This week on the Uncharted Podcast, Dr. Andy Roark and practice management geek Stephanie Goss are diving in and grabbing another email from our mailbag. We received a wonderful email of gratitude from an Australian veterinarian who said “You don't know me from a surgical scrub brush, but you saved my life.” After drying their eyes, Andy and Stephanie managed to pull out the meat and potatoes of this email where our veterinarian was asking for ways that they could help locally and how we could effect change globally in veterinary medicine when it comes to how we handle learning about and managing failure. This is a powerful tool worthy of serious discussion and Andy and Stephanie really enjoying diving in to some of the facets of this very multi-faceted conversation. Let's get into this…
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Episode Transcript
Stephanie Goss:
Hey everybody, I am Stephanie Goss, and this is another episode of the Uncharted Podcast. This week on the podcast, Andy and I are tackling a mailbag letter that comes to us all the way from a friend in Australia. It is a really fun one, it starts out on a little bit of a heavy note. So just to give everybody a warning, this episode does mention and talk about mental health in our profession and about suicide awareness. And it starts, because one of our readers was impacted by something around those topics, that is work that Andy and our team have done and started as a thank you. And so we do start there, and yet we move on to the heart of their email, which was about how do we better prepare, in particular new graduates and new vets from being trapped under the weight of their own expectations and their fear of failure.
And I think that this is an episode that goes far beyond just new graduates. I think there are a lot of us in veterinary medicine who put a ton of pressure on ourselves and are super hard on ourselves, and failure is a big challenge. I really, really love the questions that we're asked in this email. This might be one of the episodes that I have truly enjoyed doing the most, in all of the years that Andy and I have been recording. I think the topic is really, really important and I'm really excited to share it with you. Let's get into it.
Speaker 2:
And now, the Uncharted Podcast.
Dr. Andy Roark:
And we are back. It's me, Dr. Andy Roark and the one and only, Stephanie, teach your children well, Goss and know they love you.
Stephanie Goss:
How's it going? Hi, Skipper Roark.
Dr. Andy Roark:
Hello. Skipper is here demanding attention. He's been traumatized, because there are turkeys, there are wild turkeys that have discovered, they live in the forest and look, just bear with me, Goss. I'm already losing you.
Stephanie Goss:
Nah-ah, keep going.
Dr. Andy Roark:
So Skipper, who struggles with his confidence as part one, part two is there are wild turkeys that live in the forest and they have discovered that the birds that eat at the bird feeders on my deck, throw half of the seed that I pay good money for out of the bird feeder onto the ground. And so there's a pair of turkeys, not my children, two different turkeys that come to the house every day and raid the flowerbed looking for seeds, and they have an antagonistic relationship with Skipper. And so Skipper's here, he needs some moral support, because the first couple of times they came and found some seeds, Skipper would spot them, and he would just go off from inside the glass doors.
Stephanie Goss:
Sure.
Dr. Andy Roark:
And of course, they're turkeys, they're goofy turkeys, they're like and they would freak out and run different directions like a cartoon. You know what I mean? Like Wiley Coyote, just two turkeys, they run into each other and then they would run away, it was just absolute ridiculousness. Anyway, at this point, he's never gotten out of the glass door and so they're starting to not take him seriously. And so I'm seeing them just waddling at him and he's losing it and I think it's probably bad for his confidence, which he struggles with. And so anyway, he's here being reassured, because the turkeys question his dominance of the yard, at this point.
Stephanie Goss:
I've never once really wished that we did this podcast on video.
Dr. Andy Roark:
So you could see my turkey impression.
Stephanie Goss:
Yes. For everybody to see your face smashed against the glass, imitating Skipper, watching the turkeys gobble.
Dr. Andy Roark:
I really like the turkeys. I would take the Turkey over the deer every day of the week, I'm not a deer fan.
Stephanie Goss:
I was going to say, that's my question. Are you using the cowbell method on the turkeys, the same way you do on the deer?
Dr. Andy Roark:
I'm pro Turkey. No, I am pro Turkey.
Stephanie Goss:
You're pro Turkey.
Dr. Andy Roark:
Yeah. No, I've got deer that eat my plants. I've got bears that, there's one bear, he's a bad bear. I have a bad bear who just, he knows when trash day is and he just goes through the neighborhood just flipping them over. So Allison and I came independently to a solution, we were both like, how much does he want to get in this trash? Is it just that it's easy? And so we both were like, what if we got some sort of a latching mechanism? So I was like, we should get a latching mechanism. I came home when Allison showed me on her phone, I was thinking about getting this as a latch for the trash can. So anyway, so I've got it, it should be here today. We're going to try to latch the trash can, which is going to go one of two ways. It's either going to be enough of a headache, the bear is going to be like, nah, this isn't worth it, or the bear is going to tear my plastic trash can in half, and then I'm going to have to get not only a new trash can-
Stephanie Goss:
A new trash can.
Dr. Andy Roark:
Bags, but a new trash can as well. Or he's going to carry it off into the woods and I'll have to go find it in the forest and pick it up.
Stephanie Goss:
I can't wait to see the camera footage on that one.
Dr. Andy Roark:
We're going to definitely have to put the wildlife camera back up, so that we can see the bear interacting with our trashcan defense system.
Stephanie Goss:
Please do. Well, we have a great email from the mailbag today, but I have to caveat before I start getting into and unpacking the email. I need you to stick your fingers in your ears and la, la, la for a minute, because I'm going to read part of it that's going to make your head grow so big that you won't be able to walk through the door-
Dr. Andy Roark:
I remember this one.
Stephanie Goss:
Because it's a very nice email about you and so you need to stick your fingers in your ear.
Dr. Andy Roark:
I'm not going to listen to this.
Stephanie Goss:
So that you're not listening for a second.
Dr. Andy Roark:
I vaguely remember this from seeing it in the mailbag. Okay, go ahead.
Stephanie Goss:
Well, we got a mailbag from someone, it is a listener who is from Australia, which was awesome, because we love our international listeners. And they were saying thank you to you, Andy, in particular, because the Four Eyes Save Lives Campaign that you did, they said saved their life on more than one occasion. And they said that they were certain that they were not the only person in veterinary medicine who would not be here without it, and so they wanted to say thank you. And I applaud that tremendously, because that's something that I'm super proud of you, for the work on and our team for the work on.
