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Perspective

Where Are The Jelly Packets In Your Practice?

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Last week I went camping in Canada with my family. It was glorious, and a trip I will always remember. However, I did get one complaint consistently from the kids… and my wife: We ate a lot of bagels and peanut butter.

Bagels and peanut butter are great. They don’t require refrigeration, can withstand being packed and unpacked from a backpack, and together they are a decent mixture of protein, fat, and carbs. Still, I must concede, they can get old after being included in multiple snacks and meals for several consecutive days. It is possible I should have thought a bit more deeply about alternative camping and hiking foods before we set off, but… I didn’t.

The novelty of bagels and peanut butter had long worn off by the time my family caught the ferry from Nova Scotia to Prince Edward Island. We knew we would be off the ferry and on a hike by the time lunch rolled around, and there was yet another peanut butter and bagel experience awaiting us there.

I was passing through the cafeteria area of the ferry when all my food luck changed. Sitting in plastic containers on every one of the tables, I saw something I had never before had strong feelings about: individual jelly packets.

You know the ones. They are usually grape or strawberry, and refrigeration isn’t required because they are consumed entirely when opened. I stood and stared at them. My heart filled with a joy I haven’t experienced since the Christmas days of my childhood.

When I turned my pockets out after leaving the ferry to show my family the treasure I had discovered, my oldest daughter teared up. “Can I…. have strawberry?” she asked in a choking voice. At that moment, we all knew that we had been taking jelly (and a lot of other things) for granted.

Reflecting on the joy I felt peeling open the packet of grape goodness to add it to my sandwich, I realized that we are surrounded by so many wonderful things that we don’t appreciate.

The ability to call an uber to our exact spot, get any sort of swanky coffee drink we can think of, or just drive a car… all incredible when you stop to consider them. I have three different kinds of mustards in my refrigerator. When did we get so much sandwich power? Have you ever stopped to think about how amazing it is that we can buy tomatoes at the grocery store all year long?

Consider the wonders we overlook in our practices. Ultrasonography is absolutely astounding. We put a probe on an abdomen and can see what’s inside real-time. We have vaccines that protect our patients from diseases that would otherwise kill a large percentage of them before their first birthday. We can go to surgery and remove a spleen to save a life. It’s all freakin’ amazing!

Look, I know this may sound over-the-top, but walk with me for a moment. Think about all that’s good around you and what you are taking for granted. Think of the little things that you rarely consider but that make the world a better, nicer, more comfortable place. It’s okay to allow yourself to feel wonder over things that you have access to every day.

We live in an amazing time. Don’t forget it.

#HopePunk

Individualism: Does it Really Mean Success?

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Every day we are told that success is doing what we want, when we want, and how we want. Our highest goal, apparently, should be going exactly where we want and doing exactly what we want. Compromise is a sacrifice we should strive to avoid.

Can there be a greater measure of achievement than to take the exact trip you most want to take, watch the movie you most want to see, work at the practice you most want to be in, do the aspect of medicine you most want to do, or eat at the restaurant you most want to visit?

I just got back from a vacation hiking and camping with my family. If I was going alone, or even with only my spouse, I would have camped almost every night. I would have hiked all day long and eaten meals composed mostly of trail mix and peanut butter. It would have been an outdoor deep dive and a near-complete escape from people and the stresses of modern life.

My kids, however, were not excited about hiking or sleeping in a tent every night (my wife was with them on this). They also were not fired up about eating a diet of food that doesn’t require refrigeration. They were instead excited about window shopping, getting ice cream on the regular, checking in with their friends back home, watching netflix shows downloaded on their phones and singing Taylor Swift songs in the rental car. 

You can probably guess what happened. We compromised. We hiked about half as much as I would have liked, and did twice as many non-outdoor things as the kids would have wanted. We camped some nights and stayed in cute B&Bs, hotels or motels on others. We ate some trail mix and granola bars, and we also sat down at some restaurants and ate a good amount of afternoon ice cream. We had days without wifi or a cell signal, and we made some stops specifically to let people download a few episodes of favorite shows.

No one got to have their exact perfect vacation, and you know what? It was the perfect vacation. I wouldn’t have traded my time there for anything. Everyone got enough of what they wanted to be happy, and we were all happy together. 

It turns out that eating at restaurants everyone is “just okay with” can make for the best meals of our lives. Hikes together can create lifelong memories, even if some people participating would prefer to do other things. Listening to music you are, quite frankly, tired of can be a joyful experience if you embrace the happiness of those around you.

I don’t think success is having everything you want. I think success is being a part of an interconnected and interdependent group (i.e. family, community, team, etc) that does its best to balance everyone’s needs and wishes. The idea that getting exactly what we want as individuals should be our greatest goal is flawed thinking. The sacrifices we make to be together are the price of admission to a more meaningful life.

Leaders, Take On The Problem Without The Feelings

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As a leader, you will undoubtedly be given problems. People will let you know what is not working and ask you for your help. In these situations, it’s your responsibility to assist them. That doesn’t mean you have to fix the problem for them (often it’s better to coach people in how to solve problems themselves), but it does mean you need to engage with the challenge that has been presented.

When people bring you problems, it’s important to recognize that they generally bring their feelings about those problems along as well. It’s rare to be presented with information about a challenge without some level of commentary about how big an impact the challenge is having on patients, clients, or the future of the practice. 

Remember that, while you may have to take on the problem, you don’t have to take on the feelings that come with it. 

While you may feel as if the problem you’re being asked to help with is the event that will cause every employee in the building to resign within the next 7 days, you don’t need to accept that belief or react as if it is true. 

You can listen to the problem, validate how the person telling you about it is feeling, and then decide what emotions you choose to attach to the moment. 

Always remember that you can’t choose what problems come to you in life. You can choose how you react to them, and you do not have to follow suit from the person who came before you.

Lessons we wish we had learned before managing/leading people part 1

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Crossover Episode!! In this episode, originally published on the Uncharted Veterinary Podcast, Dr. Andy Roark and Practice Management Goddess Stephanie Goss talk about the lessons they wish they’d known BEFORE they started managing people and leading teams!

If you like this episode, you can check out part 2 over at the Uncharted Veterinary Podcast!

You can also listen to this episode on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Amazon Music, Soundcloud, YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts!

LINKS

Uncharted Events: https://unchartedvet.com/upcoming-events/

FREE CE: Updates in Canine Pancreatitis: Treatment Innovation with fuzapladib sodium for injection 2023 – Date: 8/8/2023, 12pm – 1pm EST Registration Link: https://drandyroark.com/CaninePancreatitis

Dr. Andy Roark Exam Room Communication Tool Box Team Training Course: https://drandyroark.com/on-demand-staff-training/

Dr. Andy Roark Charming the Angry Client Team Training Course: https://drandyroark.com/charming-the-angry-client/

Dr. Andy Roark Swag: drandyroark.com/shop

All Links: linktr.ee/DrAndyRoark

ABOUT OUR GUEST

Stephanie Goss started in the veterinary field quite by accident but fell in love with the experience of being able to serve people and their pets. With over 15 years of experience both on the floor and in the office, Stephanie is passionate about staff education, team culture, management and training. Stephanie loves helping managers and owners control their inventory and leverage their profits by maximizing their home delivery using online pharmacies. She is a vet med nerd who loves to geek out about technology, especially Practice Management Software. She has experience as a practice manager in both private and corporate practices, ranging in size from one to seven doctors. She has experience as a consultant and trainer with AVImark software, paperlite/paperless transitions, practice management and staff. Stephanie is the Director of Community Development for the Uncharted Veterinary Conference. More notably she’s the co-host of the Uncharted Veterinary Podcast where her laughter highlights the start of every episode and her knowledge bombs reign down like massive chunks of enlightenment from on high.

EPISODE TRANSCRIPT

Dr. Andy Roark:
Welcome everybody to The Cone of Shame Veterinary Podcast. I am your host, Dr. Andy Roark. Guys, I got a crossover episode for you today. I’m going to play you an episode of the other podcast that I do. It’s called The Uncharted Veterinary Podcast. It’s all a communication business development podcast for people in vet medicine. If you’ve never heard The Uncharted podcast, I hope you’re in for a treat. I hope you’ll like it. I do this podcast with my dear friend, practice management goddess, Stephanie Goss. And you’ll hear us go through this episode. We got asked, hey, what are the lessons that you wish you knew when you started managing other people? And that was the question that we got. And this is a two-part podcast. This is the first part. I’m not going to put the second part over here on The Cone of Shame show. If you want it, it is out now. Part two will come out. When you hear this episode, it will have come out the day before over on The Unchartered Veterinary Podcast. So if you want to hear part two, you can go over to Unchartered Veterinary Podcast wherever you get your podcasts and get yesterday’s episode. And it will be part two of lessons we wish we’d learned. And that’s what it is.
Anyway, this episode is … It’s just a bag of pearls. It’s just Stephanie Goss and I trading stories about lessons that we learned the hard way that I wish I had known before I started managing other people. I think it’s a really fun episode. If you work with other people, I think you’ll enjoy it and get something out of it. I think there’s just a lot of life lessons here that we have picked up over the last 20 years. And so anyway, I really like this episode. That’s why I wanted to share it with everybody. So without further ado, let’s get into this episode.

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:
And we are back. It’s me, Dr. Andy Roark, and the one and only Stephanie, I’m learning to fly and I ain’t got wings, Goss.

Stephanie Goss:
How’s it going Andy Roark?

