Episode 1: Why Independent Practice Needs Its Own Podcast

Running an independent veterinary practice takes equal parts courage and insanity. You carry the weight of the medicine and the weight of the business, often at the same time. This show is for the people who do that every day.

In this first episode, hosts Dr. Peter Weinstein (the stethoscope) and Martin Traub-Werner (the spreadsheet) introduce themselves and lay out why they believe there is no better moment for independent practices to show their strength. Roughly 75 percent of companion animal practices are independently owned, yet corporates hold an outsized share of revenue and staff. With corporate consolidation hitting some headwinds, Peter and Martin make the case for a genuine resurgence of locally owned and operated practice.

Along the way you will hear how a New York kid raised on All Creatures Great and Small became a California practice owner, and how a self-described business guy who started with lemonade stands at age eight went on to build VetSuccess, sell it to Vetsource, and launch the bookkeeping firm VetBooks. They dig into the bell curve of practice profitability, why owning a job is not the same as owning a business, and the idea that passion drives profit.

The episode closes with the debut of the Stethoscope and Spreadsheet Seven, a set of rapid-fire questions every future guest will face without warning. Peter and Martin put each other in the hot seat first.

This is the introduction. Future episodes will feature industry leaders and independent practice owners sharing their wins, challenges, and frustrations. If you would like to be a guest, reach out. We want to hear your story.

The Stethoscope and the Spreadsheet is brought to you with the support of VMG.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:03

Running an independent veterinary practice takes an act of courage and insanity. Because I did it. You carry the weight of the medicine and the weight of the business, often at the same time. This show is for the proudly independent people who do that every day. I'm Dr. Peter Weinstein.

SPEAKER_01 0:26

And I'm Martin Trauburner, and this is the Stethoscope and the Spreadsheet, episode one. And we need to thank our friends at BMG for supporting us in this project. Here we go, Peter, episode one.

SPEAKER_00 0:40

My God, it's like the first date. Episode one of many, we hope. We will be integrating a bunch of guests within the profession, outside of the profession. We'll have some friends, we'll have some not so friends. We really have some amazing guests lined up.

SPEAKER_01 0:57

Who are the not-so friends we're gonna have?

SPEAKER_00 0:59

I don't know, we haven't invited them yet.

SPEAKER_03 1:01

That's true.

SPEAKER_00 1:04

No, I mean I I got a I got somebody suggested that I do a podcast with one of the representatives from Dutch.

SPEAKER_02 1:12

Oh, oh, yeah, we should we should we should do that.

SPEAKER_00 1:16

Okay. She's a vet she's the chief veterinary officer, and I happen to know her.

SPEAKER_01 1:21

Controversial. Amazing. Hey Peter. Why don't we start by talking about for a minute or two why we think there's room for yet another podcast with Peter Weinstein?

SPEAKER_00 1:35

Yes, I've been on a number and I continue to be on a number of podcasts, and I and I think it's because we really do need to share ideas and thoughts. And really, the world has gotten plenty of Peter time, but I can't get enough of Martin time. So this is really not about our audience. This is just about me being able to hang with you and BS and throw things at the wall. And at least since it's virtual, I can't throw things at you. But you and I both have a passion for independent practices.

SPEAKER_03 2:06

We do.

SPEAKER_00 2:06

And we need to have platforms where we can talk about them and help guide them and provide resources. And so it's really this was your brain child in many ways. I'm just here making you look good.

SPEAKER_01 2:24

Which I'm eternally grateful. Yeah, I mean, it goes back, I guess, more than two years ago, two, two and a half years ago, something like that. Matt Saloy, who is going to be our first guest on the podcast, and I did a presentation around, you know, it was called Independence Day, why the time is right for a renaissance of independent practices. And we sort of laid out our hypothesis there. And ever since then, I've certainly seen in my in my business and in talking to my friends, that there is definitely a resurgent interest in independent practices. And frankly, some of it is that the corporates have hit some some headwinds as well, leaving leaving some open room for the independents. And so spending some time, I'm super excited about the guests that we've got lined up, industry folks, but also practice owners and listening to practice owner stories, I think independent practice owner stories is super interesting as well. And so we'll put it together in you know, 45 minutes or so chunks, which you can listen to at one and a quarter or one and a half speed to get through even faster. And hopefully it'll be useful and valuable to the industry. I'm super excited to be able to nerd out on some of this stuff together.

