I can still picture the moment, one of many:

A Wednesday afternoon team meeting with my staff sitting in a ring of chairs around the office. I’m sitting behind my desk, leading the meeting, and doing most of the talking. I'd go through what was going on, what we needed to work on, and what I needed (or expected) from them. And then I would ask them, "What do you all think?" which is when the room would go quiet.

An awkward, slightly tense kind of quiet where everyone was looking at the floor or each other or anywhere but at me. It would take a long time before someone finally said something. And even then, it was usually surface-level and safe.

One year ago, at age 55, I was diagnosed with ADHD. I’ve not shared too much about my diagnosis publicly, not knowing how it would fit into the story or be of value, but as I look at how far I’ve come from where I’ve been, I feel it's important to say something. Someone else out there is struggling and this might help them.

When things go wrong on your team, the first question isn't "what did they do?" — it's "what did we communicate?"

A job description is how you answer that question before things go wrong. It sets the standard for what a role can accomplish — showing your team not just what to do, but why it matters and how to do it well.

The problem isn't that you have too many meetings. It's that most of them aren't doing what meetings are supposed to do.

I hear it constantly from practice owners: meetings are a waste of time. And honestly? For the meetings most of them are having, I agree.

Your team can’t perform to a standard that only exists in your head — and the cost of that gap is higher than most practice owners realize.

I know this cycle firsthand — and I see it with nearly every new practice owner I work with.

You hit the ground running. You’re seeing patients and running the practice at the same time, and what gets left behind is building the systems and structure your team needs to do more without you. So the processes, the policies, the expectations — they all live in your head. People come and go, and nobody else really knows what “right” looks like.

By the time you realize how deep the gap is, stopping to document anything feels impossible. There’s no time. So it gets worse. It becomes a vicious cycle: the more you need the structure, the less capacity you have to create it.

“Pain is inevitable, but suffering is optional.”

I heard this for the first time a few weeks ago, and I found it irritating—because choosing suffering is exactly what I do when I get stuck and stressed and don't know what to do.

For a lot of people, 2025 felt like one long “are you kidding me?” I had more than a few of those moments myself. Curveballs. Shake-ups. One disruption after another. Just when things felt steady, the ground shifted again.

So instead of writing 2025 off as a loss, I want to try something else.
Let’s pause and notice a few things that were quietly, unexpectedly… good.

Practice owners don’t feel stuck and exhausted because they lack skill or commitment. They feel stuck and exhausted because they have no idea where they’re headed.

And nothing drains your energy faster than a life without direction.

In the next few weeks, many of us will sit around a table, eat too much food, watch too much football, and do our best to avoid talking about politics with friends and family. And let’s be honest — that’s harder this year, as it feels like the world is heavier than usual.

Maybe that’s why the pause of Thanksgiving matters even more right now.

As a kid, my parents told me I could be anyone I wanted to be — and they meant it — but it always came with the fine print: work hard, be responsible, play it safe. It was about survival, not expansion. The message was: do more, work harder, and be grateful for what you get. There wasn’t much talk about dreaming bigger or building something extraordinary.

I clearly remember the first (and last) time I rescued another scuba diver. It was right after completing a PADI rescue diver certification course.

You didn’t become a veterinary practice owner so you could be on call for printer paper emergencies. But if you’re always available, that’s exactly how it feels — constant texts, questions, and interruptions, no matter the time of day.

Fear has this sneaky way of convincing us we're protecting ourselves when we're actually just staying small, I was reminded of this last week when I almost let my fear of speaking Spanish rob me of a beautiful experience of connection.

You didn't become a practice owner to be everyone's go-to problem solver 24/7.

The veterinary practice owners I work with are savvy, experienced doctors who mastered their craft over years in practice. They took the leap into veterinary practice ownership because they had a vision - their own practice, shaped their way.

After I bought my practice and inherited a team, it didn’t take me long (just a few years) to realize that my team wasn’t me - not even close - so expecting them to think and act like I did was never going to happen. I wanted everyone to be high performing, driven, above and beyond people that were 100% committed to the job, like I was.

Does this sound familiar? Your head tech is brilliant but really unmotivated. Your new receptionist is eager but keeps making scheduling mistakes. And your new VA started off strong, but is lacking many skills and is defensive when you try to correct him.

Does getting your team to change feel like nailing gelatin to a tree? Getting buy-in, commitment and follow-through can be a very slippery challenge, and one that can become frustrating, painful, and inefficient for all if you’re not fully prepared.

We've all been there: You return from a fantastic veterinary conference, your head buzzing with exciting new ideas. You're eager to revolutionize your practice, but then... reality hits. The daily grind threatens to swallow your enthusiasm whole. Before you know it, those brilliant concepts are gathering dust in the back of your mind.

Back to the clipper situation (refer to the last blog), which had been ongoing for weeks until the infamous spay incident forced me to take action. Instead of staying in a victim mindset, I followed the Pathway to Accountability.

Last week, it took 20 minutes to shave a cat for surgery, not because of the procedure itself but due to the ten minutes spent searching for a sharp working set of clippers. This issue highlights a broader problem: a lack of accountability.