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Congratulations on being a member of an amazing profession! In this article, I aim to highlight some of the awesome aspects of the profession that aren’t frequently discussed. I’ll also cover a few unorthodox opportunities that the profession provides!
My intuition tells me that there is more opportunity now than there ever has been before by being a veterinary professional, and I’m so happy to be a part of this change!
You may not be able to identify all of the amazing opportunities because of the “negatives” and “challenges” that are frequently focused on, but the profession’s best years are ahead of us, and I’m wishing for you that you will decide to be a part of the wealth of opportunity ahead of you!
Attention Friends and Family! Stay Away from Veterinary Medicine!
Whaaatttt?!?! Insane! This blows my mind!
According to a recent study, only 41% of veterinarians would recommend the profession to a friend or family member.
I know you have likely heard this statistic, and I don’t know about you, but I believe that the 59% who wouldn’t recommend the profession must have a perspective that views the challenges that the veterinary profession provides as something ‘bad’ for the friends and family they wouldn’t recommend vet med to.
Where is YOUR Focus?
It is easy to focus on the ‘negative’ aspects of the profession, and it’s not so easy to see that the challenges of the veterinary profession are – in my opinion – providing the greatest opportunities we can ever imagine.
I totally understand… 3 years ago, I was a part of all of the wellbeing statistics! From depressive episodes to suicidal ideation and burnout… I was struggling hard!
I was so irritated with everything vet med related that I forbade anybody to refer to me as “Dr. Hawley” outside of the clinic! Yea… I was there!
However, I now realize why I went through all of that.
a. You can’t grow without struggle – by overcoming this struggle, I have been able to help others with their own personal and professional challenges!
b. I wasn’t doing anything to ensure my wellbeing – it makes sense. If you aren’t working towards being well, can you really complain about the fact you are lacking wellbeing??? There are so many resources out there to help people be masters of handling adversity, that I believe complaining about the state of one’s wellbeing when you aren’t working towards being more resilient can be compared to a dog owner who keeps losing puppy after puppy to parvo but never gets their puppies vaccinated. Yea, they may not know about the vaccine, but who’s fault would that be? If they were really fed up with their puppies dying from bloody diarrhea at an early age, could they find a cause and a solution if they sought out to? Sure they could!
I digress…
Burnout, compassion fatigue, “high” student loan debt loads, and related items were put here for our benefit.
Furthermore, by focusing on the positives or the benefits these things are really bringing, by focusing on our own wellbeing, and by focusing on wealth creation, the seemingly negative aspects of veterinary medicine will not be able to stand the test of time.
There has been much focus on how to prevent burnout and compassion fatigue and poor wellbeing. There has been very little talk on why burnout and compassion fatigue (or whatever struggle/non-clinical mental affliction you face) could be advantages and blessings in disguise.
One example of this is that those of us who overcome these afflictions become better prepared to take on future life challenges with greater confidence, and we are able to help others who may suffer from similar challenges!
What’s Your Perspective?
Perspective! Point of view! This is the easiest way to create a life of your own design in a very short period of time.
Learning how to control my perspective on life was revolutionary for me!
When I started operating from higher perspectives of seeing the advantages in the disadvantages and seeing ONLY the good in people, ONLY the good in myself, and ONLY the good in every situation my entire life improved… instantly!
Note: This isn’t meant to be easy… it’s meant to be effective.
Examples of Perspective Shifting:
I thought I had an awful marriage, but it was simply my perspective towards my wife and the marriage! When I looked at the struggles we were having as growth opportunities, our marriage went from crappy to crazily awesome!
I thought I had to get fatter as I aged, but it was only my perspective! And I thought that my body was a crappy piece of crap, but when I realized that it was perfect (i.e. I ate poorly and rarely exercised therefore creating the perfectly pudgy appearance I had), I was able to see that my body would continue to be perfect forever! It takes the form of my thought of my body and the actions of my body.
I thought the world wasn’t fair and that veterinary medicine wasn’t fair, but I changed my perspective and now I enjoy every single moment of every single day, AND I believe that the veterinary profession is second to none, and I heartily endorse it!
The profession never sucked. My marriage never sucked. My wife never sucked. My job never sucked. I never sucked. And the world never sucked.
My perspective on these things sucked, and that makes everything appear to suck, but it is only an appearance… an illusion.
I – as a veterinary professional – can’t be confused by illusions and appearances if I want to create positive change in the profession.
I – as a human – can’t be confused by illusions and appearances if I want to improve my life and live a life of my own design.
We can choose what perspective we have in EVERYTHING in life, and when I changed my perspectives on life and the challenges I was facing, I was able to overcome depressive episodes, compassion fatigue, burnout, alcohol abuse, a relationship that appeared to be failing, and many other life challenges!
Realizing that life is happening for us and not to us will help us take this profession to the next level!
More Opportunity Now Than Ever!
The veterinary profession is in its infancy. As such, it is perfect, NOW! It’s not complete, nor is it anywhere close to being complete, but it is perfect for the stage that we have reached so far!
This is a concept that I had to grasp and hold in my mind continuously – that we are not renovating a decaying and doomed profession. No! We are working collaboratively to complete a magnificent work!
