Happy for the Holidays?

The holidays are here once again and I think it is a great time to explore what we can do to decrease the stress and drama associated with the season.  As veterinary professionals we experience client stresses daily, but when the holidays approach client stress levels can reach a whole new high.  Clients juggling family drama, financial concerns, time constraints and also elevated grief when a pet is ill or dies. These negative emotions tend to rub off on us and can be absorbed into our own holiday and family worries, which in turn may cause us to experience more stress or even turn into depression.

So how do we survive the wave of extreme holiday expectations and handle the season with our sanity and authenticity intact?  

How can we really enjoy the holidays?

Set yourself up for success with realistic expectations.  We all have those mental pictures of beautiful Hallmark Movie-like family holiday gatherings where everyone gets along and has a great time. Fairy tale memories from our childhoods that we think will be reproduced at the annual holiday party. More likely you will experience unwanted career advice from your favorite aunt, critiques of the holiday food from your overweight dieting cousin, or expert parenting advice from your in-laws.  There will certainly be some sort of mayhem surrounding the gift giving and usually at least one heated disagreement.    If you expect this drama ahead of time, and look at it as entertainment, you will not leave the party disappointed.   You are sure to be entertained.  Expect the chaos and then you can enjoy it.

Be prepared to set proper boundaries.  It is important to be respectful when clients or family members are pushing your buttons with unrealistic expectations, but be sure to set some mental and physical boundaries to protect yourself against their negativity.  You do not need to get absorbed in their emotions or take on their stress.  Protect yourself by setting some clear mental and physical boundaries and plan to separate yourself when you feel that you are getting overly involved.

Treat yourself and others with kindness.  Try to remember that everyone is under stress this time of year and you may need to be extra understanding to come out on the other side with intact relationships.  Do not put too many expectations of perfection on yourself either.  Perfect parties, perfect gifts or perfect cookies are for Martha Stewart, not you.  You need to practice taking care of yourself and let the perfectionism go.  Try to use this season to enjoy your family and friends as imperfect as they are.  Give yourself permission to rest and take care of your needs before pleasing others.  

Take responsibility for your emotions.  Notice when you are feeling overwhelmed, insulted, defensive or exhausted.  Do not overreact to those feelings.  See them for what they are; simply emotions that everyone experiences as a human being.   Write them down or verbalize them so you can see them and experience them.  If you see them as simple emotions, with no power to consume you, you will be able to let them go.  Experience the emotions and welcome them, then let them pass and move on to more positive thoughts and feelings.

Do not try to change anyone.  Accept the fact that people are an interesting mix of many emotions both negative and positive.  Approach them with a sense of humor and curiosity.  Allow them to be who they are and realize that you cannot change them, so you might as well enjoy them.  Accepting each person for who they are and learning to laugh at them will help you see the joy that the holidays are supposed to bring. 

Taking care of yourself and honoring those around you will allow you to enjoy everything that the holidays may bring.

Happy Holidays Everyone! 

“The holiday season is a perfect time to reflect on our blessings and seek out ways to make life better for those around us.”  Terri Marshall

Dr. Julie Cappel

Puzzling the best team together.

Today I did a lot of thinking about my veterinary team.   It all started last night at our annual Christmas/Holiday party where I had over six hours of togetherness time with them, eating, exchanging gifts and visiting the “Holiday Lights program at Greenfield Village.  There was even some holiday singing on the party bus that took us from our hospital to the event.  We were missing a few people due to an unfortunate stomach flu virus that one of my technicians procured (and then shared) from her toddler son’s day care.  Even though some of them were unable to attend, it was heartwarming to see the lengths that the present team members went through to include their ill comrades in the festivities.  Photos were texted and videos were shared with the ill teammates.  They even Skyped with one of the sick employees, so she could open her secret Santa gift “in person”, sort of.  As I watched the team visit with each other while eating, drinking and exchanging gifts, I could feel the love that they have for each other and the dedication that they share to our hospital and the profession that holds us all together.

As I took a mental inventory of the team members, I noticed how each of them is special and different.  Their unique talents and personalities, when pieced together with the other's talents, creates many pieces to a big elaborate puzzle.  The puzzle that they create allows our team to serve the clients and patients in the best way possible and makes our veterinary hospital great.

How do you go about creating a harmonious team so the puzzle pieces fit?

