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Are you a passionate veterinarian seeking to elevate your practice and make a lasting impact in the field?
Welcome to "The Vet'Ed Podcast". Join Steven Hermann, Kale Flaspohler and Lindo Zwane - industry experts and thought leaders, as they delve into tailored strategies and nurturing relationships to empower privately owned veterinary practices.
Tune in the first and third Wednesday of the month to gain invaluable insights, tips, and inspiration to thrive in your independent clinic. Together, let's build a community dedicated to advancing veterinary care. Subscribe now and embark on a journey towards lasting success in your practice.
Are you ready? Hey everybody. It's Steven Herman, co host of the vetted podcast, and I'm excited for 2025 to bring you a little mini podcast episodes, 10, 15 minutes. And we're gonna talk about mindset this year. I know everybody talks about mindset.
Steven:There's no question about it, and I think that's important. Obviously, people are talking about it because it is important. I think that, you know, one thing to look at is a couple of definitions, interestingly enough. So Oxford languages says, mindset is the established set of attitudes held by someone. Webster has two definitions here, a mental attitude or inclination, a fixed state of mind.
Steven:Kind of interesting on the Webster one with the, excuse me, fixed state of mind. And the question is, can you change a fixed state of mind? And, I believe you can, but the way you can is to be thinking about it, understanding what motivates you, and this will help that help come along with your mindset to make sure that that you have the right mindset to be successful in the veterinary space. So everything too is interesting. I'd like to take a look back through, you know, when did mindsets start popping up into into books and things like that, and interestingly enough, Google has what's called the engram viewer, which shows mentions in books, and so it wasn't until the eighties till it really started popping up, and then just it shot straight up.
Steven:We know that. I think that shows that, you know, as we look out there today in the veterinary community with mental health challenges, things of that nature, it's because people are seeking mental health, and people, when they hear that, people like to fill a need and start writing books, start talking about it. So, hey, by no means am I a guru on this. By no means am I an industry expert on this specific topic, but what I am is a person with experience working with business owners, having my own business, and just sharing experiences. I think one of the biggest parts of mindset is the ability to learn from shared experiences.
Steven:So a good part about this podcast will be is that, you know, I'm going to text my clients, text friends in the veterinary industry and ask them, you know, what are some success stories? What are some obstacles? What's holding you back? So not only to talk about, you know, mindset, philosophy, theory, those things that come along with it, but also the biggest parts of the experience. So I'll be excited to share that.
Steven:Why does this matter? Mindset, I mentioned it earlier, mindset matters to success. There's no question about that. Success really, what does that mean also, though, success? We can dive into that.
Steven:Success can be profitable practice. Success could be a growing practice. Success could be selling your practice and retiring. Success could be something you do in the community. Success is also what is your mindset?
Steven:What is that mind telling you success is? I don't believe one definition of success, that success is not just tied to profitable business. Success is not just tied to a growing business. Success really is in the eyes of the beholder. It's a big part of mindset.
Steven:And so, again, inspiration for the veterinary community, mindset matters. I think it was important to give you the background on mindset. Carol Dweck, I had the opportunity to listen to her down in Atlanta. She was a keynote speaker at an education conference. My wife is big into education.
Steven:She has a PhD in learning teaching curriculum from the College of Mizzou, there, and I said that really wrong. It's Missouri, University of Missouri Learning, Teaching and Curriculum College, and her emphasis is in curriculum and policy design. And so I was able to go to that education conference with her. I actually was a member of a school board at the time too. But she spoke specifically about growth mindset.
Steven:Boy, I'm struggling today talking here, Linda. I gotta get some water in me to get the frog out of my throat on January 2nd. All right. Thanks for bearing with me on that. But Carol's, you know, this is with anything talked about growth mindset, and I think people took growth mindset to mean like growing, right?
Steven:To mean like my business is growing, my profit's growing. But really, as you go through and look at growth mindset, I think growth mindset's being proven today about learning. Are you learning? The only way you grow your actual mind, it's about growing your mind, so you can learn, so you can adapt with the change, adapt with the times, and and be ready for what the future has to hold, to be proactive, to not be reactive. So, you know, she she's one of the thought leaders in the growth mindset.
Steven:It's got a book out there about the growth mindset, but it but as things go along, I think what's beautiful about her is that she's able to admit what she talked about 10, 15 years ago, you know, has to change. That's what a growth mindset is about, learning and changing for the future, for your team, for your family, all those things, your community that matters. Other couple of mindsets that people talk about, of course, is a leadership mindset. Leadership mindset as business owners is huge. I think you have to be able to have that.
Steven:And then also, the one thing that's thrown out there is abundance mindset. So a little bit like the growth, but the abundance mindset really, I think, is ability to take viewpoints, to see other people's point of view in a nice way, to be able to have discernment because I think in today's culture, we know that if you talk about something, it gets turned political really quick. Right? An abundance mindset is able to go, hey, I'm not being political here. I'm just trying to help learn, understand what's going on so we can be better people, better community, and those things.