We are a group of intelligent and passionate individuals who are solving all types of problems for animals who don’t have a voice for themselves, the environment via One Health, and indirectly for humans through research, ensuring food safety, and prevention of zoonosis.
BUT!
Until we are able to look upon our current challenges as overall growth opportunities and stop looking at them as reasons to run away or discourage others from joining our profession, my intuition tells me that the veterinary profession will only grow at a mere linear rate. At a linear rate, we can never meet completion. We can’t see the profession complete as a masterpiece.
I’m not a polished artist or anything, so forgive my beautiful drawings lol. These growth models help me to see the TRUE OPPORTUNITY ahead!
Most people look at only the linear form of growth. Not me!
We need to make metamorphic or transformational change/growth: as in from an egg to a caterpillar and from a caterpillar into a butterfly, if we are going to see the profession in its magnificent and completed state! This can only occur as we learn to see the advantages in the disadvantages and the opportunity in the seeming chaos!
Note: I’m not a fan of competition. Rather, I am a disciple of creation. I need not compete with anyone for anything. I simply look for what I want, and if I can’t find it, I create it myself! More or less, I’m competing with myself on a daily basis!
If you can find a way to be a part of the metamorphic growth model – and below, I’ll offer you 4 easy ways to do so – then you will find enjoyment and success in whatever it is that you are doing! You’ll see the limitless sea of opportunity all around you!
However, you can never be a part of the metamorphic growth model until you see the profession as a something that is becoming more complete as opposed to a something that is getting worse.
That is a state of fundamental truth. If you believe something different, you have been bamboozled! We must collectively understand this.
Where to Start – 4 Areas that Need Reform
- Diversity and Inclusion
- Wellbeing
- Economics/Capitalism
- Leadership
The profession is lacking in regards to diversity and inclusion, wellbeing, leadership, and financial literacy/capitalism.
In other words, pick 1 of these to master and then share your knowledge as you progress throughout your career and make strides to improve the profession.
You will be helping yourself, providing value to others, and advancing the profession! What more can you ask for?
You may not be aware, but these are areas that are already being worked on by various groups in vet med. However, the progress that is being made is very linear and not metamorphic at all.
By improving these areas of the profession, we will be a profession that is operating in rare form!
We have an long and exciting journey to travel before reaching that stage, but that means that there must be opportunity for all who want to be a part of the forward movement!
The real question is, “What role will YOU play?”
Complainer who is fooled by appearances.
Or…
Leader who sees challenges as indicators as opportunity for metamorphic growth.
The choice is yours… choose wisely!
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What will the profession look like in 100 years? Better yet, what role will you play in that picture? I’m sure it’ll look much, much better.
Get MotiVETed PowerNote: I believe that veterinarians will be the group of individuals who society looks to for consult on how to create lasting and much needed global change across many industries. However, we have to successfully complete our own profession first! Therefore, being a veterinarian with an advancing mindset will make you a high priced commodity in the future!
The Investment
I believe the high cost of tuition is a good thing. It is helping us to become more financially aware and literate, and I love hearing about the amazing stories of people paying off their debt loads.
Get MotiVETed PowerNote: The Facebook Group Debt Free Vets is a super awesome resource for seeing what others are doing to manage student loan debt. I also like looking at the posts from the Financial Wellness DVM.
If we create mindsets that focus on opportunity and wealth creation and eliminate the “drowning in debt” mentality that many of us have conformingly adopted, then we would see that the veterinary school tuition is in fact a very small investment for the opportunity of a lifetime we possess as veterinarians – O.K…. maybe very small is a bit of a stretch, but it’s really not a lot in the grand scheme of things!
There are many who have crushed their student loans, and it is very possible to do so! Embrace the challenge! Don’t allow it to get you down! After you handle your debts, use the knowledge you gained along the way to help someone else – whether in the veterinary industry or some other industry!
I’m personally over all of this “mountain of student loan debt” stuff.
For fun, I look at financial statements of monster companies like Apple and Google to remind myself to avoid the poverty mindset of thinking of my tuition as a bad investment!
Get MotiVETed Power Note: Some Interesting 2018 Long-Term Debt Amounts
Netflix: $8,000,000,000
Amazon: $24,000,000,000
Apple: $93,735 mil = $93,735,000,000
US: $21,000,000,000,000 (that’s a fun one)
I fully understand that the debt of these companies is a lot different than the student loan debt we possess, and I also fully understand that these companies have even more billions in assets, and that these debt amounts are responsible for their success and yada yada. I get it! It’s just for fun!
The take home message is, however, that it’s not the debt itself but what you’re doing with the money or with the skills you acquired with the debt.
Whether you see it or not, there is more opportunity in vet med than ever before, and for only a very small investment of less than 1 million dollars you get to get in on the opportunity early!
Can you imagine investing in Apple or Google in 2008?
2019 is to the veterinary profession what 2008 was to Apple and Google. Think about that, and proceed with a smile!
There are many veterinary care models and technologies that haven’t even been thought of yet!
Who knows, maybe YOU will be the one who comes up with something revolutionary!