The real truth is that you can’t.  Your team members are who they are, and they get to behave in any way that they want to behave.  You, as the leader get to create training and boundaries for the practice team, but ultimately working with them and stretching them will get you further than trying to mold them into something that they are not.  Allowing them the freedom to learn and develop their “favorite” or natural skills will create an atmosphere of support and in turn allow them to take chances in their careers.  Showing your support to them in their life and future goals may not keep them working at your practice forever, but if they feel supported and loved they will be more likely to stay with you longer and work happier.

Take time to get to know your team members and honor them for who they are.  Get to know their personality traits and preferences.  Support them in their learning as much as possible and honor them when they feel discouraged or stressed.  Try to hear them out when they feel frustrated about a practice situation, client or team member.   Place each person in a position that suites them, so they can continue to grow.

How do you puzzle together the best team?  Appreciate the team you already have.   Love each individual for who they are, find their talents and utilize their strengths.  The atmosphere of support that you develop will create a warm and inviting practice for your clients and their pets.   

"Strength lies in differences, not in similarities." Stephen Covey

"Appreciate what you have, where you are and who you are with in this moment"  Tony Clark

Dr. Julie Cappel

Experiencing More Joy

People that work in healing professions like ours, have more that their fair share of tragic stories. We experience life and death with regularity as our patients present to us in various stages of health and disease.  In veterinary medicine we also have people that come along with our animal patients. Those people have problems of their own, in addition to a sick pet and they often want to share their sad stories with us.  Some of them have terrible things happening to them that they tell us in excruciating detail.  It is wonderful, in a way, because it shows that they trust and value us like family.  The down side is that we can feel overwhelmed by the amount of empathy needed to navigate our work day. 

We may think that the problems of our clients and patients are ours to take on, but in truth they are just part of everyone’s everyday life.  Life is not easy or fair. Life is made of opposites: darkness and light, pain and pleasure, prosperity and scarcity,  joy and sorrow.

What if you could be joyful all the time?  Would you want to? 

The easy answer is yes, but if we really think about it, we require sorrow to know joy.

How can we experience more joy and still have the compassion and empathy that we need to navigate our typical veterinary day?

Imagine more Joy:  Practice being mindful of emotions.  It may sound difficult, but we can control the way we experience even the saddest of situations by looking for the positive in it.  We have the capacity to change our narrative. Searching for the positives in a difficult situation helps us experience it in a new way.   Thinking things like, “It is a good thing that I am here for this family in their time of need.  I can really help them navigate this situation.  I have the experience and strength needed to help them make a difficult decision.”  As you work your brain into a more positive thinking space, you will train it to go there first.  You will spare yourself negativity and move more quickly into a joyful frame of mind.

Let go of worry:  Worry is a useless and wasteful emotion.  You cannot change the past or the future no matter how much you worry about it so why indulge? One way to combat worry is using your mind to look at the worry thought from a neutral perspective.   When a worry thought arises, step back mentally and really look at it.  Is this thought serving you in any way?  Analyze the thought and see it for the joy thief that it is. Let it go.  Worry has no place in a joyful day.

Work on gratitude:  I know that I have said this before, but the truth is that working on gratitude daily helps people have a more positive and joyful outlook.  Take a moment to write down anything that you are grateful for, and make it a habit. You can be grateful for anything.  If you are consistent in a gratitude exercise you will train your mind to look for the good things in your life.  You will, in turn, experience more joy.

Being the best veterinary professional and bringing more joy to your life can go hand in hand.  It may take some mental practice, but if you imagine joy, let go of worry and search for gratitude with your patients and clients, your thoughts will bring joy to your best veterinary life.  

“There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.”

 William Shakespear, Hamlet

Dr. Julie Cappel

Holiday Open House - a lesson in generosity.

Each year, approximately four weeks before Christmas, my veterinary hospital holds our annual Holiday Open House and pet/family pictures with Santa.  This year Friday November 30^th was the day.  The Open House has been a tradition of ours for the past 20 years and my team has become quite proficient at the execution of the event.   We collect donations of pet supplies and gifts from our vendors to provide doggy/kitty gift bags to each pet attending.    Our employees volunteer their time and energy as we work to collect money for several local charities.   The opportunity for family and pet photos with Santa (also a volunteer) in exchange for a small donation to charity, and a “Toys for Tots” collection station, provides an energetic and altruistic environment. Each year I marvel at the dedication of the volunteers and the generosity of the clients and friends that attend.