And they had some questions about mental health struggles, because they were saying that they had been talking to the founder of a program at their vet school, and they were discussing the mental health struggles that our industry continues to face, and in particular talking about students. And they were looking at resources for introducing them to the vet students before they graduate. And in particular, what they were curious about was that it feels like there are a lot of new graduates and new vets coming out of school that are struggling with failure. And it seems like there is this impression that they're struggling to know what failure looks like, what it feels like and most importantly, how to cope with failure.
Dr. Andy Roark:
Sure.
Stephanie Goss:
And That there is conversation around vets feeling like failure is defining of them and their career and being destroyed by it, and makes perfect sense when you tie it back to the conversation about suicide prevention and awareness and just the mental health concerns that the industry is facing. And so they were saying that it feels like a lot of people are expressing that they feel really isolated and so they were like, what tools can we give to new grads in particular to help them feel equipped? And obviously they were like, this is a super complex problem and no one piece is going to fix it, no one approach is going to fix it.
But I think that's what I love about asking you in particular, because why I was excited to talk about this with you. Because I think you and I had a lot of conversation when we launched the Four Eye's Save Lives Movement, about the fact that the mental health concerns and mental health awareness in veterinary medicine is absolutely not one approach is going to fix it all situation. And we need to get beyond the fact, that there is one thing that we can do that will solve all the problems and look at it from a multimodal approach, like we do a lot of things that we're treating in veterinary medicine.
And so they just said, “Hey, I wanted to reach out and say thank you for helping save my life. And also if there's any resources that you can direct us to, or things that I could add into my toolbox, I would love to hear that.” And so we looked at it and I said, well, we can just reply to their email and send them a list of resources and obviously, have it be personal and from the heart, but I think it is a question that goes beyond that. And it was something that I was like, why don't we just do a podcast about it and talk about it? Because I think it goes beyond one person, and I don't think that they're wrong in saying that they're not the only person who's been impacted by this.
And I think mental health awareness is something that as a society as a whole, we're looking at more closely in ways that we're way past due to. So I think it's worth us talking about. So that's kind of where the email landed, we're looking at tools and resources particularly around failure and the overwhelm that comes with people feeling like they're failing. Which is something I feel like I know things about on a personal level and I know you do too.
Dr. Andy Roark:
Sure.
Stephanie Goss:
So let's talk about it.
Dr. Andy Roark:
I love this question. Why do vets struggle so hard with feelings of failure? I think is the first question. Whenever somebody writes to me and they're like, “Oh, this is what we're dealing with.” My first thought is always, why is that a problem? And I think the last episode that we did, we talked about favoritism in the workplace and again, we very much start off with, why is favoritism bad? What is the fallout from this? I think we have to do that for fear as well and so I start with the headspace on this and feelings of failure. And so let me just start here at the very beginning and just say, I'm going to speak in really broad terms and I don't want anybody to get offended or feel targeted by this. But I want to talk about veterinarians specifically and I'm sure this radiates out into our support staff as well and into managers also. But I just want to talk about, from personal experience I can talk about that at least pretty easily.
All right. So there's sort of four different things that I would call out from a headspace standpoint, that to me are the reasons that vets struggle so hard with feelings of failure. And so the first one is perfectionism. We have a culture that rewards perfectionists, all the way up until it doesn't. We have a training system that rewards good grades until you graduate and nobody gives a crap about your grades anymore. But by that point, we've totally indoctrinated our doctors and ourselves with this idea of perfection is what is required, we have to get the good grades and that's a problem for two reasons.
I'll come to the second one in a minute, but the biggest thing is we attract perfectionists, we train people to be perfectionists. And Dr. Ivan Zak, who's the CEO of Galaxy Vets, I was doing an interview with him and he said it as bluntly as I've ever heard it, he said, “Perfectionism is fear.” I mean, it is fear. When you say to someone, “Why does it have to be perfect? Why can't it just be good enough?” Their eyes will get big and they'll say, “But what if good enough isn't good enough? What if someone doesn't like it? But it's not right. But what if it needs to be perfect?” And there is a fear component that drives perfectionism, it really is. So we celebrate perfectionism, we celebrate making it perfect, making it beautiful, make it absolutely impeccable and that same focus is often absolutely driven by fear.
I heard this story. I'm a big guy for fabless and parables, and legends and things like that. I always love that stuff and look for wisdom there. There's this story, it's called The Sword of Damocles. And so the sword of Damocles, in this story there's this guy, Damocles, and he goes to the king and the king was Dionysius. So he goes to the king and he says, “Hey, you got everything, man. You are just crushing it, you're the king. You've got the world laid out before you. Man, I wish I had that. Gosh, I wish I was the king, that would be so amazing.” And the king looks down at him and he is like, “You want to do what I do? You sure?” And Damocles is like, “I totally do.” And the king says, “All right, I'll trade places with you. Tomorrow, you're going to come and you're going to sit on this throne and you're going to be the king, ready for one day.” And Damocles is just like, “I'm there.” And so the next day Damocles shows up and it was just like the king said it would be.
And so Damocles sits in the throne and everyone treats him like the king and the people come with their grievances and all of those things, but there's one subtle change. Over the night, the king ordered to have a sword taken, a razor sharp sword, and it was hung over the throne with the point pointing down and it was hung by a single strand of horses' hair. So this razor sharp sword is dangling over the guy's head while he sits on the throne and Damocles is like, “What is this?” And the king said, “You said you wanted to be the king, and so you're going to sit here underneath this sword, because at any moment you could be destroyed. And there are people who are always looking out to take you down and at any moment things could go wrong. And so you want to know what it feels like to be the king, yeah, you get to sit on this throne, but you've got this sword dangling over your head.” And that's called the sword of Damocles.
And so if you ever hear somebody talking about the sword of Damocles, what they mean is this impending doom that's just dangling by a thread over your head. And I like that story, because I think a lot of veterinarians live with this feeling that they're under the sword of Damocles. We feel like we're practicing and there's this sword dangling by a single thread over our head and any day, any time it might come down and that will be it. And that story captured that feeling of this thing hanging over our heads that could be catastrophic. And I hope I'm not wildly off base, but I'm sure I'm not the only person who has felt this.