Dr. Andy Roark:
Holy moly. It’s good. It’s good. We’re in the summer here. Things are good. The kids are doing some camps and stuff. They started sewing camp yesterday.

Stephanie Goss:
Oh, fun.

Dr. Andy Roark:
Yeah. What’s the place called? It’s called something like Sew Enjoyable. S-E-W.

Stephanie Goss:
Oh, that’s cute.

Dr. Andy Roark:
But it’s just led to so many puns at our house.

Stephanie Goss:
Dad jokes.

Dr. Andy Roark:
Yeah. Oh, it’s so expensive.

Stephanie Goss:
You are already good at puns and bad dad jokes. I can only imagine your poor daughters and your poor wife the last 24 hours.

Dr. Andy Roark:
I’ve been needling them. It’s a whole thread. It’s a whole thread.

Stephanie Goss:
Stop it.

Dr. Andy Roark:
It’s been constant. It’s been constant since yesterday. So anyway, how are things with you?

Stephanie Goss:
We’re starting the summer off with a bang. I got a kid that’s got the stomach flu and another kid that had to go and get vaccines and is not feeling so hot.

Dr. Andy Roark:
Oh, boy.

Stephanie Goss:
Why not? Let’s just get it out of the way. But overall, it’s great. It has been sunny. Today we’re back to rain in Washington, but it’s been sunny and beautiful and I cannot complain. Things are good.

Dr. Andy Roark:
Oh, man. We’ve got big stuff going on at the Uncharted world that you and I have been working on.

Stephanie Goss:
Yes we do.

Dr. Andy Roark:
Holy moly. July 11th is a big day. That is when we are launching a number of registrations for all the different stuff we got going on in the fall. Guys, holy crap. Uncharted is blowing up in the back half of 2023. I told you guys. I told you this was a huge year for Uncharted. We’re going to keep rolling out stuff. You ain’t seen nothing yet. But on July 11th, we are putting on sale our first ever medical director summit and our team lead summit. Both of them are one day virtual events that are only open to medical directors and the other one is open only to team leads. So when I say team leads, I’m talking about head technicians, head CSRs, kennel leads.

Stephanie Goss:
Head kennel. Mm-hmm.

Dr. Andy Roark:
Yep. Head kennel, things like that. So again, and that’s why I call it team leads because every hospital is a little bit different in how they break those things out and what they call them. But this is for people who are leading a team. I hope that doctors come to this. I hope that doctors who are dedicated to working hand in glove with their technicians and are like, I run a team, it’s a tech team. And so me and my technicians and assistants are a team and I am a team leader and I might not have a title. I might not have an official designation, but I see myself as a team lead and I run this team. I want you to come there because we are going to be working on the skills that you need to be a team lead. Meaning you don’t own the place, you’re not the high boss, you’ve got bosses you have to keep happy and you’re also looking out for your people and making their lives better. So that’s our team lead summit.

Stephanie Goss:
Yeah. You’re leading from the middle. I am super excited about that one because when I was a lead CSR, there was not community. There was not a place that I could go where I could connect really easily with other lead CSRs who understood the challenges of being on the floor and trying to lead people and trying to have private one-on-one conversations and see what the pulse was of the team. It is a balancing act and I’m excited for that and I am really excited for the same reasons, but for our medical director summit because that is a challenging job whether you’re in private practice or you’re in corporate practice when you’re balancing the medicine side of things and usually that role means balancing a partnership with a practice manager on the other side. And so I am super excited to get into that relationship structure and how do you lead as a team of two and stay in step and do all of that focused stuff for medical directors. I’m super excited for that.

Dr. Andy Roark:
Yeah. I don’t think anybody has done more work with medical directors than we have in the last three years. Three to five years. I really don’t. Literally hundreds of medical directors we work with. And this is going to be all about managing down while managing up, while also working with doctors and focusing on doctor retention and building culture and things like that. People don’t realize your medical directors are stuck where you’re like … Not stuck in a bad way but you have definitely got pressure. You have a direct boss. You have to manage. The medical director role is this amazing challenging place of balance. It’s balancing what the team needs. It’s balancing the doctors and maybe some egos of the doctors and different perspectives of the doctors. And also balancing operational pressure coming down to shield your team and then also meet objectives.
And you are trying to do so many different things with so many different pressures. And that’s why we wanted to break out and have a one-day summit just for medical directors. There’s not another role that has these same pressures coming from different places. And it’s like we’ve just got so much experience balancing these things and working with these people and I was like, man, we are going to have … And it’s just one day. It’s going to be a deep dive, but it is going to be something that people are going to really come away and go, oh man. If nothing else, you’re not going to feel alone. If you are like, oh man, this is a lonely job, come on buddy. Come and come and see what we’re doing and come and be a part of it, but you’re not alone and we’re going to go ahead and we’re going to help you out. So anyway, that’s the medical director summit too.

Stephanie Goss:
Yeah. And then we’re getting ready to go back together in person. We’ve got another virtual event in October. We’re doing our culture conference, but then we’re back in person in Greenville in December and that is also going up and opening for registration. So there is so much happening July 11th. And so if you were like, I need to know what they are doing, we got you because it’s coming July 11th.

Dr. Andy Roark:
Unchartedvet.com, check out our events. Boy, we got a lot going on. Anyway, super great.

Stephanie Goss:
Okay. So we were talking about leaders and I’m excited because today’s episode is probably going to be a little bit different. I don’t know so much that we’re going to break out into head space or action steps, although you could convince me otherwise. But I got asked a question recently by someone in our Uncharted community who is a newer leader and they said, “Well, I have this question but I’m not sure that it fits your mailbag format, but I would love to hear you and Andy talk about it on the podcast.” And I was like, “Great, tell me what your question is.” And they were like, “I would love to know what some of the lessons you and Andy wished that you had learned before you became leaders. What are some of those things that you look back and in hindsight you’re like, oh man, I wish that I had learned this lesson or I had been able to get this knowledge before I stepped in to this role?” And I just thought, how fun is this going to be for you and me to talk through.

Dr. Andy Roark:
I love this. I saw this and I was like, I’m so happy about this. Yeah. I went after this. I started jotting things down on a post-it note as I do, and it’s a full post-it note so we’re going to see how this goes. The first thing I thought about when I started jotting this stuff down is there are things that I know now that I did not know early on and I wonder if I could have known them without having gone through it.

Stephanie Goss:
Perspective.

Dr. Andy Roark:
There’s a saying that I like and I’ve said it recently on the podcast I think, but the owl of Minerva spreads its wings only with the falling of dusk. And the idea is the owl of Minerva is this symbol of knowledge and wisdom and it spreads its wings only at the falling of dusk means basically we get it at the end. We only get knowledge and wisdom at the end. And I’m like, is that really true or there are things that we can learn and avoid headaches? So I don’t know. I’ll start laying some stuff down. I don’t know if I would’ve understand what I’m going to say at the very beginning, but I think some of it would’ve sunk in. I think so.

Stephanie Goss:
Yeah. I think that when I sat down and I started making notes for myself, I was like, what are the things? There were things that I think I would have understood then. I wouldn’t have understood them with the depth and the context that I can understand and appreciate them now. Because as you walk down the road sometimes you learn the same lesson more than once in a different way and it gives you new perspective and it gives you more dimension to the lessons that you learned previously. But I would agree with that. I think sometimes there are those things that until you go through it, you just don’t appreciate it the same way.

Dr. Andy Roark:
Yeah. Oh absolutely. Yeah. Well, let’s jump in this. Let’s go back and forth. You want to trade?

Stephanie Goss:
Okay. Yeah.

Dr. Andy Roark:
Do you want me to go first or do you want me to?

Stephanie Goss:
You go for it.

Dr. Andy Roark:
Okay. Well I will start with a big one for me. One of the big ones in my career that I really wish that I could have known would have saved me from burning out three years ago. When I burned out 2019, it was not fun. I would not recommend it. I would not do it again. But I learned a lot.

Stephanie Goss:
10 out of 10 would not recommend.

Dr. Andy Roark:
Yeah. Exactly right. But I learned a lot. I learned a lot about myself. I learned a lot about life. It’s one of those things where I wouldn’t trade the scars away if I could because I learned a lot. And I will say the number one thing … I learned a couple of things. I learned mostly you can’t make people happy and you need to know that. And I think I would say that. I’m going to leave that as my opening statement there is you can’t make people happy. Only people can make people happy. Only they can make them happy. And I started off as a young leader and I was like, if someone is unhappy, I’m going to fix that. I’m going to be so good that they have to be happy. And that is fantasy. You can’t make someone happy.
You can only do what you can do and then they can be happy or not. And so then you say, okay, well I’ve always thought … And again this is how I was as a young leader. I thought, I will know that I’m good at my job because people will tell me I’m good at my job because they’ll be happy. They’ll be happy with me. They’ll say, “You’re the best boss ever. Hey, I love what you guys are doing and it’s incredible.” So if you can’t make people happy and you buy that, then the question then becomes, well, how do I know that I’m doing a good job? And the answer to that that I learned over the years is you need to know what your values are. You need to know what you care about. You and I talk a lot about core values and things like that, but you need to know what you care about.
So at the end of the day, do not look around and ask yourself, did I make everyone happy? Look around and say, did I live my values today? Was I patient? Was I kind? Was I honest? Did I act with integrity? Did I work hard? Did I learn something? Am I a better doctor or team leader today than I was a year ago? Am I compassionate? Was I empathetic? And if the answer to all those things is yes, then good God, man, you are good. You’re doing great. But I think a lot of times we ask ourselves the wrong question because we think we can make people happy and we just can’t. And I wish I had known that.

