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A Heartfelt Thank You

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The Cone of Shame Veterinary Podcast Hits 1 Million Plays

The first episode of the Cone of Shame Veterinary Podcast was a Skype call with my friend Dr. Sarah Boston. She had written an article about “Emotional Blackmail” that really spoke to me, and I decided I wanted to talk to her about it. I had some questions and thought the concept she was describing might manifest in ways her article didn’t discuss.

We published the podcast in October of 2019… and then I didn’t publish anything else for two months. In truth, I was trying to get my head around what I could talk about that others would find interesting. I ultimately decided I could ask smart clinicians how they would handle cases I was seeing in practice so even if the podcast bombed I would get grade-A coaching on how to be a better doctor. It seemed like a no-lose situation.

The Cone of Shame originally started as a YouTube show back in 2015. I tricked out my basement into a film studio and started making videos for pet owners. My grand plan was to share these YouTube videos with my rapidly swelling Facebook audience and grow the show into something that would be fun for pet owners and easily referenced by busy vet professionals who wanted to give their clients some educational resources.

Well, things didn’t go as I’d hoped. Right before I launched the YouTube show, Facebook and YouTube got into a huge fight, and Mark Zuckerberg declared that Facebook would be “deprioritizing” links to YouTube in its news feed. When I posted a link on Facebook to the first Cone of Shame episode, it tanked.

I did get some people to watch the show (and a few videos have around a half million views), but it was a battle to get subscribers and took way more time, energy, and money than I anticipated. I also felt fully committed to the show and had hired a videographer/producer, so giving up on it felt like a real failure. It was an invaluable (but painful) learning experience.

My bruises from the YouTube show were a big reason I was so hesitant to commit to trying the podcast, which felt similar in a lot of ways (including, of course, the name). Still, I had greatly enjoyed working with Stephanie Goss on the Uncharted Veterinary Podcast over the previous year and finally built up the courage to give the Cone of Shame Podcast a shot.

I saw the statistics a few days ago, and have just been in awe since then. So many people have told me that they listen to the podcast or that a particular episode spoke to them, but I have never really thought much about how many people are tuning in.

I just want to say THANK YOU to everyone who has checked out the podcast, sent an episode to a friend, or given me a word of encouragement to keep going with it. You all are wonderful and I appreciate your time more than you know.

I like to tell myself that I would make this podcast even if no one listened, just because I love it, but I don’t know if that’s true. At some level, I have always needed to feel like the work I take on makes a difference and that I’m helping my colleagues. Without you all showing up, I suspect I would have set this project aside, and my life would be a little less rich without it.

Thank you. Thank you for your time and encouragement. Thank you for the wonderful and meaningful work you do, and for allowing me to cheer you on and try to support you.

Sincerely,

Andy

Cone of Shame Episodes That Topped The Charts:

EPISODE 122: IS THERE REALLY A BLACK MARKET CURE FOR FIP?

EPISODE 96: THE RISE OF VEG – IS THIS THE FUTURE OF EMERGENCY PRACTICE?

EPISODE 99: ARE VET NURSE PRACTITIONERS COMING TO VET MEDICINE?

EPISODE 104: THE TROOPS ARE TIRED – WHY ARE WE RUNNING THIS MARATHON LIKE IT’S A SPRINT?

EPISODE 118: DO I PULL IT? DO I LEAVE IT? (HDYTT)

Stay up to date with the latest Cone of Shame Podcast episodes here.

Learner’s Permits & The Power of Referred Joy

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My oldest daughter recently got her learner’s permit. This permit now allows her to practice driving a car as long as an adult is with her. She is beyond excited. So it comes at no surprise when she asks if I’ll ride around with her at least once per day.

Helping teach my daughter how to drive has leveled up her driving skills, but also taught me an important lesson: referred joy is a powerful thing.

An evening driving lesson

On one of the first days she had her permit, I took my daughter to a strip mall that had closed down for the night to let her practice parking. I brought along two big cardboard boxes and placed them in parking spaces so she could better envision what it would be like to have to navigate around other cars.

I told her “if you hit the boxes… we’re going to go home.” Then I sat back and watched her work. The surgical precision my daughter used to avoid those boxes was nothing short of impressive. She was so proud of herself… until she lost focus while backing out and bumped one of the cardboard cubes.

Of course I didn’t make her go home, but the exercise and the perceived stakes made for a fun evening.

Acknowledging the presence of referred joy

My daughter couldn’t have been happier out there driving in circles around the parking lot, and it felt SO GOOD to be able to facilitate the joy she was experiencing. All in all, I wasn’t really doing anything. I was just there riding along, giving encouragement, and maybe providing a little guidance. Still, I was able to share the joy she was having with her new adventure.

It reminded me of working in the clinic. We are very lucky to have jobs where we get to be a part of other peoples’ joy as often as we are. 