The event is always a great lesson in giving and is why I feel inspired to address the subject of generosity.

The Open House is attended by a variety of pets and their extended families.  They arrive in many variations of creative holiday attire and pose for a photo with our Santa.   Santa is always the most generous human in the room as he volunteers his time to wrestle everything from wiggly puppies to a hundred-plus pound Newfoundland.  He has held pet birds, frightened cats, trembling rabbits and even a four-foot long snake.    Yep, this year we had a snake visit Santa’s lap.  He sits patiently for hours as children cry, cats scratch to escape and dogs lick at his bearded face. Our Santa and everyone on our hospital team shine as terrific examples of patience and true generosity of spirit.

Generosity is defined as giving more than is expected without thoughts of getting something in return.  Actual rewards may not be expected but the positive feelings that come from our generosity are their own reward.

I believe that most of us are wired for generosity.   We may not always realize that we possess it, but we feel it instinctively.  It is that part of our subconscious that urges us to help someone when we see them struggling with a heavy package or door.  It is the part of you that wants to give your waitress a big tip when you realize that she is having a rough night.  

Generosity makes us feel GREAT and if we practice it regularly it is very empowering.

Placing yourself in any situation in which you can give of yourself will create a feeling of power and self-confidence.  It does not always have to be generosity with money.  Generosity comes in many forms, generosity with time, with talents, with positive thoughts and kind words.   The more we are generous, the more we will feel positive energy in return.  We will get joy out of giving and that is why most of us are so inspired by the holidays.  We may feel stressed and overwhelmed by the busyness of the season, but in the end the reason we value the holidays so highly is that they give us many opportunities to practice our generosity.  

It is important to remind yourself that you have a choice to behave generously.  Not just with your money but with your time, talents, and energy.  The choices that you make each day may bring joy to others, but will most certainly bring enrichment to your life.

“Only a life lived for others is a life worthwhile.” 

Albert Einstein

Please share your positive experiences of generosity here, so others can share in your story.

Dr. Julie Cappel

Lessons I learned from a pigeon hoarder.

There are many interesting people that come in and out of a veterinarian’s life and those people teach us valuable life lessons.  We tend to assume that we are the teachers in the veterinarian/client relationship however clients are often our BEST teachers. Teaching us everything from humility to housekeeping.

There was one wonderful client, who has since passed away, that I think about often.  I think about her mostly when I have a house cleaning or organizing job to do.  I never visited her home, but I always imagined that it was a housekeeping disaster because she was a hoarder - a pigeon hoarder.

Mrs. Poupak (not her real name) was a widow that lived with her adult son in a suburban neighborhood near my veterinary hospital.  She maintained multiple bird feeders in her yard, which she would carefully fill daily. I don’t think that she had a lot of money, but what she did have she spent on her birds. The feeders were well attended and became so popular with the neighborhood birds that the word soon leaked to the neighborhood hawk population. The hawks learned that Mrs. Poupak’s bird feeders were a good place to pick off a pigeon or two if they wanted squab for lunch.

Thus our long veterinarian/client relationship began.   As Mrs. Poupak’s backyard population grew, so did the incidence of hawk attacks.  She did not want to feed the predators, so she took to watching her feeders “like a hawk” and beating back the hawks if they happened to try to pick off one of her precious pigeons. She would chase them down with an umbrella or tennis racket to break the victimized pigeon out of the offending hawk’s grasp.  Once she told me that she chased a hawk for 6 blocks to get it to drop one of her backyard birds. 

The mental picture of this small woman running through her neighborhood with a tennis racket screaming at a hawk flying overhead until she caught up to it, then beating it into submission to rescue a pigeon is priceless.

As she rescued the birds her indoor population of recovering pigeons grew and grew.  She took them in and brought them to me, fixed them up and rarely let any of them go.  She kept upwards of 40-50 pigeons living free in her home and as pigeons will tend to do, they set up housekeeping and started having baby pigeons, adding to her indoor population. She would bring me one bird after another that had either been mangled by a hawk or her new babies with a myriad of issues.  I knew that her health and her bank account would at some point collapse and I worried about her situation, and told her so.  We discussed that fact that she needed to stop collecting birds, but she could not bring herself to let go of her pets and the population started to control her.