SPEAKER_00 3:52

That's why you're the spreadsheet, but you get to nerd out from that standpoint. So, you know, 75% of the companion animal practices are independently owned and operated. 25% are corporate. But the corporations do have a large platform because they own about 50% of the revenue and 50% of the employees from that standpoint. But there is no better time than the present for independent practices to show their strength, show their resilience. And whether it's food animal, companion animal, equine, mixed, whatever the case may be, this is a great time for independent veterinarians and their teams to show the world what locally owned and operated is all about. And so we're really excited about the stories that we're going to hear and the stories that we're going to share, the issues that we're going to bring up and address and maybe introduce our listeners to some new things that they hadn't thought about in terms of issues. But this is a profession that's right now that's at an inflection point. There's a tremendous amount of external pressures being put on veterinary medicine. And so I think it's extremely important that we have these conversations. And by the way, if anybody is listening to this and you want to be as part of the podcast, let us know because we're looking for guests and we want everybody's voice. We want to hear all sorts of different stories to share your successes and the challenges and your frustrations, because not every story has been shared. And I think it's important that we start to share some of those things that are going on out there that not everybody has had a chance to hear.

SPEAKER_01 5:33

Yeah. And you know, no surer sign that the time is right for a renaissance of independent practices than if you look at the booming growth of VMG that's really leaned into it and started a whole campaign, the proudly independent campaign, which I'm sure we'll talk to Matt about when we when we do get a chance to talk to him coming up here. So super, super interesting. Hey Peter, this since this is our introductory podcast, I think a lot of people know who you are and what you're about, but like I I don't even know.

SPEAKER_03 6:05

Like, where where where'd you grow up?

SPEAKER_00 6:09

I grew up I grew up in New York. I grew up on Long Island many years ago, and did my undergraduate at Cornell. The vet school didn't want me a number of times, and so I moved to Ill Illinois, went to the University of Illinois for veterinary school, and then moved to California shortly thereafter. So I'm a New York born and raised and Illinois for a short period of time, and now I've been in California for hard to fathom, but 40 years now.

SPEAKER_02 6:44

And you always want to be a vet.

SPEAKER_00 6:46

You know, I grew up in a household where my mom was a biology teacher, my dad was an accountant, so you would have loved my dad, you know, he started out with you. And I tried accounting for one summer, didn't like it, it was too boring. My grandfather was the classic, and and I'm gonna age myself and probably some people who might recognize this. My grandfather was the classic Marcus Welby general practitioner in human health care. He lived upstairs, and his doctor's office was on the first floor. He used to make house calls. I think he delivered babies in people's kitchens and everything else. And so I had this scientific background, had some cats growing up, and really decided, probably in the early teens, because there was this book that came out in the 70s, and it's a book that has been extremely influential for a lot of veterinarians and a lot of people, called All Creatures Great and Small. Oh, yeah. So James Harriet, I read the book, then there were subsequent books, and I decided I wanted to be a mixed animal veterinarian in the Dales of the UK. None of which came true, except that I became a veterinarian. But it was that that and working for a veterinarian starting at the age of 15 that helped get me from where I was to where I am now.

SPEAKER_02 8:08

I've heard talk of this book, All Creatures Great and Small.

SPEAKER_01 8:12

Was it a reference book? Was it a dude? Are you kidding me? You don't mean, man, I'm from the I'm from the friendship side of the industry. I'm not I am not a DVM.

SPEAKER_00 8:24

Okay. James Harriet is a pseudonym for Alf White, I believe was his DVM name. And he had a small practice in Thirsk, UK. And the books are true stories of his experience in the 20s, 30s, 40s area or era, driving around, making house calls, pulling cows in the middle, calves in the middle of the night, taking care of hoofs, taking care of dogs at the surgery, which is what they call a veterinary hospital. And it was just so down to earth, so relatable, and so funny. And yeah, and by the way, I did actually visit Dr. Harriet, Dr. Alf White's practice in Thirsk last May, because I was in the UK, and it was really cool. And uh yeah, that that was a bucket list thing. So all creatures great and small, easy to read, even you could read it, Martin.

SPEAKER_01 9:23

Thanks for that vote of confidence.

SPEAKER_02 9:27

I'll put it on the list.

SPEAKER_00 9:28

Or you could watch the TV show.

SPEAKER_02 9:30

No, no, read the book, read the original.

SPEAKER_00 9:33

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_02 9:34

Go to the source.

SPEAKER_00 9:35

So that's how I got to vet school, and then I owned a hospital in Southern California and done a variety of other things. And just go to LinkedIn, you can see what I'm doing. But what since most people don't know Martin, Troub, hyphen, Werner, I think it's important for you to explain where the hyphen came from.

SPEAKER_01 9:52

I'm definitely not talking about where the hyphen came from.

SPEAKER_00 9:56

So where did you come from and how did you get to where you are?