Just think about it. How many times do you work with people bursting with excitement about their new furry family member or pride in the tricks their pets have learned? It’s hard not to feel those emotions with them. Think about all the times the smiles crept from their faces onto your own. Just by doing your job, you have increased their joy. 

Isn’t that amazing? Referred joy is the joy one gets from being a part of someone else’s happiness. It’s a beautiful perk not thought about often enough. Yet there are so many opportunities to tap into it. All you have to do is be present. To support the smiles and excitement that come through our doors.

Final Thought

So, what if you paid more attention to referred joy? Simply, look for happy people you can make happier. Look for opportunities to facilitate smiles and support laughter. Then, soak up the goodness that comes from it.

Happiness Is Looking Forward To Carrot Cake

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My friend Dr. Bruce Francke turned 57 last week. His birthday also happened to fall on his 30 year anniversary working at Bay Animal Hospital (not counting the three years he worked in the kennel in high school).

Bruce’s expectations for the day were pretty low. With his practice down three doctors in recent months, to protest his staff’s wellbeing, he and his partner have been working open to close Monday-Friday for three months now. His birthday would be no exception. 

When Bruce and I were talking about his day, he paused and explained that his wife had made him carrot cake from scratch, and that was one thing he was really excited about. It was “the thing he was looking forward to all day.”

At the end of the day, Bruce’s team told him the IT company needed to have yet another emergency meeting about the new server that had been recently installed in the practice. Bruce decided to work in his office while he waited for the IT people to arrive. 

Well, the IT company never showed up. 

Instead, Bruce’s friends and family packed the waiting room for a surprise celebration. When he finally emerged from his office, he was cheered, loved, and surprised with a video montage of people who couldn’t be there sending well-wishes.

I’ve been thinking about Bruce for the last few days. It feels so good to see someone who cares so much and tries so hard be told what they mean to others. As someone who desperately wants to help create a great workplace for my staff, I can’t imagine a more meaningful surprise.

But as I reflect, you know what I have thought the most about? The carrot cake.

Bruce is an amazing person. A joy to be around. He is someone I have gone to for life advice and I listen to whenever he has thoughts to share. Bruce has the most wonderful and healthy perspective on what really matters in this world. It’s one of the reasons I respect him so much.

I think Bruce’s mention of carrot cake highlights two of the greatest keys to living a rich life: 

  1. being happy with low expectations, and 
  2. always having something to look forward to. 

Too often do we fixate on our problems. We ruminate on why these things are happening to us. We get bogged down by the stresses of the moment and look ahead only to see what obstacles are coming our way.

But what if instead of fixating on our challenges we did what Bruce does? 

What if we accepted that our day would be full of hard work but there was something simple and good ahead of us to look forward to? What if we fixated on that? Would we be happier? I suspect the answer is yes. And when the day comes that someone drops a surprise party on us… holy moly! Can you imagine the joy?

I can.

Resolve To Be Bored More Often

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What’s your #1 resolution for the new year? Mine is to be bored more often.

It recently dawned on me that I live my life in a state of perpetual distraction. If I’m not actively engaged with something, I listen to podcasts or audiobooks on my headphones or scroll on my phone in search of something interesting and engaging.

So it made me think, what do we miss when we fill our lives with distractions too often?

The downside of the distraction state

Podcasts, audiobooks, and articles can generally be considered “mental health food.” That’s how I’ve always justified immediately picking up my phone and being “plugged in” whenever I do the dishes, walk the dog, or wait for my daughter to finish dance class.

The downside is that distraction like this has two costs. 

The first is the energy cost. The energy cost is the steady mental drain that comes from processing information; even information we are excited about. Our brain only has so much processing power in a day. We should be at least a little mindful about how we spend it.

The second cost is the opportunity cost. This is the cost of not doing things because we are too distracted to recognize the opportunity.

Waking up to my distraction state

Late last year, I got tapped for jury duty. First thing in the morning, the bailiff took all of our phones away and didn’t give them back until we went home at the end of the day. I found myself, along with a dozen other jurors, sitting around a table day-after-day with nothing to do. Unable to grab my phone to read an online newspaper, I was bored. The situation pushed me to fill my time by getting to know the people I was with. 

I talked to the other jurors about the case, of course, and I also talked to them during the breaks. We talked about the case, and during breaks, we shared stories about our hobbies and families. Picture a strange version of that 80s movie The Breakfast Club. We all came from very different places, but we found that we had a lot in common and genuinely enjoyed each other’s company. 

I couldn’t help but reflect on how that discovery happens rarely in our modern, plugged-in world. And my resolution to unplug and be more bored more often was born.