At some point, well into my relationship with her, the situation was discovered by her daughter who forced her to give up most of her birds for her own health’s sake. Many of them were released or re-homed and she was allowed to keep only a few of her beloved pets leaving her somewhat heartbroken, but better off financially and physically. She lived the remainder of her life in a much cleaner environment with her children and a few of her pet birds. 

Mrs. Poupak’s hoarding situation taught me three valuable life lessons:

There is an inverse relationship between quantity of things and joy, so let some of your things go.

No matter how much money you spend on a situation, if you cannot see it for what it really is you may spend your life savings trying to fix it.  

Too much of anything is not good.

I think of her fondly as I go about keeping my own house and space in order, and I remember the lessons that her situation taught me.  She had beautiful intentions of helping the birds, but in the end her pigeon hoarding resulted in her home being condemned and her being separated from many of her beloved pets.  

“Sometimes letting things go is an act of far greater power than defending or hanging on.”  Eckhart Tolle

Dr. Julie Cappel

An Attitude of Gratitude to Carry Us Though Thanksgiving and Beyond

There are days when it just feels that no matter how hard we try we cannot make every client happy.  In some cases we do not even get a smile or a “thank you” for the amazing services we provide.  This may leave us feeling discouraged and dejected.

You may think we don’t deserve a thank you because we are just doing our job.   But I think everyone deserves a smile and some level of gratitude.  It is such an important part of human interaction and makes us all feel better.

I talked about this last week in my blog, but I thought that we should dig into this subject a bit more this week because it is the week of our Thanksgiving holiday.   As this holiday of “thanks” and “giving” approaches, I think we should explore how an attitude of gratitude helps us to have a better outlook towards our clients, our team and our family.

Gratitude is defined as “the quality of being thankful; readiness to show appreciation for and to return kindness.”

The second part of that definition really gets to me - the “readiness to show appreciation for and to return kindness.” 

I experienced a lack of client appreciation just this week and it turned into an opportunity for me to be more grateful.  

A client was visiting the office with a young puppy. The technician team attempted to educate him about intestinal parasite control and the importance of fecal parasite exams to diagnosed and eradicate intestinal parasites in young pets.  The team members that were involved in the interaction felt that they had communicated well and were confident that the client understood why we recommend two consecutive negative fecal tests for his puppy.  After the client left the office I discovered that he left a negative review for us on Google. His review basically stated that it was laughable that we should run the same test twice.   He obviously had misunderstood the explanation as to why we repeat samples on young pets. 

When I read the snarky review it took me a minute (maybe more like 10) to find a valid reason to be grateful for the fact that he left us a negative review.  Once I thought more carefully about it, I realized that if he had not left the review, I would have been unaware that there was a misunderstanding about our protocols.   It gave me the opportunity to develop a better system of client education and a new subject for our next hospital blog. He had given us the opportunity to improve.  I was grateful!

In contrast, we have another client that has been loyal to our hospital for many years.  He is one of the kindest and most positive people that I have ever met.  He has a variety of pets that he treats them as his animal children.  He is warm and kind and generous.  He faithfully presents his babies to us for their annual examinations and always shows up with a gift for the team.  He frequently brings us large sheet cakes and coolers full of ice cream as an expression of his gratitude.  He has even brought us presents from his overseas business travels. He is without fail the person that I think of when I think of living with gratitude.

My point in contrasting these two very different veterinary interactions is to demonstrate that we have a choice when it comes to living with gratitude. We can choose to feel just as grateful for the first client as the second. 

As you enjoy your Thanksgiving holiday with your family try to remember to be grateful for every interaction.  Even something that appears negative on the surface can lead to positivity if you can just manage your mind around it.    

“Develop an attitude of gratitude, and give thanks for everything that happens to you, knowing that every step forward is a step toward achieving something bigger and better than your current situation.” – Brian Tracy

 

Happy Thanksgiving!

Dr. Julie Cappel

Do I really matter? It takes one small thing.

I spent the better part of last week at a veterinary gathering in Dallas Texas.  The program was designed to be uplifting and informative - teaching the participants everything from human resource laws to gratitude and self-awareness. There were many different speakers with differing approaches presented, but they were all aiming at the same goal in some way:  aiming at self-care for veterinary professionals and encouraging a gratitude mentality. 

This subject is my passion and the main reason that I started this blog. 

