it’s not beneficial. So, you’re absolutely right. In these scenarios, if all of these problems were eliminated, what we would end up doing is finding new problems because that’s how we’re built. So, what I’m interested in is, how do we, then, cultivate environments that are not so deficit-focused? That are actually cultivation and growth- focused? How do we create environments that allow people to experience, as you refer to, “the good challenges and the good stresses” so that the suffering that we have to go through in life is fulfilling and meaningful to us, and we get something valuable out of it?
Dr. Andy Roark:
Yeah. Yeah. It’s sort of like when you say how, “How do you suffer? How do you struggle?” Yeah. How do we set ourselves up, so that the challenges are things that, when they’re over, you go, “Oh, that was really good. I’m glad I did that”? Think of it like a feeling of reward that you would get after going on a long hike or running a marathon or whatever insanity struggle you choose and prefer, but where you’re, “Yes, that was a challenge. And yes, that was hard. I’m glad I did it.” That’s the apex, isn’t it?
Josh Vaisman:
Yes.
Dr. Andy Roark:
That’s got to be the aspirational goal.
Josh Vaisman:
A hundred percent, a hundred percent. I’ve been thinking about this a lot, over the last few years, in particular, because I was very much the deficit- focused leader. I came into work, looking for problems to solve. And listen, that’s part of leadership, and that’s part of life, and that’s part of the work that we do. We are problem-solvers, and we have to continue to solve those problems. My concern is that, if all we’re focused on is identifying and solving problems, we’re not growing anything. It’s sort of like having a garden, where all you ever do is pull the weeds. What about planting a seed? What about fertilizing the earth? What about watering that seed and applying sunlight to it and nurturing it so that it grows? I feel like we don’t do enough of that. And I think that drives some of our focus. When we talk about things like burnout, compassion fatigue, we’re looking at deficit and elimination. And that’s important, but then, what happens if we do eliminate those things? Then what? We’ve got to do something else to grow something.
Dr. Andy Roark:
Well, I really like that analogy a lot. Because the question I was going to put to you, in a second is, ignoring our problems and being, “Oh, we’re not going to problem-solve our way to happiness,” that’s not realistic either, right?
Josh Vaisman:
Yeah.
Dr. Andy Roark:
I guess what I was wrestling with is, what I’ve found a lot, in practice and in life, a lot of times, there’s not a grand plan that any of us have. It’s sort of like the old saying: “If you want to make God laugh tell Him your plans.” I’ve found that to be true, again and again. Very recently. And the last couple of years really hammered the point home.
Josh Vaisman:
Yeah. Right?
Dr. Andy Roark:
Yeah. But at the same time, what does tend to help, is getting a little bit better at every day. Focusing on those steady improvements and not making the same mistakes twice. And not repeating my errors. All those sorts of things. Just saying, “Hey, how do I make my day at the clinic just a little bit better tomorrow than it was today?” And repeat and repeat and repeat and repeat for 5, 7, 10 years. And boy, you’ve got a great place to work.
Josh Vaisman:
I love that.
Dr. Andy Roark:
And so, that’s true. I think your analogy of the gardening, I think that that’s a great one. I’m not saying you don’t weed; obviously, you don’t let your garden become overgrown. At the same time, if all you do is weed, you’re not really going… you’re maintaining stasis, I guess. And stasis isn’t always bad, but it’s definitely not growing and developing and taking you to a place where you’re going to say, “I’ve been at this for 15 years. And now, I look around, and this is a beautiful garden to be in.” No, it’s going to look about the same as it did before, because you’ve been sort of playing whackamole with weeds.
Josh Vaisman:
Yeah. I a hundred percent agree. I love that you brought that up because to me, what I hear in what you’re saying here, is this idea of both/and. I think that we have a tendency, and of course we do; it’s part of how our psychology evolved. As human beings, we have a tendency to think in either/ors, black and whites. Things are good, or they’re bad. There are problems, or there are not. And I think that we can embrace more of a both/and approach and find that it will be healthier and more enlivening for us. So yeah, listen, if you’re going to be a gardener, every gardener knows, if all you do is pull weeds, at the best, you’re going to maintain stasis. At worst, you’re going to frustrate the hell out of yourself because there’s always another weed to pull.