SPEAKER_01 10:00

So I've been a business guy my entire life. I literally started with lemonade stands at the age of eight on the corner, and have always been entrepreneurial. And in 20 like 10, 2011, I was doing some data-driven marketing, some sales and marketing integration work, and I tripped on a problem. I tripped on a problem in the veterinary industry, and that was that the PIMS codes were not normalized. And so I started a project to start normalizing the PIM PIMS codes, by which I mean sort of mapping the individual PIMS codes by practices to a standard set of PIMS codes. And there was born That Success, which was the industry's first data analytics, business intelligence and data analytics company, purpose-built business intelligence and data analytics company. And, you know, and at the time, I joke about this now because it seems so crazy, but at the time I was using a clip. I knew you may recall this, Peter, in my in my early presentation. I was using a clip from the movie Moneyball and the Island of Misfit toys speech in in Moneyball. And it was all about how you could use data to get ahead. In that case, it was baseball, and it was like revelatory, right? That we were going to bring a money ball approach to to to vet to vet med. And it was this sort of it worked, it worked for about 18 months today. If you were to play that clip, people would look at you as if you're the most sort of pedantic asinine fool for suggesting that no, but you know, it's so it's so blatantly self-obvious, self-evident that we would be using data to make decisions. I don't know that people do enough, but but at least the availability of data and the use of data is so pervasive at this point that to use that clip would almost be insulting to an audience. But at the time it was like this revelatory idea and grew that business with a spectacular, spectacular team, one of the best, I hate hate to say it, one of the one of the best teams in vetmed from a people perspective. And in 2018, really felt the weight of being independent. There was, you know, big forces, sort of uh competitive forces facing us. And and so I I sold a business to vet source, and that business still exists today as VetSource Data Services. And many of the team, many of my teammates are still at VetSource and taken on, you know, leading roles there. And and at the same time, I started a little bookkeeping business called VetBooks because I would put numbers, I was putting numbers in front of practice owners and they would say, you know, this is great, but can you tell me about my profitability? I was like, profitability. I'd have to do your books, you know, VMG, hot chart of accounts, uh, accrual basis. They were like, you should do that. I was like, wait, what? So did that, and that's what I'm doing today, in addition to advising entrepreneurs and doing a little bit of investing in startup companies in our industry and and operating vet books and sort of seeing the cost side and bringing financial control, sort of have this real passion about bringing financial control to individual independent practices.

SPEAKER_00 13:47

I will expect to differ on money ball. I think there are way, there are not enough practices using data to make decisions. I think there are way too many practices that are making decisions by the way the wind is and by their checkbook balance, but we can get into that over time. I also like the fact that you chose Moneyball because you are a baseball fan. I am a baseball fan. And I am a baseball fan, and we have a little bit of ongoing competition at different times. Now, you are a fan of the Bill in the Blank. Ronald Blue Jays. Because I can't say that without getting nauseous.

SPEAKER_01 14:28

That's funny because I can't say New York Yankees, which is your team without a little bit of angst myself. So yes.

SPEAKER_00 14:35

So we have a little competition between the Yankees and the Blue Jays.

SPEAKER_01 14:39

Little friendly rivalry, American, American League East rivalry, and what and and I I'm always sort of hesitant about introducing sports and sports metaphors into business because I don't know, there's supposedly a taboo around it.

SPEAKER_00 14:53

But you know, I in many ways I was geeky like you were when I was growing up. I used to look at all of the sports section of the New York Times and that small print agatype trying to read the box scores, and I would sit there and calculate batting average and ERA and all sorts of nerdy type things. So in many ways, I'm I'm a little geeky like you are from that standpoint.

SPEAKER_01 15:19

My son is like on steroids. He's like, he's like geeky on steroids in terms of sports stats. He knows so much. It's such a joy to actually have a conversation with him because I learned so learned so much from him.

SPEAKER_00 15:34

So I sit here in the eighth province, and you sit in one of the first seven provinces, right? Where where are you currently hanging your hat?

SPEAKER_01 15:42

I'm on Vancouver Island in British Columbia, Canada. So about as far west as you can possibly get in Canada. It's like it's like go to the mainland, take a ferry for an hour and a half, and then you're almost at the West West Coast.

SPEAKER_00 15:59

So you can shoot a cannonball to the US from there.

SPEAKER_02 16:02

I mean, technically you could, probably wouldn't.