Steven:So we'll dive into that, the different kinds of mindsets. At the end of the day, you can put in labels in front of mindset. You can define mindset strictly, but really when it comes down to it, mindset, again, the question is to put a smile on your face. Are you happy? Are you in the right proactive mindset?
Steven:It's so important. I heard something really good and it said, on mindset, ask yourself, if everything was taken away from you, would you regain your success? Say it again. If everything was taken away from you, would you regain your success? I think that'll tell you where your mindset's at today.
Steven:Pretty scary to think about, right? To go, oh, my business gets taken away from me or my career gets taken away from me, whatever that is. Am I in the right mindset to be able to get that back? And one person that said it really well was Mark Cuban on how I built this with Guy Raz. Mark got down into it to say, you know, as he's a billionaire, and you know, that's what measures success in today's world, probably actually the wrong measurement, right, is the abundance of wealth, if you will.
Steven:But he said, yeah, if everything was taken away from him, he would regain his success. Now the one caveat he did say is that becoming a billionaire is a lucky thing. It's not about being the best at anything. It's really a lucky thing. Not many people are gonna achieve that.
Steven:He just happened to be at the right place at the right time, but he would become successful again. He'd probably become a millionaire again, you know, or not a billionaire, but be be a millionaire and be successful. So, you know, the question is that mindset. Mindset's belief in yourself too. Do you believe in yourself?
Steven:Do you have the grit to keep pushing through and and make that work? And on a personal level, I think where that comes to me experiential wise is growing up in the family grocery store. And, you know, when I graduated college, that's what I was gonna do. I was gonna grow that business into multiple locations, be a leader in the independent vet, veterinary grocery space. And in 2013, when it was gonna be my time to take over the business ownership completely from the family, you know, started looking at the future going, wow.
Steven:The debt here, the things I'm about to take on to make this happen aren't gonna make a whole lot of sense. So I made the decision in 2013 to go out on my own and do my own thing. And so, yeah, I've had all those things taken away from me, and I'd say that a lot of it's taken away from me by my own choosing to say, let's start over and reevaluate these things. And so, you know, went out, and did I know where I was gonna end up in the veterinary space? No, I did not.
Steven:I thought I was gonna be in the grocery space still doing what we do for veterinarians today at ProPartners team. I was gonna do that for for the grocers, but that didn't work out. But over time, you know, running into people in the veterinary industry, meeting Wes Hinges in 2015, the team we've got here together, the great clients we have, yeah, we've, you know, rebuilding success. It's been a beautiful thing, and my mindset's been that. I think that that comes from just, having grit, having determination, but really where that comes from is purpose.
Steven:And so when we look at this, the mindset, I think about purpose, and I wanna wrap that up today on this note. Again, keep these short 10, 15 minutes and have good conversations. But purpose, and what fuels me is that my purpose is people impact. I I think that we're here to see I do believe we're here to see the next generations better off than we are. The world is better off moving forward.
Steven:We may have these times where we're like, I don't know if that can happen. But having the optimism and believing in that, reminding myself when I come in the doors here at ProPartners team, when I go home to my family, all those things, that fires me up. When I have those days that aren't just right, have those weeks even that aren't just right. If I'm able to get back to my purpose, which is people impact, my mindset, that is my mindset. It fuels my optimism and and gets me going.
Steven:And one other thing nice about to think about on purpose is is we're in 2025, so we've got a new year. And I know people kick new year's resolutions, you know, go, these are bad things. The reason they say they're bad things is because people don't follow through on them. New Year's resolutions are really good things if you follow through on them. And one thing that we keep it, keep it, or make it happen with is by keeping it simple and by choosing a word of the year.
Steven:And as my family, we kept New Year's Eve simple, and we're asking each other what's word of the year. I didn't know. I've had many things in 2024 go on that have been great, not so great, and it's been challenging, but I looked at it and I said, you know what? I've got my word. It came yesterday on a bike ride.
Steven:You know, I've got the handlebar here, coffee. Yeah, I love bike riding and I get inspiration out there when I'm out by myself. Fun came to mind. You know, I thought about it when I walked through the door. I'm just gonna have that fun mindset.
Steven:That's my mindset for 2025 is fun. You know, in difficult situation, you can turn it, you can change it, you can go, you know what, let's figure out how to make this as, you know, not everything's gonna be fun. Don't get me wrong. There's extenuating circumstances, but I'm gonna say 80%, 90% of the things that are going on, your mind, myself, that's me, fun. So what's your mindset gonna be in 2025?
Steven:What's your purpose? What's that word for the year? Is it fun? I mean, take it and use it. Use something that makes you you, makes you excited, makes you optimistic, makes you hopeful about 2025 because you gotta carry that energy.
Steven:Without it at that energy, you're not gonna the veterinary practice you wanna be successful with, your people aren't gonna be feeling it. It's gotta come from the top. So let's have a great time this year talking about mindset. I look forward to hearing from my clients on, again, experiences they've had to share with. Please feel free to send in through the Better podcast channel.
Steven:What are questions you've got, thoughts and ideas? It's about viewpoints. That's the abundance mindset. Let's have fun with this, and let's have a great 2025. Thanks for your time.