Josh Vaisman:
I don’t know if you guys down in the Carolinas have these things, but in Colorado, we’ve got a thing called bind weed. And bind weed, the core of that plant is more than six feet underground. There’s no way I’m ever going to get rid of my bind weed, right?
Dr. Andy Roark:
Yeah.
Josh Vaisman:
So, if I go out in my garden, and that’s all I ever try and do, my gosh, Andy, all I’m ever going to be doing is pulling weeds and never succeed in anything. And never accomplish anything. On the flip side, if I don’t do any management to my garden, from a weed perspective, then it becomes really difficult for the things that I’m trying to grow, to actually flourish. So, you’ve got to be able to do both. And that’s what I’d really like to see our profession do. I feel like we’ve put an inordinate amount of energy, resources, investment, and time in eliminating problems. And I’ll tell you, unequivocally: eliminating those problems is not going to get us what we want. My wife currently works in a job where she is not burnt out. Not at all. She’s not at risk for it. It’s not going to happen to her. And let me tell you, she’s a hundred percent miserable in her job, because even if you eliminate burnout, it doesn’t mean you’re going to create satisfied, fulfilled people.
Dr. Andy Roark:
Yeah. Okay, so this is hitting a couple different buttons for me, I want to unpack. First one: I want to add a little nuance to the weeding conversation because I’ll tell you something that I have… I like the analogy a lot. One of the things that I am saying to a lot of people these days, and so this is a good metaphor for it: We have weeds in our practice. And we want to plant, and we want to grow. And then also, we have to deal with weeds. I got really into gardening during the pandemic. And so that’s been something, especially, if you remember early on in lockdowns, I found a lot of peace in my yard, planting and doing.
Josh Vaisman:
Yep.
Dr. Andy Roark:
And so, I got through the first year. And I got into the summertime, and here in South Carolina, it’s hot. And it’s humid. It’s too hot to plant anything because it’s going to die before… I’ll water it frantically, and it still dies. And so, I actually looked up “summer gardening” in my area. And I found this great article. And what it said, across the top, the first line was: “If you’re doing summer gardening in the Carolinas, decide to enjoy weeding” because that’s what you’re going to do.
Dr. Andy Roark:
And it was funny, but it was a great thing for me because I thought I was failing because I was not doing anything, but all the weeds are everywhere and I’m, “Everything I plant dies, and what the heck is going on?” And so, I throw that down and just say, I’m talking to a lot of people in practice right now who are, “I’m barely keeping my head above water. The team is burned out. And all I’m doing is fixing problems.”
Dr. Andy Roark:
And what I would say to people, too, in this analogy is, “It has been meaningful in my life to realize that there are some phases you’re going to go through, where all you’re going to do is pull weeds. And there’s going to be other phases where this is the perfect time to plant and grow. And you’ve got fertile soil, and you’ve got opportunity.” And I think that a lot of people look and say, “I should be balancing these things at all times. At all times, I should be doing new things and cultivating things and also solving X amount of problems. And there’s a ratio.” And I have just found that that’s not true. And so, I just want to say that, as we unpack this to people.
Dr. Andy Roark:
There are people out there who go, “I do not have time to start new things, to develop new things. I’m keeping my head above water.” And I go, “You know what? Sometimes, it’s summertime gardening, and we just weed. And know that that season will pass. And we will get to a place where we can do other things to grow and develop.” So, yeah. That makes a lot of sense to me. The other thing that you said, that I think is really interesting here; so, walk with me, and tell me if you see this: I see an emphasis in some of that practices on resting that seems over- emphasized.
Dr. Andy Roark:
So, I’m going to get in a lot of trouble here if I don’t explain myself. I’m not saying that we shouldn’t rest; we should. And we should have boundaries, and we should take care of our staff. You know what I mean? And we should all be able to go home and unplug. And I talk a lot about “the key to resilience is how you rest, as much or more than as how you work.” And so, resting is vitally important. I’m not saying that. But I do see some environments, some teams, that seem to have grabbed onto this idea that if we could rest. We can take breaks to happiness. We can take breaks until we have mental health and wellness. If we rest enough, if we enforce lunch breaks hard enough, then people will be happy at work, or we will have mental health and wellness.