Unplugging to engage more in the moment

Since taking up this resolution, instead of listening to, reading or watching media, the most wonderful things have happened. Instead of checking my email, I’ve found myself laughing with my technicians. Rather than tuning into another podcast or watching Netflix, I spend time talking with my wife and playing board games with my kids. And I am getting mental rest breaks during quiet walks with my dog… at least until the neighbors see me without my headphones and come out to say hello.

The point here is not that I am now distracting myself in different ways than before (because I totally recognize this. I hate being bored). The point is that by skipping the easiest, flashiest, most common solutions to boredom, I’m falling back to more rich, restful, and fulfilling ways of occupying my free time.

If you’re missing a resolution for 2023, maybe it’s not too late. Maybe you can be bored more often. Maybe if you’re bored and I’m bored, we’ll bump into each other and actually talk about it. Wouldn’t that be lovely?

You Can Choose To Be Happy…Or Not

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For years, I would roll into the holiday season with joint goals of keeping up my normal work schedule and also celebrating the season doing the little rituals that I love. Invariably, I would find myself dealing with issues, events and people I had not factored into my plans.

Here’s the story of how I learned that you can either choose to be happy, or not.

Shedding the frustrations of holiday chaos

The holiday season arrives. Suddenly, there are elementary school events to attend, work parties for my wife where I don’t know anyone, and holiday shopping crowds that need to be battled in order to meet gifting obligations. My calendar begins to feel more chaotic than ever. And I become frustrated. 

I grit my teeth at the check out lines, argue with my wife about what school pageants really need to be witnessed in person, and drag my feet to get ready for holiday gatherings that I know I’m going to end up attending anyway. When it’s all over, everyone is irritated with me and I still end up attending the pageants and parties and fulfilling all the obligations.

Then, one day, it occurs to me just how foolish this approach is. 

So I sit down and write a note on my calendar for December 1st of the following year. It reads, “You are going to attend events and deal with problems this month. You are going to be invited to things you don’t know about and you will be expected to attend. You are going to have to battle crowds and wait in lines. Plan on it happening, make time for it and decide to be happy.”

The next year is the best holiday season of my adult life.

Skip the rage, choose to overcome

In life you can choose to rage against a challenge and then overcome it or to skip the rage and simply overcome it. Holidays or not, this is something I’m trying hard to remember.

You’re going to have to talk to the upset pet owner, sort out the team drama, figure out the staff schedule, run the inventory audit, do your taxes, make a dish for the potluck, conduct performance evaluations, and do all the other things you might want to avoid. Exhausted already? Me too.

You can decide to accept these things are going to happen, make room for them in your day, and try to find the fun in it…or not. Either way, you’re still going to do them.

Final thought

Just for today, try not being frustrated. Try to recognize what is going to be required of you and do it with a smile on your face. See what happens. See if your day doesn’t feel brighter. I bet it will.

“Remember When?” The Gift of Reflection

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The holiday season can fill us with warmth. And I’m not just referring to the warmth of the chili I enjoyed this week at a neighborhood holiday chili party. The holidays are a time to celebrate with friends and family. It’s also a time of reflection… a very meaningful gift we can each give ourselves.

Meaningful Moments At The Neighborhood Holiday Party

Neighborhood holiday gatherings always remind me that I’m not living on an island. It turns out that the people around me know who I am. They enjoy seeing me walk my goofy dog, Skipper, past their houses every morning. 

My neighbors feel safe(r) knowing there is a veterinarian in their neighborhood just in case anything were to happen to their furry family members. Though, in reality, I’ve lived in this neighborhood for almost 10 years now, and have only had one neighbor swing by with a sick pet. I have however given a number of consultations while holding a leash and a plastic bag full of poo. Still, the knowledge that I’m here makes them happy, and that makes me happy on a deep level.

One of my favorite parts of any neighborhood get-together is the “remember when” portion of the event. At the recent holiday chili party, “remember when” stories were told about long-grown children, favorite pets, lost hearing aids, and a life-size cutout of former president Ronald Regan. I laughed until my sides hurt, and then I felt like I had participated in something meaningful.

The Importance Of “Remember When”

“Remembering when” is one of the most important parts of the holiday season. Taking the time to reflect on the journey that is our lives gives us a perspective that we wouldn’t otherwise get. As humans, we seem to be hard-wired to worry about the future and toil in the present. But not to look back and appreciate what we have seen, done, and learned. That’s a real shame.

Looking back is actually a key way in which we can move forward.

Reflection allows us to hold the trophy for our successes, acknowledge our strengths, turn experiences into understanding, and find areas for growth.

Take The Time To Reflect

This holiday season, we should all take a few minutes to reflect on the year – and life in general. Think about all the accomplishments, what has brought joy, and the obstacles we’ve overcome. It’s a gift we can give ourselves, but can easily give to others.

Try it at the clinic with the “remember when” game. Simply start by going first and watch people start to smile and draw together. That’s what the holidays are all about.