And there have been times in my life when I went years feeling like the sword of Damocles was over my head and I was going to mess something up or things were going to go wrong, people were going to hate me. I was going to end up on the local news for doing something stupid, and I was going to get super malpractice. I was going to lose my license, the techs would hate me, the practice would go out of business, whatever the things were. You know what I mean? And it was all those things of spiraling to me living in a box beside the river and so I battled back against that with perfectionism, with hard work and perfectionism, but it was all driven by fear.
So anyway, the first thing that I would say, the reason that vets struggle so hard with feelings of failure is this massive fear and so it's not just failure. The truth is failure, what I've learned later in my life, is that failure is generally a setback on the path, it is not catastrophic. We are not living in the Stone Age, you are not going to be eaten by a bear or a feral turkey, or killed by a neighboring tribe. It is not life or death, fight or flight, but we feel like it is, but we still have this fear of failure. And the truth is, if your stitches come undone, you know what you're going to do? You're going to sedate the pet and you're going to clean the wound and you're going to restitch it.
That's what you're going to do and it ain't going to be the end of the world. But people go, “Oh my God.” And so we just embrace this fear and we have fear driving us in a way that a lot of other professions don't, but I think we attract people that are driven by perfection and fear of failure. And then that unfortunately, that behavior is positively reinforced all the way up until, it's not because you burn out, you have anxiety, you get depressed, you do whatever. So anyway, that's number one for me. So when I say that, first of all, let me just check in with you, Stephanie, does that resonate at all? Does that feel true? Have you seen this?
Stephanie Goss:
Oh, yeah, for sure. And I love your point about, I think it is in part is a system problem in veterinary medicine and all medicine, because human medicine is the same way and I think that that's a system that we have to figure out how to work around. And so I love where this person was coming from with their email, which is you have to acknowledge that and you have to start acknowledging that and recognizing and maybe we can make changes, maybe we can make huge changes within the system itself. And it starts with just acknowledging that all of these students who are in vet school, that system is not going to go away overnight. That system is not going to change and so we have to recognize the barrier that that system creates and to figure out how to work around it, because that's not going away anytime soon. I mean, there has to be some sort of system by which our veterinarians are educated, just that's how it is.
Dr. Andy Roark:
Yeah. No, I agree with that. I think there's ways we can do it. I'll talk about that when we get to action steps. So I'll sort of come back to maybe some ways to approach this. The first thing is to acknowledge it and hear what I'm saying and decide if you believe me or not, but that fear, that positively reinforced fear of failure, it's a powerful motivator, but it's also a double-edged sword.
Stephanie Goss:
Well, yeah. So I think the other side of that sword from a leadership perspective, what you said resonated with me. And I think from the other side, a really important thing that we have to step back and look at as leaders and I wish I have had this pep talk and have shined this light at some of my veterinarians, and I wish that all vet students got it. And it is somewhat heartbreaking to me that they aren't. It's pretty heartbreaking actually, but is that failure doesn't define us. It's what we do with the lesson from failure that defines us. And so failure, I would actually argue is a good thing, because let's take you being a veterinarian.
If you, Andy, never had a patient dehisce, how would you know to fix it? You would know in theory, but if you hadn't experienced that failure of the suture, how would you know how to fix it? And that's some of the most powerful lessons come from that failure and learning about resilience and that's something that we as humans don't learn enough about, and systemically we're not teaching young veterinarians. And so I applaud our writer for looking at, how can we teach this? And from a leadership perspective, I think that one of the healthiest things that we can do is really learn about resilience and also about the fact that failure is not the definition of who any of us are. It's what we choose to do with the lessons that we learn from that failure that really help shape us.
Dr. Andy Roark:
Yeah, it's funny, I've had this experience in the last couple of years. So Uncharted is absolutely blowing up right now, we are doing so much and things are just really going so well in so many ways and holy crap, we've just got a lot going on and 2024 is already shaped up to be a really huge year. But the last year and a half up until 2021, let's say 2020 and then 2021, those were hard years for me personally, in that Uncharted was growing fast and people were like, “Oh, your company's growing so fast, it's got to be great.” And I was like, “I'm getting my butt kicked, because I don't know how to run a company that's twice as big as what it used to be and we've never juggled this many. We haven't juggled half this many balls and we're doing it.”
And I've thought a lot about that and the truth is, I can look anyone right in the eye right now and say, “I know with complete certainty that I am significantly better at my job than I was a year ago or two years ago, for sure.” Without a doubt, I can look at you and say, “I'm better, there's no doubt.” And you say, “Well, how do you know that you're better, Andy?” And the answer is, I struggled, because I can look back a year and I can say, “All right. A year ago I had this problem and that's what I did.” And now I would tell you, “I wouldn't do it that way. I wouldn't do it that way, because I saw what happened, I learned from it and I fixed it and I will never forget the struggle of figuring it out and working through it.”
But if you don't have failure, if you don't have setback, you're never going to know that you're good, because you're just like, I don't know. I came out of vet school and everything was fine, and now it's been three years and you know what? Everything is still fine. Basically, I feel like I'm exactly as good as I was in vet school, because I've never had a setback that I can look back and compare myself to. To me, it basically feels like I've been lucky for three years and I've had years like that and so have other people, where you're not pushing yourself and that's not bad. It's not bad to always, no one's goal should be to always feel like they're failing.
But if you really honestly look at yourself and I said to you, “Convince me that you were better at your job now than you were a year ago.” And you've got nothing, you can't look back at something you did a year ago and say, “Ooh, I would do that differently now.” I don't know that you're growing and again, I don't know that we have to constantly grow. I think growth can come in waves, I think it totally can. But if you're having that thought and you're like, I don't know what I'll do differently. It might be time for you to stretch your wings, my friend, it might be time for you to get a little bit uncomfortable, so that we can continue to grow.