Dr. Andy Roark:
And I’ve never been able to buy into that. And again, I’m not saying that resting is not important; it is important. I just don’t believe that a team can rest their way to happiness. There’s got to be more of it than that. But I do feel like there’s a misperception, among some teams, where they’ve grabbed onto this. I think it’s because people are busy, and they’re, “If I wasn’t busy, then I would be happy.” And I always felt like, if you weren’t busy, I don’t think that would be the panacea that you think it is. Do you see that mentality?
Josh Vaisman:
I do. I think you bring up a really great point, Andy. I think that rest, it’s a core, essential part of life. And so, to believe that we can rest ourselves to happiness is, in many ways, no different from believing that we can breathe ourselves to happiness. We have to have oxygen to survive. We need to have rest to survive. And if the goal is survival, then absolutely, rest should be the top priority. But if the goal is to get beyond survival into a state of thriving, where we actually extrapolate something of value and meaning from the work that we do, from our relationships, from our life, to feel what we might call “happiness.” That’s something that you add on. That’s something that you grow.
Josh Vaisman:
There’s an example I’ll use, to describe what I think you’re getting at here. Andy, you’re a practicing doctor. You have definitely had days like this, where you’ve gone into the practice, and your alarm went off late, or it was chaos with the kids at home, or there was horrible traffic, or there was an accident. You get to work 10 minutes late to discover that actually, it wasn’t that big a deal because your first appointment is going to be a half hour late anyway. Oh, and by the way, two of your credential technicians have called in sick that day. And three of your very best clients have called in with emergencies. You hit the ground running, and it is chaos.
Josh Vaisman:
You finally get to the end of the day, at six o’clock, and you realize, I haven’t taken a break. Oh, I haven’t actually peed yet today, right? So, you go to the bathroom, you go back to your office, you collapse into your chair, utterly depleted; physically exhausted, emotionally drained. You can’t even imagine doing anything else. And now you’ve got two or three hours of medical records to catch up on. And then, you look at your desk to realize… I know, right? I can see your face.
Dr. Andy Roark:
Yeah, yeah [crosstalk 00:19:51].
Josh Vaisman:
… you’re making this, oh gosh.
Dr. Andy Roark:
Yeah, I’m actively trying to relax my face.
Josh Vaisman:
Right? Yeah. So, you’re in that state, where you’re feeling what your face was belying right there. You’re in that state, and you glance over at your desk before you start your medical records. And you notice that the mail’s been delivered. It’s been sitting there for hours, but at the top of it is what looks like a card, a personal card, like what might be a birthday card or something. You grab that envelope, and you open it up. And sure enough, it is; it’s a card. It’s a handwritten card from one of your favorite clients, this woman who, she knows you so well, that she’s gone to the store and picked out a card that’s absolutely perfect for you. It’s the perfect fit.
Josh Vaisman:
In fact, you look at it, and you kind of smile because you know, she really gets me. You open it up to find a handwritten thank you note. See, last week, you did something that, to you, at the time, felt innocuous and maybe a little bit extra. On your way home, you dropped off some meds at her house. You drive by her house every day, anyway; what’s the big deal? You dropped it off. But gosh, it was so meaningful to her; she went to the store, picked out this custom card for you and hand wrote a thank you note. How do you feel in that moment?
Dr. Andy Roark:
Yeah. You feel like the work you’re putting in is, at least, worth it, to some degree.
Josh Vaisman:
Yeah. And to be able to do the next activity you’re going to do: filling out those medical records; you’re probably going to sit up a little bit taller. You’re going to be a little more awake. You’re going to be a little bit more engaged and energized. These are the things that we can add to induce happiness. Now, if you came to the end of that day and all you did was quote, rest, you might have the energy to endure a day like that again tomorrow. You might be able to survive that day one more time. But you’re not going to get joy out of that day without adding something. And that’s what those kinds of things are. And I think leaders have an incredible gift, a wonderful opportunity to enable more of those kinds of experiences that energize people and give them joy in their work.
Dr. Andy Roark:
Hey guys, I just want to jump in real fast with a couple of updates over on the Uncharted side of the house. Guys, I’ve got my strategic planning workshops coming up with the one and only practice management goddess, Stephanie Goss. We have four independent, standalone strategic planning workshops. I’m going to put a link, so you can check them all out. They start at the end of January. You can go to one of them. You can go to all of them. They are free to Uncharted members. They are $99 to the public for a session, or $299 for all four. We’re going to go through evaluating your employees, setting your vision. We’ll be looking at dashboards and metrics. We’ll be looking at priority and goal- setting and action steps and accountability. All those things are covered. Take a look. If you’re, “Man, we got to get our heads straight. We got to get a plan. We got to get this business going in the right direction,” I’d love to work with you on that. So check them out. They are virtual. Jump right in and participate. Take part in the workshop.
