“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.

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.

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.

What is empowerment? It’s hard to say because it’s a term that’s so overused and so broad that it either means everything or nothing. Webster defines it in just ten words as “the authority or power given to someone to do something.” That seems simple, doesn’t it? Just do that. Hand over the power and let someone do something.