Life Lessons from my Old Cat – Never Quit!

Yesterday I was preparing my household for a week long vacation.  At my house, that means farming out my animals to their respective pet sitters.  My two dogs, Parker and Trent almost always spend their time with my amazing friend (and a super veterinary technician) Carolyn.  She and her husband graciously take care of my boys whenever I have to go out of town.  They live on a beautiful property with their two dogs, some cats (don’t ask how many), and three horses - so my dogs always have a wonderful time.  I feel so blessed that I have them.   

 

Then there is my old cat, Peter, who is 18 ½ years old and battling cancer.  He is essentially in hospice care, but he does not know it.  He is a sweet-natured strange looking cat, with a skinny little head, too plump body, and very long skinny legs.  He is genuinely one of the sweetest things that has ever walked the earth, but he is distinctly unattractive.  Peter gets to stay at work with my fabulous veterinary team, and they treat him like royalty. They give him an entire exam room to stay in each night so he can move around and stretch his old arthritic joints.

Moving Peter to work for his vacation stay started me thinking about how he refuses to quit.  He has had cancer for well over a year now, and he hasn’t really noticed. He happily eats what he is served, purrs when petted, and rubs on his hairbrush to groom his scraggly fur.

Why is it that pets never quit? Why are they so amazingly brave and determined?

What lessons can we learn from Peter?

Do not feel sorry for yourself.  Whatever negative things you are handling today, there is always someone that is dealing with something more.  Remember that life is going to be difficult at times, but we can learn a great deal from difficulties.

Do not relive or focus on the past.  Realize that when you are dealing with something in your past, you have no superpower to change it.  Feel it, study it (briefly), learn the lesson that it was put there to teach you, then let it go.   Living there is a waste of time.

Let go of the excuses.  You can always come up with a reason to give up, but if you look for a reason to keep going, you can find that too.  Creating excuses to quit will never lead you to the vision you need to succeed.

If you quit at little things, you are training your brain to quit on everything.  Persevering in every little thing, will train your brain to succeed.  Everything you do in your life that is truly worthwhile takes some focused effort.  Quitting derails the focus on your goals and leads to a life without challenge and purpose.

People often complain, gripe, and worry about the smallest things.  Let’s learn a lesson from our cats, like my Peter, and refuse to quit.

Dr. Julie Cappel

“Every champion was once a contender who refused to give up.” – Rocky Balboa

Join me on the Podcast - The Veterinary Life Coach Podcast with Dr. Julie Cappel 

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-veterinary-life-coach-podcast-with-dr-julie-cappel/id1451549730?mt=2

Letting go of expectations – Tear up your script.

If you want to have disappointment and stress in your life, all you have to do is hang on to your script of expectations for the people around you.  We all have narratives in our heads that expect people to think, speak, act and behave in a way that we think they “should” behave.  The script that you have for others is based on your past experience, values and beliefs about how life should be lived and experienced.  

You will have more stress and pain if you expect your clients, family or veterinary team to act exactly the way you plan.  So much of the stress that you experience each day when dealing with clients is your expectations that they are going to act in a certain way.  You expect them to keep their appointment, show up on time, listen and agree to your diagnostic recommendations, follow your go home instructions to a tee, and then return for their recheck appointment on schedule.  This will almost never happen, so why do you expect it?  With our scripts of expectation, we are certainly setting ourselves up for disappointment - if not stress and burn-out.

Recently I experienced a client that challenged my script for them.  A mother and daughter that adopted a young kitten that was battling some diarrhea issues.  They had made multiple visits to the hospital with this kitten and had done all the diagnostics that I had asked them to do.  During the most recent visit we agreed to try the kitten on a bland prescription diet for a short time to see if we could remedy the problem.  We sent home some dry and canned prescription food, and they were instructed to feed only this diet for 1 week, then return for a recheck.  My “script” assumed that they would follow my recommendations.  One week later when they returned saying the kitten was no better, I questioned them about the diet.  They said, “Oh, we haven’t started him on that food yet.”  I am thinking, “What?  Why?”  

So Fascinating, right?

Human beings all have their own set of beliefs, values and needs.  This is not something that you can dictate.  They will behave as they behave, and you have no control over them.  The sooner you accept and embrace this fact, the sooner you can alleviate much of the stress in your job and life.  

How do you alleviate the stress of expectation?

You need to let go of your internal script for people and allow them to be who they are.  When they are acting in a manner that does not adhere to your script, it is almost never about you.  It is about them and their internal beliefs, past experiences and values.  You cannot force them into your way of thinking. Expectations that are unfulfilled always result in disappointment.  So why expect at all?