Dr. Andy Roark:
On April 21st, we are kicking off the Uncharted Veterinary Conference. It runs from the 21st to the 23rd. It is in person. It is in my hometown, Greenville, South Carolina. Is about running smoother, simpler, more enjoyable businesses. That’s what we’re doing. We are getting into communication that gets things done. We are getting into using technology to simplify and streamline, not to add more stuff for us to do in our businesses. Everybody is busy. Now is the time to start to work together to make your business run smoothly, so you’re not just running from one fire to another fire to another fire. And if you’re feeling like you’re just putting out fires all the time, and you’re tired, God, you need to come to this event.
Dr. Andy Roark:
It is open to Uncharted members, so you’ll need to grab a membership, and then come on. I’ll put links to that in the show note, as well. I would love to see you there in April. It is going to be a limited attendance event. We’re going to keep the numbers down, for COVID precautions, and just to make sure we have a wonderful experience and safe experience, for the people who are there. Guys, I would love to see you there. Let’s get back into this episode.
Dr. Andy Roark:
The transition I’m going to make is into practicality. So I think that you and I are on the same page, as far as, we’re not going to remove problems to get to happiness. And we have to manage problems, but we also have to add in something else that’s going to give us that purpose, to give us that encouragement; things like that. Som I’m sure there’s a lot of doctors and technicians that are listening, going “Great. Sounds real good. How does that help me tomorrow?” And so, that’s where I want to go now, is, “Okay, cool. I’m a hundred percent on board with where we are. I believe, philosophically, that we are right in line. What does that look like, as far as implementation in a vet practice that’s swamped right now? Or that just doesn’t have that? Or has been really working hard to try to make sure that people get breaks, and that is the extent of their wellness program. Where do you even start with that?
Josh Vaisman:
Yeah, that’s a really great question. How many hours do we have? No, listen, I want to stress, I’m not telling people to give up on their current wellness approaches of trying to stress breaks and make sure people have rest, and they get out of work on time, and we have the support that we need and that the resources are available. Those things are important. Keep doing that stuff. You got to do that stuff. That makes a difference, and it helps. It enables higher level capacity, to get to the kind of things that you and I are talking about.
Josh Vaisman:
And then, the truth is that, a lot of this stuff that I’m talking about, I’ve got a whole myriad list of tools. Literally yesterday, I finished the first draft of a book on the science of positive leadership in veterinary medicine that I’m writing for AHA Press. So hopefully, sometime next year, that book is going to be published, and it’ll have a whole bunch of tools and practices around this framework that I’ve developed, that can help enable this kind of thing in leaders. But the book’s not out yet, and we don’t have time to talk about 300 pages of material. Some of the simplest things that we can do is really just notice and affirm. And I want to give credit where credit is due. I’m taking that exact verbiage from a friend and colleague of mine, Dr. Zach Mercurio, M-E-R-C-U-R-I-O. I encourage all your listeners to look up Zach. Zach is a wonderful, wonderful guide. And it’s really incredible and meaningful work.
Josh Vaisman:
So what do I mean by “notice and affirm”? I’ll often stand in front of a group of veterinary leaders, hospital owners, practice managers, medical directors, tech leads. And I’ll ask them, “Raise your hands if you agree with this statement: the people I work with matter.” And everybody in the room instantly raises their hand because we all believe that. We’re all good people who care about the people around us. Then, the next question I ask them is, “Okay, keep your hands up. If you agree with this statement: every day, the people I work with do things that matter.” And everybody keeps their hands up, because it happens. We know this. It’s in our minds. We get it. What I want to encourage us to do is to shift from thinking to showing. If people matter, show them how. If the things that they do matter, show them how. There are super simple ways to do that, on a routine basis.
