DrAndyRoark.com

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Perspective

What Does It Mean To Be Strong?

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Over this past year, I’ve found myself reexamining a number of beliefs I had formed as a child. Some of these reflections come from the fact that I’m getting older. Some come from my wife’s cancer diagnosis last year. And some are simply a recognition that the world is changing and I would like to keep up.

One belief I’ve been thinking a lot about is what it means to be “strong.” Growing up as a boy in the 80s, my definition of strength developed from action movies. Think bulging muscles, boxing matches, and shoot-em-up justice. For a long time, strength to me meant lifting heavy objects and perseverance regardless of the odds.

Today, that definition doesn’t hold up. Of all the strong people I know, not one of them has ever rescued a hostage or even been in a kung fu death tournament (that I know of).

As I look at what strength is today, I don’t think it has anything to do with physical performance. I think it’s about an unwavering commitment to just keep going. 

I’ve always loved the idea that life is not about standing tall. It’s about getting back up when you get knocked down. I don’t think I ever realized, however, that this is the definition of what it means to be strong. It has nothing to do with being “victorious” and everything to do with always putting one foot in front of the other.

I need to say clearly here, that I do not think strength is a refusal to quit. In fact, I think true strength involves seeing situations clearly and sometimes making the difficult decision to change course, to do something new, or to leave the comfort of certainty behind.

Strong people who find themselves in a job that’s unfulfilling don’t exhibit strength by “toughing it out.” They exhibit strength by accepting the situation, deciding what to do about it, and then moving forward down a path of uncertainty where they do not know what will happen. 

Strong people who are burned out and depressed don’t have to show strength by just “hanging in there.” They can show strength by putting one foot in front of the other and accepting help. Strength can be going to therapy, talking to a doctor, making changes in our lives, and doing what we need to do to keep going. For most of my life, I don’t think I understood that some of the greatest acts of strength involve allowing others to help us.

In the end, strength is not about refusing to quit or change. It’s the opposite of that. Strength is about accepting that life will bring us hardship, and we must keep moving forward…often by making changes instead of refusing them.

My Plate Runneth Over: My Top Tip For Keeping ‘Busy’ From Becoming ‘Overwhelmed’

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I love picking up new colorful phrases. I especially find joy in short sayings that express a pile of emotions in itty-bitty packages. A recent phrase caught my attention when I asked someone how they have been doing and they replied “Busy. My plate runneth over.”

The combination of “my plate is full” with “my cup runneth over” really captures the experience of feeling overwhelmed by good things in a way I haven’t heard before.

I’m a big believer that staying busy is a positive thing. I find that I’m happier and feel better about myself when I’m steadily hustling from one project to the next. At the end of a busy day, assuming my pace is intentional rather than frantic, I feel accomplished and have enjoyed ticking things off my to-do list.

Crossing the line between ‘busy’ and ‘overwhelmed’

The problem I (and I’m sure others) experience is when busy becomes overwhelmed. Once I fall over that edge, I simply can’t get everything done. And my enjoyment of being productive begins to turn into a feeling of failure. 

Unfortunately, I’ve had this experience a lot over the past 6 months. My job at Uncharted has been wonderful, but endless, and my number of employees has more than doubled. We have so many active projects running that I’m genuinely excited about. My enthusiasm, however, has not saved me from occasionally feeling like I’m drowning in my task list. My plate has truly runneth over.

So what do you do when you get to this point? 

When you are too busy and honestly don’t think you can take projects or commitments off of your plate, how do you make peace with the fact that some days you simply can’t get everything done? Is there a healthier approach than just resigning yourself to trudging onward while trying not to think about how many things are piled on top of you?

How to undo your overwhelm

The solution that has made a huge difference for me is pretty simple: break my overwhelm into pieces and spread it out on the calendar. 

For example, getting a new hire effectively onboarded is an enormous task. It takes a lot of time. Projects like this can make me feel like I’m failing every day that I have not gotten this person fully onboarded. It’s this nagging feeling of not getting all your work done day-after-day for months. And it’s how a lot of people spend their time!

My advice is to imagine what a fully on-boarded person looks like. Then, break out the steps it would take to get your new hire to that point. Put those steps on the calendar spread over a reasonable timeframe. Now, you’re not failing because the new person is not fully onboarded. You’re succeeding because your goal for this week was to cover one specific part of their training and you did that. Also, next week doesn’t seem terrible because you only have to do the next piece of the program you created.

Yes, I know this sounds basic. But it can be life-changing. Think about the big thing that’s hanging over your head and decide what “done” looks like. Then write down the action steps it will take to get you there and put each one on your calendar. Voilà! You’re not struggling anymore. You’re running a manageable program… and you’re right on schedule.

You Deserve Credit For Your Work

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The most common personal development mistake I see when it comes to working on new leadership or communication skills is not positioning yourself to get credit for your work. Yes, I’m looking at you team leads, associate veterinarians, medical directors, managers, and anyone working in corporate practices working hard on your skillset. 