Stephanie Goss:
Yeah. That totally sits with me as well. And if I think back to my early days as a leader in my team was honestly, before I even had an official role or a title, I just was someone on the team who stepped forward and said, well, I could do this thing and I could get my peers excited about doing these things. And there was a lot tied for me in terms of my own happiness with everybody else being happy. Because the drive was, I like coming to work and I like hanging out with my friends, especially as a leader from the middle of the team. I was like, I’m friends or friendly with everybody on the team. I like coming to work, I like having fun and therefore I’m measuring a good day and I’m measuring success on whether we were happy today and whether we enjoyed it.
And so when the bad days were bad, it was really hard for me not to take that personally and be like, I’m the cheerleader of the group. I could have made it better. And definitely that resonates for me because I think I spent a lot of time in that place of feeling I can do a better job at this. And I think your point of coming to that realization that the only person that I can control is me. And I can control my reactions to things and I can choose my state of mind and I can’t help anybody else do that. I can influence and I can support and I can coach, but at the end of the day, they have to choose it and I don’t have any control over that.

Dr. Andy Roark:
It’s like I want to hold myself accountable to be the person that I want to be. It’s all I can do. And good things will radiate out from that, I believe it. But not every day. Some days you will be the person that you think is the right person to be, that is a good person, that is the person you aspire to be. You will be your best version of yourself and someone will still get angry at you and call you a jerk and tell you that they’re never coming back to your clinic again. It will happen. But you can’t get distracted by that. You have to keep leaning into being the person you want to be.
The other thing I took out of just really burning out was the story I tell about there is no dragon and the story about there is no dragon if you’ve never heard me tell it, basically comes down to this. I truly believed for 40 years, basically I believed that there was some magical dragon that I had to slay, some challenge, some accomplishment that I could do. And if I did it, I would know I was successful. I would know I was a good person. I would know that my life had been important or meaningful. And the dragon would change. It would morph. At first it was I’m going to go to a good college. And then it was like, I’m going to go to medical school. And then it morphed into, no, I’m going to go to graduate school. And if I get into vet school and then if I graduate from vet school and then if I get this certain job. I’m going to get married. I’m going to do …
And it just kept going and morphing in different ways. And it was like, then I’m going to work for myself and I’m going to do all these things. And man, it never ended. And I would pick a dragon and then I’d get there and I would slay it. I would graduate. I would find the girl I was going to marry. I did the things. And the emptiness never went away. And I never felt like, yep, I’m done now. And I think I always thought that you would pick a dragon and you would slay it and then you would live happily ever after and the scene would fade out and the credits would roll and you would know that you were done and you would just be satisfied. And the truth is, guys, we are as human beings, we’re not made to be satisfied.
There is no dragon that you’re going to slay that is going to make you feel the way you think you’ll feel when you succeed. And that may sound really horrible and I don’t mean it to be. I think it’s just the truth of human nature. And so when I say there is no dragon, what I learned … Because I went into this burnout. I burned out because man, I traveled all the time. I worked constantly and I wanted to be all things to all people and I just poured myself so into what we were doing at the time. And it was good stuff and meaningful stuff and it was all the right stuff. And I hit all the measures that people seemed to care about. I had the dream job and super happy family life and everything. And still I kept being like, why am I not happy? Why am I not satisfied?
And there was just no way off of this treadmill until finally I burned out. And that is when I realized there is no dragon. The thing you’re trying to slay, it doesn’t exist. And so I wish that I knew that of the thing that you think you’re going to accomplish is going to make you happy or make you satisfied or make other people know that you’re valuable, that you’re worthy, that thing is not real and it doesn’t exist and you can go try to slay it, but it’s not going to solve what you’re looking for.

Stephanie Goss:
That’s a tough one, right?

Dr. Andy Roark:
That’s heavy. Yeah.

Stephanie Goss:
I think about it in the context of … And I think you’re spot on. And the reason why I think you’re spot on is because think about the studies that they have done on people who have won the lottery. And I think for a lot of us, we look at, well, if we had more money, I could not have to work as much or I could pay off my bills or I could travel. For each of us, it’s a different personal thing that we think that we would do and improve our lives in some way when you have more money than you have. And that’s an exciting thought. And they have done the studies to look at the happiness and the success factors after people win tons of money in the lottery and it doesn’t. You just trade one set of circumstances for another is what they’ve shown time and time again.
And so I think your thought about human nature there is spot on. That’s the story we are told from the time we’re little children is if we just do this thing or we just get to this next place, then more will come or the next reward will come or whatever. We’re just conditioned that way. And I remember vividly actually the first time you talked about the dragon and you were working on a keynote for … I think it was our very first virtual Uncharted during COVID. You were working on something that was … Everybody was tired, everybody was overwhelmed, everybody was like, “Oh dear Lord, what are we doing?” And I remember you and I having this conversation and talking through it and I was like, “Ooh, this is going to be good.” And I remember when you did the keynote that involved this story, and I remember this feeling of the light bulb went on not only for me but for so many of my peers.
And you could kind of see it on the screen as like, oh. Oh. That resonates. I have been chasing a thing, whether it’s practice ownership or something in our personal. Whatever it is, so many of us are looking at that dragon and trying to figure out how to slay it. And what I loved was the way that you tied it up and you talked about what if the question wasn’t how do we find the dragon and slay it, what if the question was about what are we going to do along the way? What are the stops that we’re going to enjoy on this adventure? If you look at it from a quest. And I love it because it was super nerdy and that’s something you and I share together and I love the story aspect of it. And I could picture myself on dragon slaying journey. But stopping and thinking and thinking about our lives. And there are people who would be like, oh, that’s so touchy feely, philosophic but I really think that it’s true. If we think about what are the things we want to enjoy along the way? Because dragon’s still going to be there. Slaying it is not going to make the difference. So what if we just leave the dragon alone?

Dr. Andy Roark:
Yeah. You’re exactly right. The research on lottery winners, I’m glad you brought it up because I love it. The research says that if you win the mega bajillion dollars in the lottery, your happiness will increase for about three months on average. And after about three months, you are at the same level happy as you are now. And the reason for that is what’s called the hedonic treadmill, which means we are wired to whatever the great thing is that happens to you, it becomes normal for you and you adjust back to where you were before in this new normal. And that’s how we’re made is the hedonic treadmill. So you’re exactly right. So you’re exactly right. The key to there is no dragon, the answer that I had to burn out to find is if there is no dragon, then what the heck are we doing?
And the answer is you have got to focus on and enjoy the experience that you are having, not the outcome you are trying to achieve. It’s not about killing the dragon, it’s about enjoying the quest to find the dragon and finding meaning in that quest. And that’s the real beautiful part. That’s the take home. Whatever it is when you are like, I’m going to do that thing and it’s going to make me happy or it’s going to make me satisfied. What I would say is, all right, tell me about how it’s going to make you feel when you accomplish this. And when you imagine slaying this dragon, how is that going to make you feel? And then I would say, great, just so you know it’s not going to happen. However, what can you do right now to feel that way?
What can you do right now in the moment. If you’re like, “I’m going to do this big thing and my team will love me and I will be popular.” I’ll be, “Great. Just so you know, that’s not going to happen. You’re going to do it. Hey, you might crush it and they’ll be happy for a week.” But that is a home run grand slam right there is a week. But that’s all it’s going to be. So the real thing is what can you do to be popular with your team right now? What can you do to make them smile or even they don’t have to all be together, but what can you do to make your team know that you care about them that doesn’t involve having the best year ever so you can take them on a cruise? What can you do today just to tell them that they matter to you and to show them? Go write a thank you note.
I mean seriously. That doesn’t mean give up. Keep going after your dream. But man, write a thank you note and mean feel good about it and say, man, I’m so grateful for my team. I’m writing them a note. That’s what I doing. And just hold that trophy and be happy about that. Because that is the quest towards the dragon that you’re trying to slay. And it’s like, man, 40 years, I didn’t enjoy that. I didn’t write the note because I thought I was going to do the massive thing at the end that would make everybody know and then make me know that I had accomplished the thing. And I was like, no, write the note. Ask somebody to go out to lunch. Bring them ice cream sandwiches. Just whatever the thing is you’re trying to do. If you are like, I want to be rich, well it ain’t going to make you happy.
Well, how will you feel when you’re rich? Well, I’ll feel safe. I go, okay, good. Let’s start to make a little emergency savings account that’s going to make us feel safer because that is something we can do right now and we can start to have that experience of building some safety. That’s the thing that we’re really looking for. So anyway, that’s sort of the takeaway from there is no dragon. Please remember. Hey, I got to tell you guys, I think the number one thing … Now I’m all fired up. This is about being in medicine. It’s also about being a leader is there is no dragon. The best part of medicine is the mundane thing you’re doing today. It is going into the exam room and talking to the pet owner who does half of the things that you recommend.
That’s it. Go enjoy it. Just decide that I’m going to go meet a new person. I’m going to talk to them and their dog is nice and I’m going to work with my assistant who I really like and I’m going to crack some sewing puns and we’re going to chuckle and good. That’s the good stuff, man. That’s it. It’s the day to day I get to pet dogs and cats all day. And I’m going to fix this thing. And man, when a thank you note comes, don’t wait to win the vet of the year award. Just hold onto that thank you note and be like, yeah, this is the good stuff. And that’s what I mean when I’m like, there’s no dragon. It’s all the mundane things of just chuckling with the owner when she tells you about how her dog does this goofy thing. Just like everybody, you know exactly what I’m talking about. We’ve all had those interactions that they don’t mean anything, but you are laughing and they’re laughing and the dog is just wagging his tale. And I’m like, man, that’s the good stuff right there. And so the key I think is to wring all the enjoyment out of that you can and hold onto it. That’s how you make it. That’s what success is like.
Hey everybody, I just want to jump in real quick and let you know I got some free CE for you. That’s right. Absolutely free. I am hosting a webinar with my friend Dr. Susan Hartzel. I had Susan on back in April. April, you might remember we were talking about pancreatitis. The webinar is called Updates in Canine Pancreatitis, Treatment Innovation with Fuzapladib Sodium for Injection. That is on August the 8th from noon to 1:00 PM Eastern Time. I’ll put a link in the show notes for you to grab on. Jump in, get registered. She’s going to be talking about understanding canine pancreatitis, and then she’s going to be talking about the role of neutrophilic inflammation in canine pancreatitis, and then how the drug that is known as Panoquell-CA1 can be used in treatment. But anyway, it’s an overview of pancreatitis, general treatment stuff. Susan’s a great presenter. One hour free CE. Just got it for you. It’s going to be a great presentation. Let’s get back into this episode.