Josh Vaisman:
You’re interacting with your team every single day. Choose, with intention, moments in time, where you can use that interaction to show them that they matter and to show them that the things that they do matter. Because that client that wrote you the letter, that’s what she was doing. She was noticing what you did and affirming the impact that it had. You can do that as a leader because it’s happening all around you all the time.
Dr. Andy Roark:
That’s super insightful. And I’m sitting here, of course, and I’m going, I would have my hand up. I would have my hand up. I would put my hand down. When you ask, do I communicate that to those people? I know I do not do as good a job with that as I should.
Josh Vaisman:
I have a feeling that you probably do it fairly well, just because of who you are. You’re somebody who notices things. Just in this conversation, you’ve picked out and noticed the nuance of some of the stuff that I’ve said, and then you’ve repeated it in your own stories, in your own words, with questions.
Dr. Andy Roark:
Well, thanks for saying that. I try to. One of the weaknesses that I have, that I have noticed recently: I have come to really understand in the last couple of years, how different people appreciate differently and feel appreciated differently. And so, there are ways that I feel appreciated, and there’s ways that don’t affect me as much, in how I’m appreciated. So, for example, I will go through my family really quickly and say, my youngest daughter, her language of appreciation is time. She wants to spend time together. And if you want to make her happy, then you spend time with her. Have a project. Just take her with you to run errands, but just let her control the radio. She likes to deejay with my phone. But just take her and just be with her. And she loves it.
Dr. Andy Roark:
And my older daughter, her language of appreciation, her love language, is gifts. It doesn’t have to be expensive, but just a thing that shows that you were thinking of her. Just something like that. She loves to bake for other people, and she does it because it’s something special that she makes that they can’t buy. And she says, “I made this for you.” And she gives it to you.
Dr. Andy Roark:
My wife’s language of appreciation is service. And if you want to make her feel appreciated, help her. Help her on the things that she cares about. My language of appreciation is verbal appreciation. I like to get patted on the back. Just tell me you appreciate me, and that means a lot to me. And so, I’m good at verbal appreciation. And that is something. I feel like I say things to people, and I point things out. And that’s true. Even if I know someone’s language of appreciation is gifts or time or things like that, I often don’t lean into those things. And that’s something I’m trying to get better at, is to say, “Okay.” And I really do feel that being fair to people, I feel like a lot of people struggle to make people feel appreciated, or to make people feel that they matter.
Dr. Andy Roark:
I think if it was really easy, everybody would do it. I do think that it’s more challenging than we make it out to be, especially when you’re appreciating people who see the world a bit differently than we do. And so, I’m sitting here, and I’m going, I really need to write those thank you notes or pick out some gifts or just schedule some time with the people for whom this matters.
Dr. Andy Roark:
This falls into the category for me as, I talk a lot about using positive reinforcement in practice and pouncing on the good things that people do. And calling them out, right?
Josh Vaisman:
Yeah.
Dr. Andy Roark:
We know, from training animals, and people are just simple animals; I don’t care how many degrees you have, you’re a simple animal. We know that positive reinforcement works. And we know that it’s a whole lot easier and better to jump on things that people do well and celebrate them than it is to follow them around and catch them when they mess up and always have these corrective, “Hey, you messed up” conversations. And so, why doesn’t everybody just do that? It’s because-
Josh Vaisman:
It’s hard.
Dr. Andy Roark:
It takes effort. It is hard.
Josh Vaisman:
It’s hard. It’s hard.
Dr. Andy Roark:
It takes effort.
Josh Vaisman:
Yeah.
Dr. Andy Roark:
And so, I appreciate you saying that. But it’s funny, I’m sitting here, and I’m just as human as everybody else. And I’m going, oh man, I should-
Josh Vaisman:
I don’t do that enough. I want to share three quick things with you.
Dr. Andy Roark:
Yeah.
Josh Vaisman:
Number one, I want to share some appreciation for you. Number two, I want to recap a little bit of what you said. And then, number three, I want to talk about what I hear as an opportunity, in what you shared there.
Dr. Andy Roark:
Yeah, sure.
Josh Vaisman:
The first thing I want to share with you: genuine appreciation for me, you and I got to meet for the first time in person at Western. And it was a wonderful lunch and a great conversation. And then, you reached out to me about being on your podcast. And we had a good conversation a few weeks back. And then you invited me back to talk about this topic. And to me, what that speaks to is your character and your values.