You work so hard on making yourself a better communicator, more supportive of the team, or more efficient with your time. And that work tends to be invisible to the people who give your performance review. Think about it. You’re doing work that is going to benefit the practice, but no one acknowledges the effort. They often don’t even know about it. 

It’s a shame for both individuals working hard on themselves and for the practice that should want to encourage this kind of growth.

If you’re going to work on yourself as a leader or communicator, set yourself up to get rewarded for that work as much as possible. Why shouldn’t you get pats on the back just like the doctor who focuses on dentistry or dermatology? The way to do that is simple: focus on impact.

Focus on the impact of your growth

Think about what your personal or professional development goal will be. How will that growth manifest in your clinic? 

If you’re going to focus on appreciation, that might translate to increased team or employee engagement, higher staff retention, better job satisfaction scores, etc. Working on your communication skills might mean reduced absenteeism, more frequent and productive training for staff, and so on. Decide what impact your personal growth might have. Then communicate to those around you that you are working to make this impact happen.

Too often I see people make real progress in their skills and knowledge only to be ignored at the end of the year or told “You didn’t hit the numbers we set at the beginning of the year.”

My goal in writing this is to encourage you:

  1. Set your goal
  2. Determine how your success will be visible and beneficial to the team you lead
  3. To communicate that impact to your practice so that your personal success will be seen as a team success. 

Ideally, I’d like to see your goals affect which numbers you will be measured against at the end of the year. If you can do this, you’ll not only have the benefit of the growth you achieved, but your success may be recognized and even rewarded!

Final Thought

Never forget that leaders in practice get opportunities based more on what people hear them working on than results they actually achieve. (I know. It’s a bummer). Turning your personal development goals into impact statements lets people know what you are working on. It puts you into their minds as someone who is trying to make a difference. That is how we build a reputation that serves us well year-after-year.

Good luck!

Thoughts On Discounting & Paying Staff

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A few weeks ago, I published one of my Cone of Shame podcasts on “Intentional Discounting.” I talked with Dr. Tannetje Crocker about when and how she gives discounts to clients in the emergency room, and the episode certainly got peoples’ attention. I ended up getting a bit of criticism over the piece, and now that I’ve reflected on it, I’d like to share what I have learned.

The criticisms I got basically fell into three categories. 

1. Drawn Conclusions

The first category was people who read the pull quote on social media, looked at comments from others, and then shared strong feelings about what they assumed was in the podcast. 

2. Questions About Fairness

The second category was one that I think is very valid and basically comes down to questions about fairness in discounting for some and not others, and also about how realistic it is for most practices to reduce their prices “as needed.” This was an error on my part in framing the conversation. 

I think reducing prices is one tool in the toolbox of practices trying to help pet owners provide care. I personally think it should be an infrequently used tool, and one that is a tiny part of a much larger system of supporting pet owners having financial difficulties. My mistake was not stating those beliefs at the start, rather jumping in with Dr. Crocker to discuss how discounting is done without enough surrounding context. That’s an adjustment I will certainly make in the future whenever talking about reducing prices.

3. Discounting & The Impacts On Staff Salaries

The third category is the one that has bothered me a bit. There were a number of people who felt that discounting services would prevent technicians from being able to earn a higher wage. They pointed out that I have regularly talked about the importance of raising technician salaries and felt that my openness to discounting in certain situations was counterproductive.

While I understand the basic idea that if practices do not collect revenue, they can’t then give said revenue to their technicians. I think the situation is a bit more complicated than that. 

Yes, I do believe that low salaries are damaging to our profession retaining and creating positive work experiences for paraprofessionals. However, let me ask you this… would you be more likely to leave a practice because it paid slightly less, or because it had a policy of turning pet owners away if they could not afford services?

There’s an undeniable emotional cost to withholding care based on a pet owner’s inability to pay the bill. That doesn’t release us from our responsibility to create a living wage for our people or to run a healthy business. It does, in my opinion, prohibit us from looking at financial policy in the black and white terms of “pay us or leave.”

The Importance of Balance In Access To Care

When we talk about access to care, we should never forget that success in veterinary medicine is balance. It’s about finding solutions that work for everyone. It’s about weighing our need to generate revenue against our needs to provide care to pets and people. 

No, this is not an easy position and most of us get it wrong from time-to-time. But the future of our profession is neither an exercise in maximizing income or in unsustainably sacrificing ourselves and our teams to provide the highest standard of care to all who walk through our doors.

My friends, our lives would be much easier if we simply demanded payment in full up front and turned away anyone who couldn’t afford it. After all, isn’t that what almost every other business does? But this is not our purpose and while our lives would be simpler, they would be poisonous to our souls. Yes, our road is a complicated one. Our challenge must always be to take better care of both pets AND ourselves.

Learner’s Permits & The Power of Referred Joy

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

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

An evening driving lesson

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

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

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

Acknowledging the presence of referred joy

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

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

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

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

Final Thought

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

Happiness Is Looking Forward To Carrot Cake

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

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

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

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

Well, the IT company never showed up. 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I can.