Stephanie Goss:
I was going to go a completely different direction with my first one, but I’m going to completely change course and piggyback off of what you were just talking about. It wasn’t even on my post-it, but since you were talking about that, I think that it set off a light bulb for me because I will tell you when I hit the point of burnout, for me as a manager, I was at the top of my career in the sense that I had all the promotions, I was at the top. I had ownership experience at that point. I was making decisions. I was truly a hospital administrator running my practice. When you think about the path to leadership in veterinary medicine for a manager, I was there and all the things that I loved about veterinary medicine and all of the reasons why I got into veterinary medicine, I spent very little time doing any of that.
My time day to day was consumed with meetings and planning and spreadsheets and all of the administrative work, which I also love. I love a good spreadsheet. We know this. And getting to be in an exam room and have that mundane conversation to see a client the first time their puppy comes into the vet or to be in the room when somebody says goodbye to a member of their family, those are the things that I enjoy. And I was never the technician that liked the big splashy things. I freaking hate surgery. I was never the one who was like, ooh, get me in the middle of a big giant bloody mess. That was never me. I will sit in the lab and do parasitology all day long. Put me in an exam room for the boring ear and skin conversation.
I will gladly do that. Because for me it was about the little moments. Helping an owner have that light bulb go off where they’re connecting what they’re doing at home and what they’re feeding their pet to the problems we’re seeing in the exam room, whatever. That was the joy for me. And what I realized as a leader when I got to that point was to not allow myself to become so disconnected from that why. It was really easy when I sat back and I was talking it through with my therapist, I was shocked at how easily I let all of that go and how quickly I became disconnected, not only from my joy and excitement about my job, but from my team. And so I would be on the floor and I would be working with them and hearing what’s going on and hearing … I was still doing that, but my mind was on the other things that were sitting on my desk that I had to deal with or the difficult that was coming up at the end of the day or the angry client I knew that I had to call back.
My mind was somewhere else a lot of the time and I wasn’t actually being present in the moment with my team. And so I really worked hard to spend intentional time. It was really hard for me. It was a lot of change. It was turning off notifications on my phone. It was turning off my Apple Watch so I stopped getting some of the notifications. Really truly being present with my team and making intentional time. And I’ll never forget, I had a team member who made probably one of the biggest differences for me.
It was actually a team member that I really kind of struggled with managing. But she came into my office one day and she had a little puppy and she was just like, “Isn’t this thing cute?” And it was so it was one of those puppies that’s so ugly it’s cute and you can’t just help but ooh and ah over him because it’s just so not cute but it’s cute because all puppies are cute. And I was loving on it and being all excited and there was lots of high pitched Stephanie squealing. And she said, “This is the happiest that I’ve seen you at work in a really long time.” And in the moment it wasn’t as a taken aback as I was when I processed it later. But it was funny because later that week, the same person came back into my office and she was like, “Ooh, look at this little kitten.”
And the second time she came into my office, she was like, “I’m going to make it my mission that when we have puppies and kittens in the building, I’m going to make sure you know about it because you look different.” And I was just like, this is a person that I thought didn’t like me as a manager, that I thought didn’t care about me, but that was potentially the most caring thing that she could have said to me because I realized she saw me. She saw the look on my face, she saw my enjoyment and she was true to her word. And she not only came and told me, but she told the rest of the team at our huddle that day. She was like, “Hey, listen up when we have cute patients that come in the building, Stephanie needs to be told.” And it was like my team was just like, uh. And she was like, “No, I mean it. The really cute puppies and kittens, but also the really cute gray muzzles. She needs to know about it. And if she’s free, you need to make her come out of her office and you need to make her come pet.”
She’s like, “Make her hold them, whatever.” And at first my mind went to that place of, oh my God, this is going to be the biggest interruption to all of the things that I had to do. And I’ll tell you, Andy, being forced to put something down that wasn’t really that urgent, but I gave urgency to it because I felt like I needed to do it to do my job. My job was really being able to be present with my team and be present for the clients and the patients and have those conversations. And I found myself gladly saying, I’ll go and do that exam room for you. Why don’t you get some other things done or take a break or whatever.
I’ll step in to do that mundane stuff, right? Because it really connected me with that why and the joy of the happiness that I actually get in veterinary medicine. And it was really, really easy for me to let myself disconnect from that as a leader. And so I would say I’m glad you said that because that’s probably one of the most valuable lessons that I learned was don’t let yourself lose that. Don’t let yourself get so easily disconnected from it because there will always be an email or a meeting or a stack of bills that need to get taken care of. There will always be that administrative work. And unless your power for the clinic is about to get shut off, there’s really probably not something that needs to be done right this second that you can’t stop and take that moment and just enjoy that for yourself, but also for your team and to connect with your why.

Dr. Andy Roark:
Yeah. No, I love that as far as connecting with your why. And again, I get the example of being in the exam room is what matters when you talk about cuddling puppies and kittens. I tell you, one of the things that I got my head around recently is I enjoy leading people. I enjoy mentoring and growing people. And one of the things that makes me deeply happy in the moment is working with my people. It’s coaching them. It’s talking to them about how things are going. It’s asking like, “Well, what do you think? What do you want to do? What are you excited about?” And I really enjoy that. There’s so many ways I want to engage with what you said all at once.
Good gosh, I could do a lot of different things here. I guess, here’s where I’m going. I think this is where my inertia is going. One of the things that I would go into it from here is I would tell my young self beware of monkey management. And so we talk a lot about monkey management of everybody’s got a monkey. It’s like a thing that’s going on with them. It’s something they’re struggling with. And they want to give you their monkey. Everyone’s like, “Hey, I got this thing. Will you take it?” They’re like, “I’m really struggling to get the rest of the front desk staff to do the AHA standards that we need to do.” And you, at least I, forever was like, you know what, servant leadership, I will get involved. I will wade into this. And essentially what I’m like is, I will help you take care of your monkey.
Give it to me. But the truth is as you become a leader and you move up, people are like, “Oh man, she’s really good at this. Let’s let her deal with this monkey.” And so people get real comfortable at bringing you monkeys to deal with and then it’s off their back and it’s all on yours. And I have at times let myself get covered in monkeys because I leaned into servant leadership and been like, yep, you tell me what the problem is and I will wade into it. And in my mind, I was like, this is what servant leadership is. And so what I learned over time is you should be very, very aware of monkeys and who’s trying to give them to you and you should resist them in almost every opportunity. Which means it is so easy to say when the person says, “Hey, I’m trying to get the rest of the CSRs to get on board so we can do our AHA standards.”, you feel like the right thing to say is, “Let me come and help you.”
I would say that’s the wrong thing to say. The right thing is, “Well, what has been your plan thus far and what has happened? And given this is what happened, what do we need to move forward? What does your plan look like?” And just coach instead of wading in unless it is absolutely necessary. And when it’s absolutely necessary, try to jump in, do the one thing you said you were going to do and get back out. But I have gone … Because I was like, this is the job and this is what I need to do, I have 100% gone way too hard into jumping in and helping people. And then what happened, and the reason I brought this up was I’d done this to the point that I have not enjoyed my work in the past.

Stephanie Goss:
Oh yeah, for sure.

Dr. Andy Roark:
I have gone and I’m like, man, I’m doing 15 different projects and none of them are interesting to me. I didn’t start any of them, but now I’m doing all of these things because they need to get done and I don’t enjoy doing these projects. What I do enjoy is coaching and mentoring and leading. But I took myself out of the coach, mentor, leader role and put myself into the coworker role and now I felt stuck there. And so I had to hit the reset button and go, “You know what guys? I’m stepping back from this and I’m going to need you guys. We’re going to come together as a team and I am letting you know that I am stepping back from this project and I am elevating a new leader who I will support.” And then I got back into, yes, I really enjoy this. I enjoy working with people, I enjoy the strategy, I enjoy the leadership, but I don’t enjoy working on AHA standards at the front desk. I have no interest in that. And so anyway, beware of people giving you their monkeys and you taking them on and resist the short-term goal or the short-term benefit of jumping in and helping people in a way that leads to your own long-term detriment.

Stephanie Goss:
Okay. We’re going to go two for two because I’m going to piggyback off of that with something that was on my list. I think that’s so great and I’m glad that you said it because that also contributed to my burnout as a manager. To your point, I was like, “Oh yeah, okay. I can help you solve that. Because I want to help you. And so sure, I can help you solve that problem.” There will never not be someone else’s problem though. And to your point, if you just keep letting the monkeys get dropped off in your office, soon you turn around in your chair and the office is full of monkeys and none of them are yours. Because yours are running loose and rampant through the clinic.