Get MotiVETed PowerNote: I spend at least 1 hour a day thinking of new ideas to improve my life and the veterinary profession and the way we experience and practice medicine. Great things are down the road – in my mind at least! It’s a great mental exercise! I’d love to guide you on how to do this effectively. If you want to instantly improve life, contact me or comment and we can chat!
Live Your Dream!
The veterinary profession provides an amazing opportunity to live your dream.
I’m on the admissions committee for a veterinary school, and many of the applicants state something along the lines of it being their dream to be a veterinarian. I imagine many of you had a similar dream.
Your dream need not be forgotten. Perhaps it needs to be modified a bit, but certainly not lost.
It ‘bothers’ me to see miserable veterinarians and veterinary professionals. I have literally sat in veterinary hospital exam rooms with veterinarians close to retirement age who are in tears about their futures and their pasts!
I also had an 80-year-old veterinarian confess to me after giving my “7 Secrets to Wellbeing for the Veterinary Professional: Keeping It Real” speech that he wishes he had heard my presentation 50 years ago! He passed less than a year later.
How can this be? How can this be that people are dreaming of doing something… doing it… and then being unhappy and unfulfilled at the end of it?
Well, I think I’ve found an answer and hence I walked away from a 6-figure salary to create Get MotiVETed with an equally passionate veterinary technician to share that answer with members of the vet community.
We have now grown and have pre-vet/vet student interns, a mental health professional, and an ex-practice manager to help us with our purpose of making poor veterinary wellbeing a thing of the past.
Veterinary professionals can and should live their dreams, and it is our goal to see to it that you do just that!
Veterinarians and veterinary professionals are primed to live their dreams. We are the absolute best goal achievers. We have to go through a ton of adversity in order to realize our primary dream of getting into veterinary school and even more adversity to make it through veterinary school.
Let me tell you:
Achieving the life of personal and professional wellbeing that I’ve achieved was A LOT easier than getting in and matriculating through veterinary school.
Set your future goals of living your dream of being a vet, while simultaneously being happy and fulfilled as your primary concern! Work towards it. Go after it relentlessly. And, I’m sure you’ll find yourself being an advocate of this profession because you are living your dream of being a veterinarian AND being happy and fulfilled daily!
If Your Present Situation Sucks…
If you are inharmoniously placed right now, don’t worry and don’t hurry to go somewhere else! The solution to all of your personal and professional riddles is already inside of you! You just need to wake up the principle of power within you!
That said…
Have you seen the beauty in wherever you are?
Have you seen the amazing talents and character traits of all who you interact with on a daily basis?
Have you seen how awesome your co-workers are? Do you know their stories? Do you know their hopes and dreams?
Do you see every client and every pet as perfect on their own plane of existence? Do you treat them as the perfect and beautiful people they are?
Do you see the beauty in the way your hospital operates? Even if it’s operating horribly, there is still beauty that is there.
When I was able to see all of these in my present environment, I was able to make some progress!
Even if the people in your current environment are acting in unpolished and undeveloped ways, is that preventing you from seeing the beauty that lies within them?
More importantly, do you see the beauty and perfection in yourself when you look in the mirror?
If the answer is no, then that is absolutely where you need to start!
If you look hard enough and long enough, you won’t fail to see it! Your beauty and perfection is the truth! You may have some dirt that’s accumulated from negative experiences or from ignorant people over the years, but I assure that you can wipe away the dust and grime. It may take a little time and some effort, but a polished work surely lies within!
Self-belief issues? Read “The Power of Self-Belief: Be the Vet You Want to Be”
If you haven’t seen the beauty in everything around you and in yourself, then you still have some more work to do in your current environment!
As Russell Conwell states, you could have acres of diamonds in your own backyard! Before you move on to another environment in search of something better, be sure you don’t already have a fortune where you are!
In other words, we need to change our perspectives on life before we change conditions and environments. Change your inside world, and you will infallibly change your outside world. You will be the common denominator wherever you go, so make sure you are taking your best self with you everywhere you go!
After you have changed yourself and your perspective, remember the following:
You aren’t a rock. You don’t have to stay.
You aren’t the sun. You don’t have to rise in the East and set in the West.
You can have the life you want to have for yourself, and if you can’t find the conditions you want, then you may need to create them. I believe in you to be able to create them if you need to!
Message To My Fellow Millennial Vet Professionals
The millennials all over the world are reaching full stride by reaching for their full potential day in and day out, and they are changing the world in many other fields of endeavor.
The same will happen in the veterinary profession, and it’s only a matter of time.
Millennials are progressive. We refuse to not live our purposes. We want wellbeing for ourselves and all others, and we won’t stop until we get it.
There are very few thought leaders in the veterinary profession. There are even fewer young thought leaders in the profession.
Therefore, if you can set yourself apart from the crowd and master yourself by mastering your thoughts and words, and essentially your actions and ultimately your results, then you will tend to manifest that which you strongly desire.
What role will you play as this profession progresses towards greater completion? The choice is yours!
If you enjoyed this article, please leave a comment below and join our free and supportive community of progressive veterinary professionals.
Together, we can complete the veterinary profession, and together we will change the world!
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