The one event that I found particularly enjoyable and meaningful at the conference was the “charity” activity.  The entire group of over 1000 veterinarians, hospital managers and veterinary technicians were gathered into a room and separated into teams.  We were then given supplies and challenged to make blankets, build doghouses, birdhouses, and dog beds for a variety of animal and human charity organizations in the Dallas/Fort Worth area. 

The collective energy in the room was so positive it was electric.   Everyone in that huge ballroom was engaged and motivated.  Why?  We were giving back.  We were focused on doing something to better another.   The activity caused us to focus on the power that each of us has to overcome the negativity of the world by doing one small thing.  

On my team I met a veterinarian from Los Angeles who was such a sunny personality that I immediately felt great about my profession and my life.  She was the kind of person that sees the glass as half full.  She had a fantastic life outlook and gave our team added energy.  She focused her energy outward and affected us in a positive way.

This is something that you can focus on everyday to make your own life better.  You have the power to improve your attitude by focusing on someone else.  Giving back to the universe for what it has given to you.  It is a positivity super power that is always available to you.  

Start each day by feeling grateful for one small thing in your life.   It can be something as simple as your warm bed, your cup of coffee or the roof over your head.  Write it down as a way of seeing it in a concrete way.  Then spend a few minutes thinking about something you can do for another person today. It doesn’t have to be as complex as giving money or time to a charity organization.  It can be as simple as happily letting someone merge into traffic on your way to work. It can be something as simple as being positive for your team like my new friend from Los Angeles. It can be something anonymous. In fact anonymous random acts of kindness are often the best things you can do to make yourself feel alive.    

  

As veterinary professionals we do a lot of giving and it can make us feel depleted.  However, we have the power to use giving and gratefulness as a way of improving our outlook and feeling energized. By using the tools of gratitude and living openhandedly you will feel the difference and realize that every little thing you do really matters in this world.

Do one small thing.

You do matter.

 

Dr. Julie Cappel

Taking Baby Steps - How to get things done.

This weekend I was on a scrapbooking trip with my girl friends.  We always have so much fun working on our scrapbooks, eating and talking.  As I sat at my table looking at the piles of paper, photos and scrapbooking supplies that were laid out in front of me, I began to feel overwhelmed.  I could spend hours thinking about what I wanted to do with all of it.  I needed to start working. Working on my daughter’s wedding scrapbook, but there were so many beautiful photos and I didn’t want to ruin any of them.  The thought of getting started gave me a little anxiety and kept me frozen in inactivity.  Then I thought of a book I love called, “ The Slight Edge”.  It is a book about the concept of just taking little baby steps towards a goal.  Taking one small action at a time each day will eventually get a large task accomplished.  I began to work.

There are so many things that we want to do in our lives and we continually put them off because they seem so large.  We want to make more money, go on a fancy vacation, or learn a new skill.  We keep saying we want to do it, but the goal never materializes because we are caught in an inactivity/fear loop. 

If we spend too much time thinking about what we want to get done, we will idle and never accomplish anything.  If we wait for the perfect idea, the perfect job offer, the perfect deal for our vacation, we will never move.  Our brains get in the way of our goals.  Our brain brings up all the negative things that we think might happen if we step out of our comfort zone.   The negativity scares us into inaction.

I see this idle tendency so often with my clients.  I ask a client to brush their pets’ teeth.  They say, “there is no way doctor, he will never let me brush his teeth!”  I talk to them about the power of the “baby step” or “slight edge”.  Get the toothbrush, show it to the dog then give him a treat.   The next day place the toothbrush gently on one tooth, then stop and give him a treat.  The next day swipe at one tooth, then give him a treat.  You get the idea.  One tooth at a time keeping it positive until that dog loves getting his teeth brushed.  The goal is accomplished!  It becomes easy when you break it down into baby steps. 

How do you take baby steps and get this concept to work for you?

Focus on one project at a time and take one small step at a time.  Break the goal down into little bite sized chunks and write them down.  Make a list of baby steps.  Take each step until you get that project finished before switching to another.  Don’t multitask.  Your brain cannot do more than one thing at a time and if you allow yourself small chunks to focus on you are more likely to continue to move forward.  

Have no fear.  Nothing you want to do in life is out of your reach.  You want to learn to dance?  Take one dance lesson at a time.   You want to write a book, one page at a time.  You are perfectly capable of doing more than you think you can do.  Push through the fear and take a step.

One baby step.

Dr. Julie Cappel