Josh Vaisman:
And I don’t mean that in a puffing myself up sense. What I mean by that is that this stuff matters to you, which means to me, that people matter to you. And people matter to you enough to actually take time out of your busy schedule, to talk about how we can help them. That’s important. That’s meaningful stuff, and I really appreciate you for doing that, for using your platform for that kind of good. The second thing I want to do is… well, I’m going to do a 1A, which is to point out that what I just said to you is exactly what I’m talking about. Just noticing those kinds of things about people in the day to day and then sharing it with them, makes a difference.
Dr. Andy Roark:
Yeah.
Josh Vaisman:
So number two, I said, I want to kind of recap some of the things you talked about. And you brought up some of these language of appreciation ideas and how you recognize that you do well with verbal appreciation; it has a real big impact on you. You used the verbiage of, I like to get the pat on the back. And I got to be honest with you, Andy, I’m the same way.
Josh Vaisman:
And then, you talked about your wife. And your wife really responds well to service. If you really want to show her that she matters to you, help her with something. I don’t think it was your intention, and I apologize if I’m coming across abrasively here, it’s not my intention-
Dr. Andy Roark:
No.
Josh Vaisman:
… but implied in how you were describing that, was a little bit of what I mean by that either/or; this idea that, okay, I’m really good at verbal appreciation, but I know that not everybody responds as strongly to that. Some people like gifts; some people like time; some people like service. And I’m not as good at that. Implied in that is that, if I don’t provide service to my wife, then I’m not appreciating her; that’s an either/or mentality. And actually, what I think is that there’s a both/and here. Because what I think that you can do, is still verbally appreciate her, and it will impact her positively; just not as strongly as the service does.
Josh Vaisman:
But if you can continue to use your strength of verbal appreciation and show that you’re trying to learn her style of appreciation too, that’ll make a difference as well. And I think that’s the opportunity that we have, as leaders in our practice, which leads to point number two: “Notice and affirm” is the foundation. But if you don’t understand people, if you don’t develop a relationship with them, whereby you can discover that verbal appreciation makes a difference, but gosh, a gift really is going to have an impact, and then learn about, what are the kinds of gifts and what are the things that this person’s interested in? Man, if you can develop that high-quality relationship with your people, notice and affirm will be easy for you on a daily basis.
Dr. Andy Roark:
No, that makes a lot of sense. That makes a lot of sense. Josh, thank you for being here. Thanks for talking through everything with me. Where can people find you and Flourish Consulting?
Josh Vaisman:
Yeah. Our website is Flourish.vet, F-L-O-U-R-I-S-H.vet. I am also quite active on LinkedIn; I post a lot of blog articles and concepts. A lot of what I do is I take what the research shares. Actually, this one, I’m very fascinated by it. I’m holding it up to show you. It’s a big article that was recently published on what leaders can do to support their own wellbeing, which I think is incredibly important as well.
Josh Vaisman:
So, I’ll take articles like that, and then I’ll condense it down into a three to five minute read, with some tangible tools and practices. I do a lot of that; I post those on the website and on LinkedIn.
Dr. Andy Roark:
Oh, yeah. I’ll have to take a look. I haven’t logged into LinkedIn forever. My LinkedIn profile actually says “Dr. Andy Roark: father, veterinarian, guy who doesn’t check LinkedIn.” And every time I logged in, I have 7,000 friend requests on LinkedIn. And so, I just get overwhelmed and then just leave. So, I’ll have to wade back into LinkedIn.
Josh Vaisman:
I wish you all the best of luck in navigating that pool of notifications.
Dr. Andy Roark:
Oh, yeah. Oh, man. Well, thanks again, buddy. It’s always good to see you.
Josh Vaisman:
Yeah, it’s a pleasure. Thanks for having me.
Dr. Andy Roark:
And that is our episode. Guys, I hope you enjoyed it. I hope you got something out of it. As always, the best kindest, nicest thing you can possibly do for me, if you like the episode, is to leave an honest review on iTunes or wherever you get your podcast episodes. It’s how people find the show. It gives me some guidance about what people like. And it keeps me encouraged to keep doing the episodes, so I really appreciate it. Guys, take care of yourselves. Be well. I’ll talk to you soon.
Editor: Dustin Bays
www.baysbrass.com
@Bays4Bays Twitter/Instagram