Dr. Andy Roark:
Because your monkeys are important but not urgent. You’re working on the things that matter in the long term and what the monkeys people bring to you, they’re on fire. These are now monkeys that are on fire and you’re like, “I have to deal with the monkey that’s on fire.” And so you leave your important monkey that will one day rule over humanity because it’s so important and smart and you’re taking care of some moron flaming monkey that like, “Why am I the one dealing with this? But here I am because it’s on fire.”

Stephanie Goss:
Yes. No, it’s totally true.

Dr. Andy Roark:
Let’s just stretch this metaphor a little bit farther.

Stephanie Goss:
Okay. Well, I’m going to take us away from the monkeys for a second because you said something that made the light bulb go off for me. One of the things that I was really good at, and I know that I’m not alone, one of the things that I was really good at as the CSR was problem solving. I like to solve problems and veterinarians generally like to solve problems. And I’ve known a whole heck of a lot of really good kennel technicians, vet assistants, techs, CSRs, who really like to solve problems and we’re really good at it. And so someone comes along and says, “Hey, you’re really good at solving problems. I would like to make you in charge of all of these people who have problems.” And I think one of the most important lessons that I learned was very painfully that the things that made me good at my last job won’t necessarily make me good at this job because leading people …
And I can’t wait. I’m hoping someday we get into the argument about managing versus leading, but managing people, leading a clinic is a radically different job than being a doer of things, to your point. And so I think that I really struggled with that because I had great practice owners who looked at me and saw potential in me and said, “You know what? You would make a great leader.” And I’m really glad that they did, but the skillset that I had that made me a great CSR, did not equip me to be a practice manager and understand the basics of HR or to understand the intricacies of conflict management or to understand finances and spreadsheets and how to talk to the CPA. Right? And I learned that lesson very much the hard way that I was a really good problem solver and people could hand me their monkeys and I could help them with that, but that skillset as a leader, when I just let them give me their monkeys and I tried to help them solve their problems, that made me a really good teammate as the CSR and the other CSRs could be like, “Hey, what do we do about this? Hey, what do we do about this?”
And it was fine. I excelled in that role. But when I am sitting trying to figure out the strategic plan for the business for the next year, and everybody’s like, “Hey, what do I do with this? Hey, what do I do with this? Hey, what do I do with this?”, that problem solving skill does not make me a good leader in that moment. If I let them release the monkeys into the office, I am doing myself a disservice and I’m doing the team a disservice. And so remembering the fact that the skills that made you good at your job won’t necessarily make you great at your next one.
And that goes in two different directions. One is figuring out for yourself what are the deficiencies and asking for help. So getting the training, figuring out the gaps for yourself, really understanding what is the job that you’re being asked to do and going after it. And for me, that was a great challenge. I was excited. I love learning. Let me go to see, let me learn all of the things. I was like a little sponge. And I have worked with so many, particularly team leaders, but also with managers who were like, “I got promoted because I was really good at my job and I like this or I could do this, but I’m not really happy. And I really liked that job better.” And so a lot of times we promote people because they’re good at a thing, but they don’t have the skills to make them be equipped for this job. And so I think we all have to remember that as leaders that the skills that made us good at one job don’t necessarily make us great at a different job.

Dr. Andy Roark:
Yeah. I have a related one that is in my head. I agree. I completely agree with what you said. I will also say this is a similar but different thing that I learned along the way. I learned that dealing with people is the job. It is the job. It’s not this obstacle to me doing the job. And I very much had that mindset for 10 years. I was like, “Man, you know what I’m here for? I’m here to accomplish this goal. And what’s in the way? This person who’s crying. This crying person who should just deal with it and go on.” And I’m like, “I’m going to talk to you and I’m going to be nice to you. Do you know why? Because you’re in between me and the objective that I’m trying to accomplish. And so I’m going to be nice to you.”
Maybe I was heartless, but I was like this drama, whatever it is with these people not getting along or being upset, a big part of me was like, this is a distraction to me getting the ultimate outcome I’m trying to get, which is to have the most successful practice in town or to implement this wellness plan. The pushback from the other doctors was an obstacle I had to overcome. And it was this was byproduct. The work of relationships and listening and things like that was an unfortunate byproduct on my way to getting the thing done that I needed to get done. And I mean I wouldn’t say that out loud, and I don’t know that I would’ve verbalized it that way, but to some degree it kind of was. And what I’ve come to realize and believe is dealing with the people is the job.
That is the job. And by dealing with the people, we’ll get that wellness plan done. And by dealing with the people in a really great and productive way, we’ll have the best clinic in town because people will stay motivated and feel supported and be engaged and our retention will be high and they’ll feel like they have a mission and purpose and value in their work and things like that. But it’s not that you have to deal with their drama so that you end up with a great culture. It’s you need to deal with their drama full stop because dealing with people and building those relationships is how you ultimately get the great culture. It’s not that the drama is a byproduct, it’s that the great culture is a byproduct to you dealing with the people. And when I did that, I suddenly found so much more purpose and meaning and value in sitting down and saying, “All right, tell me what’s going on. Help me understand this. And I’m going to coach you.”
I’m like, “All right, I’m getting my notebook here. I want to walk through this with you.” And I did it because this was not a distraction in my way to building great culture. This was the work that builds the great culture. It was the purpose. I was suddenly working on what actually mattered. The whole time, I thought this was in the way of what actually mattered. It’s just not. So anyway, I feel like that’s related in that way of how we look at people and how we engage with them and how we think about engaging with them, it matters.

Stephanie Goss:
For sure. I feel like we are going to have to have a part two to this.

Dr. Andy Roark:
I think so. Yeah. I agree. I was just thinking that. Given that we’re halfway through our lists.

Stephanie Goss:
We’re not even halfway through our lists.

Dr. Andy Roark:
I know. None of what we’ve talked about is actually on either of our lists. I think it’s great. Oh, no, this is much better than what I had.

Stephanie Goss:
This has been so much fun. And in fact, I think we’re going to have to put a part two on the calendar because-

Dr. Andy Roark:
Let’s do it.

Stephanie Goss:
This has been great. Thanks for having the conversation with me. This was fun.

Dr. Andy Roark:
Oh, always. It was super great.

Stephanie Goss:
It was a fun departure from our normal structure.

Dr. Andy Roark:
I agree. I agree. I love the mailbag. And if you got something for our mailbag, send it on. But this is fun every now and then.

Stephanie Goss:
Yeah. All right. Well, have a great week everybody. We’ll talk to you again soon.

Dr. Andy Roark:
Yeah. See you everybody.
And that’s the episode for you, guys. That’s what I got and I hope you enjoy it. If you do, go check out the Unchartered Veterinary Podcast. Like I said, part two of this two part series is over there. You can grab it. If you like this episode, you’ll like that episode. It is different lessons, but it’s definitely familiar. It’s more of the same in the best way possible. Anyway, if you manage other people, if you are a team lead, if you’re a head technician, if you’re a medical director, if you’re a regional medical director, we’ve got over 200 episodes of the Uncharted podcast. And generally what happens is we take questions from vet practices and we break them down and answer them. And so whatever you got going on in your practice, we’ve probably got an episode that covers exactly that topic. So anyway, just a resource for you to have. Take a look at it, keep it around maybe, maybe you’ll be like, “I got a thing. I really would like to hear what Andy and Stephanie Goss have to say about it.” And you may be able to find it. So anyway, that’s it guys. Take care of yourselves. Be well. I’ll talk to you later. Bye.

Back to Reality – The Limits of What We Can Control

by

Jamie Holms, RVT joins the podcast to interview Andy about one of his recent articles. The struggle to take ownership of what we can while knowing when to accept things that are out of our control is never easy. In this episode, Jamie and Andy talk through where those distinctions become challenging in veterinary medicine and what to do when its hard to tell the difference.

You can also listen to this episode on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Amazon Music, Soundcloud, YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts!

LINKS

Article – Back to Reality:
https://todaysveterinarybusiness.com/back-to-reality-discharge-notes-0223/

Dr. Andy Roark Exam Room Communication Tool Box Team Training Course: https://drandyroark.com/on-demand-staff-training/

Dr. Andy Roark Charming the Angry Client Team Training Course: https://drandyroark.com/charming-the-angry-client/

Dr. Andy Roark Swag: drandyroark.com/shop

All Links: linktr.ee/DrAndyRoark

ABOUT OUR GUEST

Jamie Holms RVT is a new chicken mom and the Administrative Manager for Dr. Andy Roark, Uncharted Veterinary Conferences. Jamie is passionate about helping the people who are helping pets and is a firm believer that the future of the veterinary profession is bright. Jamie is obsessed with baby goats, axolotls, hedgehogs, tea, plants (especially hoyas), kindle books, food, and sleep – not necessarily in that order.