But that's not what we're taught and that's not how we're taught. We're taught that we're supposed to come out and we're supposed to be perfect, and we're supposed to never make a mistake lest you'd be struck down, that's ridiculous. But I think that that's a lot of what we are led to believe, at least and I internalized that, and no one intentionally told me that. I don't think there's anyone bad out there who's saying to people, this is what is expected of you, but I think culturally, I think we find that messaging and we bring it in a lot.
Stephanie Goss:
Well, I think the culture is that you reach this pinnacle and you are getting credentialed as a doctor, and therefore the culture exists that you should have all the answers, but that's not true. No one graduated human medical school, veterinary school and had all the answers. And so I think we have got to start breaking down that idea that this is the end and we have to start looking at it as this is the beginning. And that's a hard thing for especially young new grads coming out of school, because I did not go to vet school, but I went to graduate school and I can imagine the stress for me, finishing was like it's a weight off my shoulders.
But I didn't look at it the way that I think a lot of my veterinarian friends looked at it, which is I have slogged through years of school and now I am starting over at square one. Who wants to think like that, that is overwhelming to think now I'm going to start at the bottom again and have to work my way up. You want to come out of school and feel like I know things and I'm going to do things. And so we have created this culture where people are like, “Well, I've done all of this work already and so I should be able to just keep moving on.” And we have not created a culture that supports, okay, you've finished school and now you're going to learn a whole new thing, you're going to learn how to doctor in an everyday environment and so we have created this culture where it feels like fear.
And so a lot of my doctors have said to me, “I feel like I have to step out of school and I have to be more perfect. I have to know more than I actually know, because otherwise I am failing to feel like I'm starting over at square one as a new doctor in practice.” And after going through all of that school, who wants to feel like they're starting over at day one? But if you ask anybody else who goes into another career, I would have told you when I finished school, the first thing I would have said is I have no idea what I'm doing. Yes, I went through all of the schooling, but that doesn't mean that I'm an experienced teacher.
So people are looking at me as a student teacher expecting me to make mistakes, expecting me to screw it up, because I'm learning all over again and I don't think that we afford that same opportunity to doctors and to veterinarians. We create this environment where it's like, you did the school and now you've got to be perfect and you've got to have all the answers, and you've got to have it all figured out and that's bullshit. It's total bullshit, because you've never been a doctor before, you don't know how to do the thing. You are truly starting over and learning a whole new role in a whole new job and we have to create that safe space for that to be normalized, and for those mistakes and the risks to be taken in a safe environment.
Dr. Andy Roark:
Yeah, I agree with that. There's this quote and I'm going to miss-phrase it, I haven't seen it forever, but basically it's the idea that human beings works in progress, who think they're finished and I think that that's true. So anyway, the first one I put forward is fear. Fear is a driver of why feelings of failure are so scary, we have a lot of fear. The second one I'll put forward is that we're a profession full of people pleasers. We get external validation-
Stephanie Goss:
This one's huge.
Dr. Andy Roark:
We want to make everybody happy, we want to be compassionate and have people be compassionate to us and the idea of letting people down is not okay, and most of us have had zero conflict management training. We don't know how to deal with angry people, we don't know how to not take that stuff personally, because no one's told us that or no one's talked to us about it. And so I think that headspace, if you're a people pleaser, recognize that you're a people pleaser and people pleasers really struggle with failure. They don't want to let people down, they don't want people to be upset with them, they're afraid of conflict. And again, these are all things that we can work through, they're all things that we can teach to young people. We can teach them to young doctors, we can teach them to our CSRs, our technicians, our assistants, everybody I think should have basics of conflict management. If only Stephanie, if only there was an organization that was doing something absolutely baller, coming down the pipes to help people with conflict management. If only we had-
Stephanie Goss:
I can't imagine.
Dr. Andy Roark:
I know, if only we had workshops and virtual summits like our team lead summit that's coming up and our culture conference. We've got our online one day culture conference coming up, it's right around the corner, it's in October I think, we're doing culture conference. And so anyway, we could put links in the show notes, but I mean, if only. Anyway, we're people pleasers and that amps up our feelings of failure.
Stephanie Goss:
For sure.
Dr. Andy Roark:
And so I think part of it is if you're terrified of failure, ask yourself, am I people pleaser? Is that what's driving this? Number three is, and this kind of ties into fear and fear, but it is amazing how many doctors and highly successful people. This is the thing I'll tell you, highly successful people, they have their self-worth wrapped up in achievement. They feel like they have to earn love or they have to earn respect, or they have to earn the right to be in the building every single day by getting things right. And again, this matches up a lot with perfectionism, but it's different, but it is that self-worth.
I found this in myself over the years, because I very much am a goal-oriented person and I'm a get stuff done person. I do feel like every day I have to show up and bring value, I have to be worth it for people to interact with me and at some point you go, this is bonkers. You've built up your account, Andy, you are a helper, you are a supporter, you do good work, you care about people. You don't have to get everything right today to be worthy of your spot on the team, that's ridiculous. You don't have to get everything right to be worthy of love, or respect, or admiration, or friendship. You don't have to be right all the time in order to be worthy. And again, these are all things I said, I can't quantify. I can't say what percentage of people believe that, but there are so many of us who feel like we have to earn our spot every day and being wrong, coming up short. Secretly we're worried about getting kicked off the island, secretly we're worried about people turning off the friendship faucet, or the love faucet.
And I'm sorry, you've been cut off and now you're shunned from the group and we know that doesn't happen. We would never do that to anybody that we care about, but we think other people would do it to us for some reason. Again, most of these are not conscious thoughts, but I swear they're so common in doctors when you dig into it and you push them around a little bit and you get them to tell you why they're acting the way they are and what they're thinking. But man, the number of doctors who feel like they have to earn their spot, they have to earn their white coat every day, they have to earn their place, it's pretty enormous. And again, these are all things that we can address, they're just places that we allow our heads to go and stay. But boy, feelings of failure are not about feelings of failure. They're generally about what failure means to you.
Stephanie Goss:
Well, and I think that feeds back into the system that you're existing in. I mean, we go through school and we're judged by our output and same in vet school. You're being judged by the hours on the floor, and the number of cases that you're seeing and the number of answers that you're getting right on tests. All of those things are achievements and you're being judged on it the whole way along. And so when you go into a job where you are now, maybe there is still, you know how to measure yourself after going through school, you know what achievement looks like.