Trust that people are doing the best that they can with their resources, time and energy.  When you experience someone doing something upsetting to you, remember that they are responding to their own primitive brain and are being driven by their autopilot.  They are probably feeling stressed by their own thoughts of inadequacy or their own past experiences.  They have a different set of past experiences than you do, so of course they will react differently than you would to the same situation.  Assume that they are doing their very best.  

Try to be fascinated by human behavior and enjoy the element of surprise. Fascination and appreciation are the emotions that you want to embrace with every encounter.  Appreciate the unique value of every human that you encounter. Embrace and enjoy the element of surprise.  If you expect to be fascinated and appreciative of human behavior it will go a long way to helping you overcome your need to control people and the situation. 

If you can let go of your expectations and tear up your script, your life will open up like never before.

“My happiness grows in direct proportion to my acceptance, and in inverse proportion to my expectations.” -  Michael J. Fox

Dr. Julie Cappel

Join me on The Veterinary Life Coach Podcast!

 https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-veterinary-life-coach-podcast-with-dr-julie-cappel/id1451549730

The negative review – Why all the hate?

Veterinarians and veterinary technicians work in a business that requires extreme levels of compassion and tolerance each day.  We deal with emotional swings ranging from the joy of a litter of healthy puppies to the devastating sorrow of sudden loss of a pet - sometimes within the same hour.   These emotional gymnastics are done while dealing with clients that are in a rush, questioning charges, acting rude, or just highly emotional about their ill pet.  No wonder we are struggling to love our profession.

This week I was reminded of one of the primary reasons that we veterinarians feel so stressed and burned out much of the time.   It is the threat of the negative online review.

I work in a 5-doctor practice that has been in business for over 50 years.  We are AAHA accredited and have a stellar reputation in the community.  Our veterinarians and veterinary technicians are extremely experienced and competent.  All of them!    We have hundreds of positive, five-star reviews on Google, Facebook, Yelp and other platforms.  We have very few negative reviews, probably less than five.  So, why does one negative review trouble us so much?

We go into every exam room with the intention of doing our best work for every client and pet.  We have control over what we do and say, but we have no control over how the client thinks and feels about the experience. It is often an emotionally charged experience for the client when their beloved pet is ill.  It is no wonder that we have an occasional miscommunication, but that is no reason for a hate filled review.

When a client leaves a negative review without addressing the problem with the veterinarian or the hospital manager, it leaves us unable to remedy the situation.  When a veterinarian reads a negative review about one of their cases, it leaves them feeling embarrassed, helpless and incompetent.  Those feeling follow us into our future and can have long term negative effects on our confidence.  

Studies show that we focus on the negative review because of their scarcity.  Scarcity implies value in normal everyday life, so the fact that we have hundreds of positive and only a few negatives causes us to focus our attention on the negative.

So how do we handle negative online review?  How do we read the negative thoughts of angry people and go about confidently continuing to do the difficult job that we do?

The first thing that we need to do is to remain calm. Understanding that a negative review is more about the client than about you, is key.  The client had a different experience than you expected and that is all it means.  Responding in anger or berating yourself will not help anyone and will only make matters worse.  The client experience is their experience.

If possible, address them by phone or in person immediately to try to resolve the perceived issue.  Some clients will not talk to you and will not want to solve it.  That is entirely up to them; as long as you made an attempt at reconciliation, then you have done your job and can let it go.

If the issue cannot be addressed in person, you can reply online to the review in a polite and professional manner.  Future clients will see the written response and will use your professionalism to judge your hospital.   I always try to personally respond with my name and phone number just in case the client changes their mind and wants to talk it out. 

Once you have taken these steps, the difficult mental work of letting it go is crucial. Letting one bad review experience ruin all of your future work is not necessary or productive. When you get a negative review, remember that it is not really about you.  It is about the client’s experience on that day and nothing else.   Think of it as a neutral experience.  Carrying around shame and embarrassment does not serve you and will prevent you from living your best life.

Dr. Julie Cappel

 “No matter how good you are, someone is always going to be against you. But never let them be the limit of your success.” -  Terry Mark

“Be who you want to be and not care about what others think.”   - Andrew Biersack 

Join me on the Podcast - The Veterinary Life Coach Podcast with Dr. Julie Cappel 
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-veterinary-life-coach-podcast-with-dr-julie-cappel/id1451549730?mt=2