Fun Fact: Jamie’s a Slytherin

EPISODE TRANSCRIPT

Dr. Andy Roark:
Welcome, everybody, to the Cone of Shame Veterinary Podcast. I am your host, Dr. Andy Roark.
Guys, I have my dear friend, the one and only Jamie Holmes on the podcast today. We’ve done a couple episodes together. She is a reader and a deep thinker, and every now and then, when I write some things that speak to her and she wants to unpack them some more, she’ll reach out and be like, “Hey, how about I interview you on the podcast?” And that’s what happened today.
Anyway, we’re talking about one of my recent articles called Back to Reality. It is all about trying to figure out what to accept because it’s out of our control and what to not accept, because we do have more influence than we think. How do you parse those things apart? And how do you know when to lean in, and how do you know when to lean back? That’s what we talk about.
Man, I love these conversations. I love talking to Jamie. I hope it’ll be an interesting conversation for you guys. I always love thinking about these things and trying to figure out, when the chaos comes, how do I best use my emotional energy? And that’s really what we get into. Anyway, guys, I hope you enjoy it. Let’s get into this episode.

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 to the podcast, Jamie Holms. How are you?

Jamie Holms:
I’m really good, Andy. I’m so excited to be here and maybe creep you out a little bit about how I backstock on your articles to see if they still hold up.

Dr. Andy Roark:
Oh, no. Oh, no. For those who don’t know you, you are an RVT. You are employee number one.

Jamie Holms:
I am.

Dr. Andy Roark:
At drandyroark.com.

Jamie Holms:
That is right.

Dr. Andy Roark:
And the Uncharted Veterinary Conference. You were.

Jamie Holms:
That’s right. We don’t even count you.

Dr. Andy Roark:
No, I’m not an employee. I have yet to set up payroll for myself.

Jamie Holms:
It’s true.

Dr. Andy Roark:
It is true.

Jamie Holms:
Sometimes, I worry that we don’t pay you and you’re going to leave.

Dr. Andy Roark:
Yeah, no, I just hang around. This is a hobby. As soon as I get paid, then, it won’t be … It’ll work, then.

Jamie Holms:
It won’t be fun anymore.

Dr. Andy Roark:
It’ll be work then. Yeah, then, it’ll be work. So yeah, no, no, no. And we’ve been around, been together a long time, Jamie Holmes.

Jamie Holms:
We have.

Dr. Andy Roark:
The last time you were on the podcast was episode 100 and-

Jamie Holms:
Whoa.

Dr. Andy Roark:
Yeah, it was episode 100, and it was the stories we tell ourselves matter.

Jamie Holms:
Oh, yeah, absolutely.

Dr. Andy Roark:
And that’s what we were talking about. And I looked back at it and I was like, “Oh.” Anyway, it’s been a minute, but as you say, you do to backstock the articles that I write.

Jamie Holms:
I do.

Dr. Andy Roark:
And you I, we discuss these things and get into what does this mean, and philosophically, what is going on in our profession. Anyway, I thought we were probably due for one of those and you said, “I got something I would like to talk to you about,” so I thought I would just bring you on and open it up and let’s talk about what’s on your mind.

Jamie Holms:
That’s perfect. I was reading the article that you wrote, Back to Reality, for Today’s Veterinary Business, and there are some things in there that really hit me. And I was talking to my dad about them, because we’ve been talking a lot about agency recently, and that’s what this is about. One of the things that you said that your brother said to you, and I also didn’t like it, is, you have zero power in this situation.

Dr. Andy Roark:
Oh, yeah. I had to go look at this article, to be honest. You were like, “I’m going to talk to your Back to Reality article.” And I’m like, “I’ve no idea what I said in that article.”

Jamie Holms:
Yeah. For sure.

Dr. Andy Roark:
It’s a little bit of a deep cut and I’ll link it in the show notes, for sure. But it’s funny, I went and looked and I was like, “Oh, I remember this.” It was when I got called for jury duty and I had to go, and I was really busy. We were trying to get one of our conferences off the ground and it was not at a convenient time at all. And I got the jury summons and I’m like, “Oh, man, you got to be kidding me.”
So I reached out to my brother who’s a lawyer, and I was like, “What can I do to not have to do this?” And he was like, “You have zero power here. Zero power.” He was like, “Just go and be nice and hope for the best, but you have zero control.”
And I did not want to hear that. I wanted to believe that I threw charisma or willpower or that through financial strengths, I’m like, “Who do I write a check to get this week of my life back?” And he’s like, “It does not work that way. That’s not going to happen. You have no power.” And it struck me because of how rarely someone says to our face, “You have no control over what’s happening right now.” But it hit me pretty hard and I had to sit with that, and I panicked just to be like, “I have no agency at all here.”

Jamie Holms:
That’s such an extremely difficult place to be. And I think we find ourselves in that place, in veterinary medicine, so often, whether it’s the volume of calls that are coming into the front desk, whether it’s that the phones stopped ringing because the internet is out and our phones are linked to the internet and people can’t get through, those kinds of things.
And I specifically really related to the part where you talked about time taking a toll on your body and you not having any control over that. As you know, I lost both of my knees during COVID, we have mourned for them, and I find myself really comparing myself to who I was three years ago and what I could do three years ago.
And I find myself getting really stuck in those places and not doing everything that I can because I’m so focused on what I can’t do. And I think that we get into that head space in vet med and in our practices when we’re faced with these, whether it’s just one emergency after another, whatever it might be, we really get stuck in those spaces. So I wanted to talk to you about some of the things that you do to put yourself in the right head space and the day-to-day. How do you talk to yourself to practice this? Because it’s a muscle, right? You’re having to flex this muscle.

Dr. Andy Roark:
Okay. I don’t know that I’m the best person to talk about this, Jamie, because it is a bad … I’ll be honest. You write the book you need to read. I think that I’ve written numerous iterations of this article in different ways with different stories because I continue to battle it.
It’s funny you talk about losing your knees. I used to run a lot. I used to love it, and I like being outside and I like having this thing, I run with my dog and stuff like that. And man, I started, when I was probably 35 or so, I got my first bout of plantar fasciitis and my feet hurt and I had to stop running for a while. And then, I got it again later on and I’ve just had a number of bounce of it.
I can’t be a runner anymore like I used to be where I’m like, “I’m going to go run seven miles.” That used to be, it was my stress outlet. I have found other things that I enjoy just as much and that I get the same mental health benefits and community benefits out of. And at the same time, when I see these people out, it’s 70 degrees outside, gorgeous spring day, and there’s some guy in his little shorts running. You know what I mean?

Jamie Holms:
Yes.

Dr. Andy Roark:
Just running through, I’ll be at the park with my kids and he’s running past the waterfall and just the breeze, and he’s got long hair and a beard. He’s who I never was, but always thought, “Man, if I could grow a beard and run shirtless like the wind, I would be somebody.”

Jamie Holms:
You were that guy.

Dr. Andy Roark:
I would be that guy. But I was never that guy. But anyway, when I see that guy today, it just bugs the hell out of me because I can’t do that. I can’t. I can do it for a little bit, and then my feet are going to explode, and then I’m going to be miserable and it’s not worth it.
So even though there are alternatives that I have found, I work out, I row, I walk, I do all these things that are great. Actually, I hike a lot, do all these things. But boy, when I see that and I go, “I can’t do that,” that really, it still bothers me.
I’ve gotten a lot better at it. I’ve gotten a lot better at it, but it has always been a battle. Well, I’ll take that back. It has gotten to be a battle since I hit 40, six years ago. Sure. Because I was never 23, like, boy, I remember back when I could do those things.

Jamie Holms:
Yes, true.

Dr. Andy Roark:
That’s definitely a later in life experience.

Jamie Holms:
That’s one of the things that I love about you is, you always think that you’re not the right person to talk about something because you’re in the battle, but I can relate to this, so I know our listeners can relate to this.
Let’s backtrack just a little bit and let’s go smaller because you like to dig in.

Dr. Andy Roark:
Okay.

Jamie Holms:
You talk about the importance of differentiating between what we control and what we can’t in this article. I struggle with this sometimes, as you know, where I think I can control things that I can’t. So how do you suggest that we find this distinction, especially in practice?

Dr. Andy Roark:
Yeah. I think one of the greatest challenges in life is figuring out how to differentiate where we have control and where we don’t, I really think. And I think that as you go on in your life, you get better at making that distinction, but I think most of us … It’s this weird pendulum. It’s this yin and the yang.
Because I really do believe, as far as being successful in life and being happy in life, the more that you believe you do have control over your circumstances, I think the happier you’re going to be, in most cases. I think people who say, “Yeah, you know what? I’m going to put a smile on my face. I am going to manifest a good day. I am going to go out and I am going to make the world a better place, and I am going to make other people’s days better,” I think that that is a healthy, really positive, really good place to come from. Most of the most successful people I know, they believe that they can make things happen.
It’s like the professional athletes, the legends, they always wanted to have the ball at the end of the game because they believed that they could make the game change, that they could have this impact. So I do think that we can have that. I think that’s important. But I think the paradox in life is, it’s also, it has its own challenges of taking this ownership, because then, you end up holding yourself accountable for things that you’re not accountable to.
I think that there’s a lot of things in life that are set up paradoxically where the best case scenario is also an uncomfortable scenario, and the more comfortable you try to become, the less comfortable you’re going to be in the long term. So I think taking ownership of our position is that way where it’s like, man, in the short term term, it would be really nice for me to go, “I cannot have power here, so I’m just going to step back and let go.” And over the course of your life, the more you say, “You know what? What agency do I have here? And how do I use that agency?” And insisting that I do have agency.
One of the phrases I heard from a mentor years ago, way back at the beginning of my career, I was working at this big practice and I really did not have any power. I was one of, basically, 30 doctors that were there. And it was a good place, but it was still, everybody chafes, right? And there’s always something that you don’t like. And I forget what the stupid thing was that I didn’t like, but I felt like, I don’t have any agency here because there’s so many voices, there’s so many people here.
So I said to one of my mentors, I was like, “I don’t have any power here.” And he said, “Could you make life worse for the people around you?” And I was like, “Oh, yeah, of course I absolutely could make their life worse, no doubt.” And he was like, “Then, great. Then, you could clearly make their life better. If you could make it worse, you could make it better.” And I was like, “Yeah.” And he was like, “Then, you have agency.”
And that whole idea of, could I make things worse? If the answer is yes, that means I have some agency. And I can use that agency to do good, but for some reason, I don’t know, that just clicked with me as far as coming to believe that I do have this power. Anyway. That’s where I started off with starting to wrestle with what power do we have.