And when you go into practice, or not even necessarily into practice, if you're in industry and using your degree in a way that isn't in daily practice. But when you get out of vet school, the way that you measure achievement and the way that you're measuring success is radically different than it has been this whole time that you have been in school. And it's the same for people who didn't go to vet school, but I guess people were conditioned that way. And we have to learn a new way to measure our success.
And you and I have had this conversation, because a lot of what we do in our work, success is not measured by the output. If you measured us by the output, we would be exhausted, we would have to show up and be on and produce, do workshops and webinars all day every day. We would burn out very, very quickly, because our job is not one where we measure it by way of output and I would argue, neither is veterinary medicine. Sometimes to figure out a case, you have to sit with it and it takes time.
And so if your only measure of success is the number of patients that you see in that day, then by that measure you are going to be failing, but you're absolutely not going to be failing that patient that you take the extra time to figure out their case on. And so I think that's part of it, is that because we measure by the self-worth, by achievement and we have a system that rewards that all through vet school. We have to figure out how do we redefine that for ourselves and for our teams, so that we know what is that measure of achievement so that we can deal with the guilt factor on a personal level.
Dr. Andy Roark:
The flip side to self-worth, the flip side to, I have to show up and earn my place today, I have to earn respect today, I have to earn friendship today. The flip side to that is still self-worth. But if you've ever heard me tell a story of, there is no dragon, then you'll kind of know what I'm talking about here. There's a lot of us that have convinced ourselves or we have been convinced that there is some achievement ahead of us, that if we get there, then we will know we are worthy. We know we are worthy, we'll know we're worthy of whatever, admiration, success, however you define success in your mind. If we slay this dragon, everyone will know that we are worthy and we all know we're worthy. And that's sort of the story of there is no dragon and the truth is there is no dragon.
There is no dragon that you are going to get to and you're going to accomplish it, and then you're going to know that you're worthy. It is just not going to happen, but so many of us have chased dragons our whole life. We thought, I just want to work in a vet hospital, when we're teenagers. I just want to work in a vet hospital and so you volunteer and then well, I just need to get my college degree, and then I just need to get into a vet school. And then you've got to vet school and you're like, well, what now? And you're like, well, I guess I need to be a specialist, or I need to get this internship, or I need to go to work at this specific hospital. And you get there and you're like, but what now? Well, I need to have this ability, this skillset to know these techniques, to have this value in the practice, but it never ends.
And I can just tell you, whatever the dragon is that you're chasing, you think is going to make you worthy. It's not going to happen. If you're uncertain of your worth, there's no external achievement you're going to get, that's going to settle that issue for you. You're going to have to do the work of figuring out that you are worthy and you're going to have to be able to come to that yourself, and there's lots of ways to do that. I think it's beyond the scope of what we're talking about today. But if you're like, oh my God, when I accomplish this, I'm going to be worthy. I would say, “My friend, I think you're setting yourself up for a hard pace.”
But the other thing too is, if the only way you're going to know that you're worthy, if the only way you're going to know you're successful is if you achieve something, then suddenly setbacks to that achievement feel catastrophic, because it's not just a short setback. It is a shot, maybe you are not worthy, it puts your whole value system into question. And so when we've got this thing we need to do.
It's like, again, my wife is a college professor and she's in biology and man, you see some of these kids and they are kids, they're 18, 19 years old. They have come in and they have decided that they need to be a physician and that will make them happy. And when they're not going to be a physician, or it's not a good fit for them, if you tell them that they fall apart, because their whole self-worth is based on, I will become a doctor, a physician and then my life will be good and I will know that I'm worthy. And boy, when they come up short, they get the C minus in their intro biology class and man, it is absolutely earth-shattering for them. But it all comes down to that same mentality.
That brings me to the last point, speaking of identity and what makes us who we are. Again, there's this other terrible habit in vet medicine that I see all the time, for veterinarians who internalize their job as their identity. They are the veterinarian, that's who they are. They visualize that in some way, shape, or form and they are a vet. That's not what they do, they don't say, “Oh, this is what I do.” What do you do for an occupation? They're like, “Oh, no, no. I am a veterinarian.” Not, “Oh, I do veterinary medicine or I'm a practitioner or whatever. I am a veterinarian.” And again, I've said that, I've said that many times. It's not bad, as long as you don't let it honestly take you over.
But I know so many of our colleagues who just identify to their bones as a veterinarian, which means when a surgery goes bad, it's not a bad day. It's a shot at who they are as a person. When someone says, “If you cared about this, if you really cared about dogs, you would do this for free.” And anyone who sees vet medicine as a job would be like, “That's ridiculous.” Anyone who sees being a veterinarian as their defining identity would say, “How dare you? How dare you question what I have put into this? How dare you question who I am and what I do?” And they take it really personally, and I get it. But again, it's a false definition, it's a hollow place to go. And it just sets you up to always being afraid, because if you fail in whatever it means in your mind to be a veterinarian, then you don't exist as a person anymore.
And again, I said I was speaking in broad generalities. So I don't want people to say this is true of everyone, but I suspect that every doctor listening to this podcast has hopefully at least been able to empathize with one of these positions. Anyway, I think that that is a classic is, for God's sake, and people don't like it when I say this, but I'm going to say it again, because it's my podcast. Vet medicine's a job, it's a job, that's what it is. I love it, it's a great job, I'm proud of it, I enjoy it, I look forward to it. I wouldn't want a different job, but you know what? It's a freaking job and I'm a husband and a father, and I work in my garden and I do improv comedy and I do CrossFit, and I play nerdy D & D games with my friends and I paint. I do so many things, I'm not just a veterinarian, there's a lot to me.
And if someone took my veterinary license away from me, you know what I would do? I would go on, I would go on, it would break my heart and I would cry about it, but then I would go do something else. It'd probably be something related to vet medicine, but I would go on, because it's not the end of me. I am a person and if I suddenly developed terrible allergies and couldn't be around pets and I wasn't able to walk into a vet clinic anymore, I would go be something else. And I would always remember when I was a vet and I would love it, but I would go be something else. I would go start an escape room company and I would make escape rooms, because I'm an escape room nerd too, but that's what I would do. You know what I mean?
Stephanie Goss:
Yeah, I do.
Dr. Andy Roark:
I would go open a nerdy bookstore, but again, it's because my job is not who I am. But boy, when I was in my thirties, it was who I was. And I talk a lot about that time in my early forties when I just crashed and burned out, it's where there is no dragon story came from. But a lot of that was my whole identity was wrapped up in my job and man, it ain't what this life is about, I promise you it's not. I promise you it's not.
Stephanie Goss:
I think this feels like a good place to take a break and then come back in, talk about some action steps.
Dr. Andy Roark:
Let's do it. Yeah, because there's been a lot of headspace here. But let's get into some action steps of what we actually do to try to help out the next generation.
Stephanie Goss:
Did you know that we offer workshops for our Uncharted members and for our non-members? So if you're listening to today's podcast and you are not a member of Uncharted yet, you should be. But this is not a conversation about joining Uncharted, this is a conversation about all of the amazing content that we have coming at all of you. Whether or not you're a member through our workshop series, you should head over to the website at unchartedvet.com/events and check out what is coming. We have got an amazing lineup on the regular. We've got something every month, sometimes two or three things in a month coming at you to expand your brain, to talk about leadership, to talk about practice management, and dive into the kind of topics that Andy and I talk about on the podcast every week.
So now's your chance, stop what you're doing, pick up your cell phone, I know it's not far from you, and type in unchartedvet.com/events, see what's coming and sign up. They are always free to our Uncharted members and they have a small fee attached to them, if you are not currently a member, you can get all of the details, pricing, dates, times and register. Head over to the website now, I want to see you there.
Dr. Andy Roark:
All right. So let's jump into this. So we've got some action steps. So the question was, what do we do about young doctors or vet students that are coming out, and have such terrible concern about failure or feelings of failure and things like that? Well, what are some resources and how do we set people up for success? And again, this is a modest proposal. I don't have all the answers, but I obviously thought a lot about this and so here's my best shot and what I'll put forward. This is Andy's wishlist for vet medicine to take care of its own.
So the first one is call out the reasons that vet struggle, that I mentioned above. We need to normalize talking about this, we need to normalize the idea that vets shouldn't be afraid all the time, your job should not be your identity, it's just a job. You should be able to take your coat and your stethoscope off, you should be able to take your scrubs off and you should be yourself and you should be happy with that person. We should understand what our self-worth is and where it comes from, and you are worthy, you don't have to prove it every day and a lot of that, that also goes to being a people pleaser. We've got to internally validate ourselves and I do think that the part of that is education, is we should talk more about what it really means to be a good vet. And that goes way back, just what it means to be a happy and contented person, who sees themselves as worthy and who doesn't need to be a people pleaser. But I think that we need to start talking about those and normalizing those things.
And the last thing is we need to normalize the tendency we have to feel fear. We need to talk about the fact that this is a common part of our profession and so all of those sorts of things. I think training and conflict management matters, I think getting your head straight about your own self-worth and things like that and doing that work to separate it. If your self-worth comes from your job, I would encourage you to dig deeper and maybe start to find some other perspectives on that sort of thing.
Stephanie Goss:
I think it's really important what you said about calling out the reasons that we struggle and that vets in particular are struggling. And I think it's also very important that we take a step back and recognize that, we gave four reasons right at the start, why we think that failure is a challenge? That's not an all-inclusive list. There may be reasons that a vet, listening to this podcast is, someone might be listening and say, “Oh my gosh, I see myself in all of the things Andy mentioned.” And there are other people that might say, “I didn't see myself in any of those. I have these other problems.”
And I think when you said we need to start talking about it and we need to start normalizing it, I think a really important part of the conversation is recognizing that all of us walk different journeys. We all got to veterinary medicine by varying paths and there is no one list that is ever going to be exhaustive for the reasons why veterinarians struggle, and we need to make space to validate that for all of us. It doesn't matter why somebody else has different reasons, they shouldn't have to prove their reasons, because they're not on Andy's list comparatively.
And I think when we start to talk about a lot of this in veterinary medicine, and I'll use the example of talking about the Four I's Save Lives Movement. There's the conversation of, well, that wasn't the whole list, there's way more that we can be doing. No one is saying that's all we are trying to do. It is one piece of the bigger puzzle and so I think it's really important for me, as we start to talk about these action steps, that everybody has to recognize that everybody is coming at this from a different place on the path. And so we have to create that space. We, being us here today, having this conversation, but also we, as a whole, as an industry have to create the space for everybody to be able to have a seat at that table and say, “My reasons might be different than yours, my experience might be different than yours, but we're here for a commonality and that's important.”
Dr. Andy Roark:
Yeah. No, I think you're spot on. I'm really glad you said that. The other thing I would say, is I could see people pushing back on this too as well and say, “But Andy, if people aren't pushing for perfectionism, if they're not afraid of failure, then they're not going to try as hard- “
Stephanie Goss:
Sure.
Dr. Andy Roark:
“Or we're not going to have as high a standard of care as we could.” And I just want to go ahead and say, I don't buy that. Fear is a motivator, it's not the only motivator. We can absolutely work hard, we can push ourselves, we can set high standards, we don't have to be afraid of them. Look at the greatest athletes in the world, they're not terrified. If they were terrified, they probably wouldn't be the greatest. They have found their motivators, they have bought into what they're doing, and they continue to grow and perform and push themselves, they just are accepting of their setbacks.
In fact, when you look at a really high performing athlete, some of the psychology research, I think it's fascinating. Is you look at these guys who are huge pros and when they make mistakes, when they drop balls, when they make errors, they just don't think their ability to let it go is one of the reasons that they are the best. Is they go, “Oh, all right, well.” And they just don't think about it. But the people who ruminate on how they struck out last time, how they missed the big shot, they're not able to perform at that level or get back to that level as quickly. So anyway, I'm not saying when we start talking about this and addressing fear, that doesn't mean coddling, it doesn't mean lowering our standards. It just means being honest about how we motivate people and trying to lean into healthy motivators, as opposed to motivators that wear people down.