Jamie Holms:
I love that. That’s something that I’m going to use in my life and when I am struggling and be like, “Can I make this situation worse? Why, yes, I can.”

Dr. Andy Roark:
Why, yes, I can. That means I could also-

Jamie Holms:
Of course, I can. Is this a challenge? Sold.

Dr. Andy Roark:
That means I could also make it … Yeah. Exactly. I don’t know why I rise to that, but I’m like, “Oh, buddy, I can get real creative right now. How do make this worse?” I’m like, “I will come up with some weird stuff you have not seen. I will make this worse in ways people have not anticipated.” But why am I not so creative in coming up with ways to make it better? I don’t know, but once I do the “How do I make it worse?” Exercise, it stretches my brain out, like, oh, I do have power here. And then, I can find a positive way, but that was super simple, but that just having it shown to me that way, for whatever reason, it just resonated with me. And so I’m like, “Oh, I do have agency.”
And then, on the flip side, there was another piece of advice I heard much later in my career that rocked me about how little control we have. And the saying is, “There’s three things we don’t control: the past, the future and other people.” And I go, “Oh, man, it seems paradoxical that I can convince myself I do have agency, I do have control, also, not over the past, the future, of other people.”
But I think that it’s this narrowing, right? It’s this narrowing of focus, of understanding where we don’t have control, and then, figuring out the pressure points where we can put our finger and push and make a real difference. And if you’re familiar with pressure points, you know that applying a bit of pressure at a specific area on the human body can cause great pain, it can have great impact on that person. It’s the same thing of, boy, I can only push on these little areas, but if I push on the right area in the right way, I can have a huge impact.
Going back to the jury duty thing, and when you and I were talking about it, he was like, “You have no power in this situation.” And he was right in that I have no power over whether or not I’m put on this jury, over what hours I’m going to be there, over how long these trials are going to go, over whether if I get picked for a jury, 11 people are going to agree, or we’re going to sit there for two days and not agree. I don’t have any power over any of that, but I do have power over how I feel about it and how I behave. And do I go in and have a good attitude about it? Or do I go in and just make myself miserable?
Because one way or another, I’m going to do it. It’s that, when it snows, you got two options. You can be miserable that it snowed, or you’d be happy that it snowed. But either way, you’re still dealing with the snow. I think that there’s a lot of truth to that. I don’t know, does that feel as far as threading that needle?

Jamie Holms:
Man, I love it. It feels so simple to say, “This is how you start getting agency back.” Because I think that’s one of the things that I struggle with is, so many times I hear, “You don’t have control over the situation. You only control how you react to it.” And very often, reaction is a thing that just happens inside of me and I want to respond, and I don’t know how to bridge that gap between reaction and response. And the only thing I know to do is to put distance, space between the thing. And we don’t always have that option, especially at work, and in practice. The phones are ringing, people are walking through the door and you’ve just got to do this. And what a quick thing, just like breathing exercises, is to ask yourself, “Can I make this worse? Great. How can I make it better?” And that’s just so simple.

Dr. Andy Roark:
Hey, guys, I’m going to duck in real quick here and just let you know, I am looking for dynamic duos. I am looking for practice managers and practice owners that love working together, that want to work together more effectively, that want to develop ways of working, that want to develop strategies where they compliment each other. And the reason I’m looking for those people is because we, at Uncharted Veterinary Conference, where I work, have put together a conference for dynamic duos.
We have our Practice Leader Summit. It is in Greenville, South Carolina. It is December 7th through the 9th. This is open only to practice owners and practice managers. Ideally, I’d love for those guys to come together and we are going to have some work separately time and they’re going to have some work together time because, man, that head down, come in together, work on our practice together time is so rare and so valuable.
Anyway. I love it when people come in pairs, but if you’re a practice owner and you say, “I don’t have a practice manager,” or you’re a practice manager and you’re like, “Hey, the practice owner’s not going to be up for it,” or, “I don’t have a practice owner,” you are welcome to come along and you’re going to work with other practice managers and you are going to learn a ton.
Again, Practice Leader Summit, Greenville, South Carolina, December 7th through the 9th. It is a leadership summit. There’s going to be a lot of interactivity, a lot of active work on your practice. I would love to see you there. I’ll put a link to register in the show notes. Guys, let’s get back into this episode.
Well, going to the breathing exercises, you say that, and I’m not a super woo-woo guy, but there is definitely some pieces of woo-woo that I’m like, “It kind of works.” There’s a reason that meditation has been around for 5,000 years.

Jamie Holms:
For sure.

Dr. Andy Roark:
It does work. But the way I think about that stuff is, and I think you’re right, I think one of the real skills that we can acquire, and some people are wired this way where it’s easier for them. They’re naturally geared this way. Other people, it’s a much bigger lift. But I love how you said that, when something happens that’s out of my control, how do I create that space to get my head around it and be like, “I don’t control this, but I got to deal with it, but my control is very limited here.” How do I create that space so I can get a clearer look at it and not feel steamrolled about it, not feel emotional about it, things like that.
I really do think that that is a skill that we can build. And I do think everybody’s got to find their thing. I’ve heard a million people be like, “This is what you do,” and I’m like, “That doesn’t work for me.” And I found other things, I go, “This works,” and I explain it to people and they just, the blank look on their face.

Jamie Holms:
For sure.

Dr. Andy Roark:
But the ability to create space, as you said, I think that is Jedi skill level. It’s the ability, when the phones are ringing, and there’s a client in the room who is angry and you’re going to have to deal with it, and the stupid CBC machine is just spitting out errors for reasons that make no sense at all, can you create some space and say, “What do I control here? And how do I exert my influence in the most productive way possible?” And man, that is really, that’s enlightenment. That is the zen master of vet medicine is, can you do that?
Unfortunately, there’s a lot of tools that help us get space if we have time if we’ve got something that’s nagging at us. I talk, sometimes, I try to be open about this, but I talk about when my wife got cancer last year and boy, I did a lot of walking. I did a lot of gardening. I did a lot of rowing on the rowing machine. I did a lot of stuff that I know helps me. I did a lot of painting. These things that I have found that are like, “Oh, I can get some space here.” This is how I calm things down and get some space and some perspective.
But you have to have a different set of tools for in the moment. For a long time, I did not have those in the moment tools. I still, like everybody, wrestle with them, depending on what’s going on. I got pretty good at those longer term space getters. I was good at going out and finding other things to do and exercise and stress management and stuff like that. But man, those in the moment things, they took a lot of time. I still work on it. I’ve come a long way with getting centered. Some mindfulness stuff, some deep breaths, some … I focus on my knuckles. I don’t know why. I focus on my knuckles.
There’s this basketball coach, this legendary basketball coach, his name, Phil Jackson. And he won 11 NBA titles. He coached Michael Jordan and the Bulls, he coached Kobe Bryant, Shaquille O’Neal with the Lakers, and he’s won like 11 NBA titles. And he’s also a practicing Buddhist, which I think is interesting. He’s an interesting guy. Anyway. I heard him talking one time and he was telling this story about the year 2000’s basketball season.
So he’s coaching in the year 2000. And that’s when, I don’t know if you heard, there was a pandemic. So there was a pandemic and everything shut down. But the NBA was like, “No, we are making money because that’s what we do. We’ve got this pandemic thing.” So they took the entire league and put them in a hotel, basically. Imagine a Disney property, and there’s a basketball court at this place.

Jamie Holms:
What could go wrong?

Dr. Andy Roark:
What could go wrong? Well, they went for it, right? Oh, they were not … You had to test and quarantine to go in.

Jamie Holms:
Oh, my gosh.