Stephanie Goss:
Well, and I think your sports, your athlete metaphor there is a great one, because I think we already talked about this in the headspace piece, but the next piece of it I think has to be about normalizing failure. And when you talk about an athlete, a professional athlete, it's not that they don't care that they made a mistake. The process is making mistakes is going to happen. Do you wish that it happens during a scrimmage versus during the Super Bowl? Yes. That's as much sport balling as you're going to get from me today, by the way.
Dr. Andy Roark:
I was going to say, I'm seeing a new Stephanie Goss here. Was like, that's right, she's onboard.
Stephanie Goss:
But is that the case? Yes, absolutely. Of course, they're going to wish that it happened when there's low stakes or no stakes versus the high stakes. And at the same time, the system recognizes that there is going to be failure, and what did they do about it? They watch tape, they analyze it, they learn from it. It's a part of the process, it's a part of the model and I think this is where manager, Stephanie, gets on the soapbox, because we don't, as an industry, do enough to normalize failure and create the space for us to make those mistakes and actually learn from them, because we're so driven by the fear. It's like, oh, we can't make that mistake again, or someone is going to put us up for a board complaint, or oh, we can't make that mistake again, because we're going to lose a client. We drive ourselves with fear as the only, I would argue, often the only lever in our practices and we've got to stop doing that.
Because imagine, hallucinate with me for a second. If we had a space where it was like, yes, we are human and we make mistakes and we did like athletes did and we analyzed that, we learned from the failure and we created a new model. The next time we would be very different, we would have veterinarians who feel very different about that failure and it's not to say that I, and people will say, “Well, we can't have that kind of cavalier attitude when pet's lives are in our hands.” I'm not saying we'd be cavalier about it at all. In fact, I'm saying the opposite, recognizing the gravity of that and knowing we don't want to make the mistakes. We want to learn from them, and we want to get better, and we have got to normalize that failure and create the space for our team to learn from those mistakes. That doesn't happen in a vacuum in sports either, they have a system for it and we need a system like that in veterinary medicine.
Dr. Andy Roark:
Yeah, I agree. I saw the story before. One of the most positive mentors or examples for me when I was at Florida, and I've had him on my podcast, The Cone of Shame podcast, is the other podcast that I do. I've had him on the podcast a couple of times, is the legend, Dr. Michael Scher. So Dr. Michael Scher is an internal medicine specialist and quite possibly the most brilliant clinician I've ever met and I've met a lot of them, he's definitely up there. But I remember from being a student, this guy is a legend, and he told stories of his failures. He would talk about the cases that he got wrong and how he learned these lessons and he talked, so in Florida, he was known as uncle Mikey.
So if there's any Florida Gators out there, you'll know uncle Mikey. But anyway, but uncle Mikey, but he would talk about his pile of bones and he would just mention it, was like, “Ah, so that one goes on my pile of bones.” And it's like, “Yeah, I add it to my pile of bones.” And I'm like, this guy's a legend and he just goes, “Oh, it's my pile of bones.” And he'd be like, “I've got a bigger pile of bones than anybody.” It's like, yeah, because done more than anybody. But it was so healthy, and the fact that I still remember him talking about his pile of bones, because I was like, this guy's a legend and he's just very open about it, I learned that one the hard way.
I think he did a lot for me about modeling that behavior, modeling the behavior and normalizing failure. I think we've got a lot of specialists that teach vet students that whether they mean to or not, they model this behavior that perfection is what is expected. And I want to stop and give a shout-out to those vet school professors, the clinicians who are there, who are like, I don't know. I don't know, we're going to try this and we're going to see what happens and if it doesn't work we're going to do something else. You can be absolutely genius and still say to the students, “I don't know. I tell you what, last time I did this, it did not go well and this is why.” And I respect you more for that, but I think we have to model that behavior.
The last part I think I'll probably put in, well, probably the last part, is I want to keep pushing the idea that the middle of success feels like failure, and that's just something that I've been dealing with a lot and talking a lot and thinking about recently. It goes back to what I said before, so I won't belabor this point too much, but I told this story before about, I know I'm better at my job than I was a year or two ago, because I can look back and say, “Oh, I wouldn't do this the same way now, I would set this up differently. I would get different people on the bus, or I would set this agenda up this different way, or I would set a different timeline, I would start with different resources.” Whatever I would do, but I look at it, I can know that.
Well, the middle of success feels like failure. Like I said, Uncharted is blowing up and it's like, man, this feels like success. Things that we were doing great, but I would tell you jump back a year or two ago, and we had hired a bunch of new people and we were onboarding multiple people at the same time. And we were not going as fast as I wanted to go, because I was like, we got a huge opportunity. It's just slow-going and I felt like I was failing. But the truth is, I was halfway to where we are today and I go, “Oh, well, it worked out. This worked out well.” But the middle of success feels like failure.
I think we all get excited about the beginning and we all get excited about the success at the end, but we forget that the middle feels like Sisyphus pushing the boulder up the mountain. Man, I'm telling some great stories today, but it does, it feels like you're just rolling this boulder up and you're dropping it and it rolls back down and you're like, this is clearly failure. It's like, yeah, it feels that way until it's not failure anymore, until you make it. So the middle of success feels like failure. I think that's just part of normalizing failing and making adjustments.
So anyway, the last part is, I'll say, I really think is when you talk about what motivates people beyond fear. One of the ones I've been thinking a lot about recently is the moose story and so we got a newsletter at DrAndyRoark.com and I write for it every week. So if you want to see my musings and my ramblings, it's free, you can get it at DrAndyRoark.com, you get it safe. But I wrote an article about being a moose truther recently and well, the basic story was, you and I talked about the vacation I did with my family up to Maine and we went up to Nova Scotia and my wife really wanted to see a moose. That was her number one thing and every day, me and the kids jumped up and we looked for a moose.
So we would do a morning hike to get out into the wilderness, try to find it and we would do a dusk hike or walk. A lot of times we had dinner, we'd been doing stuff all day, we just want to go to bed, but we're like, “No, we're going to find that moose.” And so we would get up and we would go back out and we would do this extra thing and at the end of it all, we never saw a moose. We never saw a moose, I'm pretty sure that they're fake, they're a joke. They're a park system and the Canadians are playing on the rest of us. I think that they're a very successful Sasquatch, is what I think. So they're a joke, they're like how some people feel about the moon landing is how I feel about moose.
Anyway, but here's the truth, I'm so glad we had a moose to look for. The moose was the reason we got up and we went and we walked and we hiked. And the truth is, I don't care that we didn't see the moose, because we did so much awesome stuff and the things that we did and the places we went, they were beautiful and they were wonderful. And I don't know that we would've gone there if we weren't looking for this moose that we never saw. But I still have these wonderful memories of doing these things with my family.
And so it's not about the achievement, it's not about what we accomplish. It's about having a reason that we go and do the hike, it's about having a reason that we get out of bed earlier than we otherwise would. But I think that we can all find that, it doesn't have to be fear. It wasn't a horror vacation, I wasn't afraid of the moose. I wasn't like, “Kids, we have to pack up the tent before the moose comes.” It wasn't fear based at all, it was a 100% an exploration. I don't know, it is sort of a sense of wonder, it was looking, it was being present and so I don't know. I think that we can teach medicine in that way and encourage people to not be afraid of failure. But instead to figure out what their moose is and then to go find it, because vet medicine is amazing and I think we need to talk more about that.
Stephanie Goss:
So we're almost out of time for this episode and we talked about wanting to share some resources and having some stuff to drop in to the show notes, because we could keep talking about this, I feel like forever. Do you have some resources that you want to talk about and share?
Dr. Andy Roark:
I do. I do. So big things for me, we need to be celebrating peer groups. I think having those interpersonal relationships are so, so important. If you're afraid of failing, having some friends around you who are also in the boat with you, who also have failed. I can't tell you how much it meant to me to work with other doctors who are like, “Oh, I made that mistake before.” Or just to say, “Well, I didn't do that one, but I did another one.” I was talking recently about getting the doctors together at the vet practice where I practice and we just had a doctor's thing and we went and hung out. Basically we just traded stories about how we'd screwed up and how things had gone badly, and it was the most cathartic and helpful and positive session that I've had in a long time.
And so peer groups I think are really important, other peer groups outside of your practice, I don't know. There's this thing called Uncharted, it's a wonderful community of people who, if you're listening to this podcast, you're probably a lot like the people who are on Uncharted, but Uncharted is a great community. I really love those Power of 10 groups, if you are looking at your local VMAs, they do it. The VMG groups, the veterinary management groups, if you're an independent practice owner, they do a great job. AHA does a pretty darn good job, I got to say, AHAs community is pretty solid. The AVMA committees, getting involved in a committee can be really great. There's vet school alumni groups, there's Pride VMC, there's groups like that. The Multicultural Veterinary Management Association, whatever your interests are, there's people who's doing that stuff and having those relationships is really insular against the struggles I think.
Oh, I was going to say to vet students, stay in touch with your classmates, don't lose those relationships, because just having people to reach out to is important. As far as resources outside of peer group, man, there's a lot of them. Not One More Vet Group, NOMV, their Lifeboat program is really solid, there's some really good people involved in that. The VIN Foundation does exceptional work, the Vets For Vets and there's also support for the support staff.
Stephanie Goss:
Support staff.
Dr. Andy Roark:
I think we should normalize therapy as a tool. Stephanie, you and I mentioned it a lot and I feel like we do a pretty good job of bringing up and being like, “Hey, if you're wrestling with something, you would pay a consultant to fix your business. Pay a therapist to walk through with your personal life and help you get things figured out and get your head straight.” I think normalizing therapy is great. Encouraging relationships and hobbies outside of our profession is huge. I listed all the stuff that I like to do and what I am beyond a veterinarian. I really think that having those relationships and having people who don't care that you're a vet, I think that's super healthy and I think having hobbies that aren't vet medicine is really healthy.
And the last thing is if you're a senior vet, then you got to model healthy behaviors. Those of us who are out here, who have taken our lumps and have come out the other side and know that everything's going to be okay, we don't need to impress the young vets. We need to be their friends and we need to support them, and we need to let them know that they're good enough. And I go back and often the classic, and I don't want to start any drama with this, but there's an archetype of certain, it's usually technicians who really want to impress the pet owners and really want the pet owners to know that they're smart. And so they go in and they use huge words and vocabulary, and we've all seen this archetype. Not all techs of course, but it's an archetype, it's like a stereotype that we know. And so anyway, there's that.
The veterinarian equivalent of that, because vets do it too, but a veterinarian equivalent that looks kind of similar, is the more senior vets trying to convince the younger vets that they're super smart and they know the answers. It's like, man, you don't have to convince them you're smart. You've got a heck of a lot more experience than they do, just be their friend and be a supporter and just meet them where they are and let them know that everything's going to be okay, it's the exact same thing. So anyway, you don't have to be all things to all people, you don't have to show people that you're perfect. Just show younger vets how you have figured out ways to balance your own life and just be a good model.
And if you're happy in vet medicine, make sure you make relationships so that the younger generation can see it. I think a lot of them go online and all they hear is from people who are unhappy and they think, God, everybody's unhappy. It's like, man, there's a lot of us that are doing just fine. But anyway, that's it, that's enough from me. I know I've ranted on and probably made this episode really long, but I hope this is valuable for somebody. Obviously this is something that I care a lot about, but I hope that there's some pearls that are useful.
Stephanie Goss:
I think so. I will drop links in the show notes to all of the resources that we mentioned and probably a few more that we think of along the way. I hope everybody is having a fantastic week and we'll talk to everybody again next time.
Dr. Andy Roark:
Thanks everybody.
Stephanie Goss:
Well gang, that's a wrap on another episode of the podcast. And as always, this was so fun to dive into the mailbag and answer this question, and I would really love to see more things like this come through the mailbag. If there is something that you would love to have us talk about on the podcast, or a question that you are hoping that we might be able to help with, feel free to reach out and send us a message. You can always find the mailbag at the website, the address is unchartedvet.com/mailbag, or you can email us at podcast@unchartedvet.com. Take care everybody and have a great week, we'll see you again next time.
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