Dr. Andy Roark:
So people could not go … These people were separated from their families for the NBA season. It was bonkers. It was a crazy experiment. You should just read about it just to read about it. It’s incredible. But they were like, “We are going for it.” So all the journalists had to stay in. They couldn’t come and go. If you went, they called it the bubble. If you went into the bubble, you were in the bubble. So being in the bubble, according to Phil Jackson, had these really unique psychological challenges for the people who were there and the players. And they’re seeing social media and all these things that are going on and they’re away from their family, so keeping them focused and centered was really hard to get them to play basketball.
It was a simple thing that he did, but he had all of his players, they would all wear rubber bands around their wrists. That was it. And you were supposed to have your rubber band on. So he would get them to wear rubber bands around their wrists. And the reason was so that he could tell them to snap their bands, or if you were working with somebody and you could tell they were zoned out, they were not present in what you were doing, you could reach over and pull their rubber band and let it go so it smacked them. And it was enough of a stimulus that it would focus you back on the moment. This thing smacks on your wrists and you feel that amount a pain, it brings you back to, oh, this is what I’m doing. I’m present.
I never went as far as getting a rubber band for when chaos was going on all around me and I was being swept up in it, but for whatever reason, I would think about that rubber band. And I just found that, if I stop and focus on my breathing, and there’s something about if I just make a fist and look at my knuckles and just focus on them, that’s just my thing and I can get centered and bring my thoughts back to where we are. Anyway. We bring our thoughts back like that. That’s been key for me.
The other thing that I didn’t have in the toolbox when I wrote the article but I find myself doing now, I have found that it’s much easier, when I’m in the moment and things are going crazy, if I can step back for one second and just get a piece of paper and I say, “Great, what questions do I need answers to?” And if I can make a list of the questions I need answers to, that generally helps. It shifts me into a problem solving place that makes some sense it. So, “Why is this person mad? What can I do in this moment to help her feel better? What are the next steps, diagnostically, if the CBC machine doesn’t work?”
And that’s naturally where people’s minds go anyway, but I think a lot of us get stuck. We’re stuck in the stress and we don’t convert it to the action of, this is what I’m going to do next. And for whatever reason, for me, asking those questions, it makes clear my options. Because once I have the questions, I can go, “Great. I don’t have to answer these questions, but what do I need to do to find the answer to these questions? So what are my diagnostic options if the CBC machine continues not to work?” I can huddle up the other doctors real quick and ask and get some insight on that.
I don’t have to know the answer, but I know where I can get the answer. So now, getting that answer becomes an action step of something that I can do and it’s converting that feeling of powerlessness into something that I actually have agency over. And that’s been a tool in my toolbox recently of taking stress, taking chaos, converting it into a list of questions that I need to have answers to. And then, not trying to answer the questions, but grouping them together and saying, “Great. How am I going to get these answers?”
For example, here, let’s just say that I came up with a list of 10 questions I needed answers to. Well, I’m going to huddle the doctors up because I need some advice on what to do if I can’t get my CBC machine working. I’m also looking at my list. I could also ask the group of doctors four other questions that are on this list. And so now suddenly I’m calling a huddle, a doctor huddle, and I’m like, “Guys, I got four questions that I need help with. Bang, bang, bang, bang.” And it’s efficient and it’s fast and I’m getting what I need. And now, I’m back into having active control over the things that I got control over. So that’s just a shortcut that I’ve been using recently that I’ve just found. Again, everybody’s got to find their own thing, but man, that really works for me.

Jamie Holms:
Yeah, I love that. And it takes you from that emotional mindset, right? Because when we’re feeling powerless, that’s an emotion. We’re really wrapped up in that. It changes everything happening in our brain. Our heart is going faster and we’re uncomfortable. And once we get that little piece of control back by switching to that logical mindset by doing some creative problem solving and thinking that through, we’ve switched to that.

Dr. Andy Roark:
Well, I can go from anger or frustration to problem solving. That is a shift I can make. I have never been zen enough, and I probably will never be zen enough, to go from anger to tranquility. I can’t. But I can get around to tranquility if I’m like, “I am frustrated. All right, great. I’m going to switch out. Let’s start problem solving. What are the questions that we have? What are my questions?” And I can make questions while I’m ticked off. I’m like, “Why is this woman the worst?” And it’s helpful. I can get over towards positivity that way, but it’s almost like, if you try to go directly from anger to tranquility, it’s not going to happen. So I go from anger to problem solving, and then try to come back around into solutions. And then, ultimately, you can get to tranquility because you’re actively working on the thing that you’re working on.
I heard some advice one time. Again, I feel like I’m just pulling out different things that people said to me in my life, but for whatever reason, when you hear something that sticks, there’s usually a reason for that.

Jamie Holms:
For sure.

Dr. Andy Roark:
But I had a buddy, and one of his things was, he would say, “Life is what you focus on.” And I always thought that was really important as far as, when you’re in the clinic and there’s just chaos all around you, if you focus on the chaos and believing there’s chaos and being frustrated that there’s chaos, then, your life is chaos. It’s focused on chaos, it’s centered on chaos, it’s anchored to chaos, it’s what it is. But if we can get our head around, I’m going to focus on where I have agency, then, you have an empowered life.
So I can focus on the fact that I didn’t want to go to jury duty, I don’t have time to go to jury duty. Honestly, when I got called for jury duty, my wife had just gotten her breast cancer diagnosis. And I’m like, “Man, are you kidding me?” And that was happening in the background. So I can focus on that and my life can be fear and frustration, or I can say, “You know what? There’s probably some good to this.” Because what ended up happening was, I got called for one trial and it lasted half of one day, and that was it.
And basically, I had a week off at this time that my wife had her diagnosis, and it ended up being this really good thing. But boy, that was not my reception going in. But it just worked out that way. And it could have worked out differently, but life is … What if you focus on optimism? What if you’re like, “I’m going to focus on what’s good and what I can control. I’m going to focus on just being present and doing something different and getting my mind off of things that are going on elsewhere. I’m going to focus on the fact that I’m not in the clinic where things are crazy. I am, instead, just sitting in this jury box listening to someone explain what happened in a traffic accident and just, that’s what I’m doing.” Anyway. Life is what you focus on. I think really that has been really powerful for me.

Jamie Holms:
I agree. I think that’s incredible. When my dad and I were talking about agency, and he was a fire chief in Orange County and he had a lot of things he had no control over, and we talked about how he helped himself find that agency. He said creative problem solving was one of his number ones. And the second I thought was really interesting was that, when he got into that problem solving, that same thing that you’re talking about, that making a list, that it helped him flex his empathy and compassion, and then, that just changed his perspectives.

Dr. Andy Roark:
Oh, interesting.

Jamie Holms:
So that he could go into a situation with the board of supervisors and they were making a decision that maybe it wasn’t the best thing, in his opinion, for public safety. And he could ask himself, “What may make them make these decisions? Or what might they be thinking about? And how can I appeal to them differently?” Or, “What are their concerns? What problems are they trying to solve?”
And I think about that a lot when we go into practice and we’re sitting in there and we’re talking to people and the problem that we’re trying to solve is probably not the problem that they’re trying to solve. And I think about that. I think about that a lot. And how do we get to the place where we find out what problems they’re trying to solve so that we can help them get their agency back? Because I think that’s what’s happening, when they’re so angry, is that they feel like they also have no control in the situation. And how do we give them them some of their own agency back? And I think that’s a gift we can give them.

Dr. Andy Roark:
I really like that. Because empathy is a huge problem solving tool, right?

Jamie Holms:
Absolutely.

Dr. Andy Roark:
We talk about dealing with angry people, we talk about working with the staff, working with teams, trying to assume good intent on the part of others. All of these things are skills that we know are effective, and that, on our best days, we say, “Yes, this is how I handle this angry client.” So if I said, “Hey, what are the steps for dealing with this angry person?” I’m sure I’d get a list of wonderful things from everybody involved.
But of course, you say, “I’m going to try to hear this person. I’m going to try to assume good intent from this person. I’m going to remember that everyone’s fighting a battle we don’t know anything about. I’m going to try to empathize and sympathize,” and all of those things. So if I can get from frustration into problem solving, and then, problem solving says, “Okay, what are our tools to handle this?,” that gets me into empathy, assuming good intent. That’s how I come back around to tranquility. That’s beautiful, Jamie.
Hey, thanks so much for pushing to get together to talk about this.

Jamie Holms:
I love it.

Dr. Andy Roark:
I really appreciate you.

Jamie Holms:
This is great.

Dr. Andy Roark:
Thank you for doing this with me.

Jamie Holms:
Totally.

Dr. Andy Roark:
This is such good timing. I just had this conversation with my dad. I love it.

Jamie Holms:
Oh, thanks a lot. Awesome. Well, thanks to everybody for listening. Take care of yourselves, everybody.

Dr. Andy Roark:
Bye. And that’s it. That’s what I got for you guys. I hope you enjoyed it. Thanks to Jamie for being here. As always, if you enjoyed the episode, please do me a favor and leave me an honest review wherever you get your podcasts, or share the episode with your friends.
That’s how people find us, those two ways. Anyway, that’s what it’s all about. I want to help as many people as possible, and I need you guys to spread the word and let people know that we’re over here doing it. Otherwise, I feel like I’m just talking into the void, sometimes. But then, people come up and say, “Hey, you said this thing was really helpful,” and it all is worth it again. Anyway, that’s all I ask. That’s it. Anyway. Okay. Take care of yourselves. Be well. I’ll talk to you later on.

The Expanding Cat

by

Last week I saw a cat that had gained 2 lbs since her last visit. I stood at the computer and double checked what I was seeing. Why would this 4 year-old cat suddenly gain 25% of her body weight in 6 months?

I decided then and there that I would have an honest conversation with this pet owner. I’d tell her how worried I was for the cat and how unacceptable an increase in weight like this was. Clearly the rules were not being followed, and this cat was the one paying the price!

I marched into the room ready to talk pointedly about why fixing this problem was vitally important.

It turns out that the person in the exam room was not the cat’s owner, but his daughter. She looked at me sheepishly and said “I know she’s gained weight. My father loves her so, so much and he has dementia. Whenever the cat meows at him, he gives her a treat… and forgets that he’s just done it.”

We had a good-hearted laugh about how the cat has been so effective at getting her father trained. 

Of course we still talked about how important weight control is, but the conversation was night-and-day different from how I imagined it being. That’s often the case in medicine. We think we know people or that we can guess what’s happening behind the scenes in the lives of those who walk through our doors… but we can’t.

One of my favorite pieces of advice on working with other people is to “seek first to understand.” 

Whether it’s talking to pet owners, team members, or significant others, I don’t know that I’ve found better insight into not just being effective as a communicator, but also into genuinely enjoying being around others.

The next time we think we know what the story is, maybe we can remember the clever cat and take a moment to investigate before passing judgment.