SPEAKER_00 16:09

Well, we are both on the West Coast, which is really strange for me to actually have somebody who I can talk to that's also on the West Coast, because mostly I have to, most of the time, I have to calculate the time zone differences from that standpoint. So we're both here to talk about independent practices, independent practice opportunities. I owned a hospital. You've helped, excuse me, a plethora of hospitals. And we're really here to help bring this conversation front and center. I have an MBA as well that I received because I realized how little I knew about running a practice. And so part of what we can talk about, and we'll talk about this throughout our podcast, is business education, financial literacy, fiscal responsibility, all of the things that can help make young doctors more successful. Because honestly, you can't work your way into debt for forgiveness. You can only own your way into debt forgiveness. And so being a hospital owner, I like to joke that working for a vet working as a veterinarian pays the bills. Owning a veterinary hospital pays your daughter's vet school tuition.

SPEAKER_01 17:21

Which you would know a thing or two about. Your daughter's a veterinarian.

SPEAKER_00 17:25

Correct. So yeah, it's all those different things from that standard.

SPEAKER_01 17:30

Yeah, I've been thinking a lot about this, Peter. And I, you know, I have to do, we'll have to do an episode here shortly on it around, you know, this idea of a well-deserved return for your risk, for your investment, for your energy. I think that's it. Like your risk, your your investment, your risk, and your energy. You know, you independent practices accrue a well-deserved return if they put the pieces together properly. And so we'll spend some time sort of thinking about the people putting the pieces together properly and making sure that profit is not a four-letter word or bad or seen as, you know, evil in any way.

SPEAKER_00 18:11

Well, I'd like to say passion drives profit. And that's what we have in independent practices. When you have a business, you have a passion and you have a vision and you have a direction. And the profit comes from living that passion every day. And so I do like it. It's interesting, I've had a couple of phone conversations with people outside of the profession recently about cost of care. And when I explained to them that the average veterinary hospital returns to their owners only about 10 to 12 percent. Yeah, they had no clue. So they really don't understand that the most veterinary practices are not super profitable. They give a nice life and a living. And then they the next question is, well, why is private equity? And I said, Well, there is a bell-shaped curve. Yes, that's right.

SPEAKER_01 19:06

Not all practices are the same.

SPEAKER_00 19:09

Right. And the middle, the middle is a 10 to 12%, but you go to the right hand side of that bell-shaped curve, you're 20, 25, 30 percent. Yeah. So that's part of this conversation will be about profitability and passion.

SPEAKER_01 19:22

Yes, you go to the left, PS, you go to the left side of that curve curve, and it's like zero or worse to five percent.

SPEAKER_00 19:30

Yeah, that's when you own a job or a hobby.

SPEAKER_01 19:33

Yeah, it's bad news.

SPEAKER_00 19:35

Yeah, so I talk frequently about do you own a business or do you own a job? And that 10 to 10% or less people own a job because they could make more money investing in the stock market rather than working 50 to 60 hours a week.

SPEAKER_01 19:48

So hey, what did you say? Passion drives profit.

SPEAKER_02 19:52

Passion drives profit. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 19:54

I my my version of that has always been do what you love and the money will follow.

SPEAKER_00 19:58

Right.

SPEAKER_01 19:58

Yeah, that's good.

SPEAKER_00 20:00

All right. So we're gonna have some fun today, aren't we?

SPEAKER_01 20:03

Yeah, let's why don't we talk a little bit about this the stethoscope in spreadsheet seven and then wrap it up and leave it to turn it over to next episodes to start digging into some of this stuff with our guests.

SPEAKER_00 20:16

Yeah, and and Martin and I will be back at different times with just the two of us throwing some stuff against the wall and seeing what sticks. But today we just want to give you an intro to the stethoscope and the spreadsheet, which I can't keep wanting to call the stethoscope and the slide rule, but Martin's not that old. And we have what's called the stethoscope and spreadsheet seven. And these all of our guests will be challenged to pick one or more of these questions. They will not know that they will be getting these questions. We may change these questions over time. So, what we're gonna do today is Martin's gonna ask me a question. I'm gonna ask Martin a question, and we'll go through some of these questions that are pretty obtuse and just give you an idea of who we are, what we are, and wrap things up with a little bit of fun.

SPEAKER_01 21:07

Okay, question number one, Peter. If you hadn't gone into veterinary medicine, what would you have done instead?

SPEAKER_00 21:12

I would have been a roadie for Bruce Springsteen. I would not have. Okay, I would have been a center fielder for the New York Yankees.

SPEAKER_02 21:20

You may as well say you would have been a firefighter.

SPEAKER_00 21:22

No, I have no interest in firefighting. I had no plan B. I really didn't.

SPEAKER_03 21:28

I Sometimes that's a good way to live, man.

SPEAKER_00 21:31

Yeah, I mean, I I I didn't get into the first to vet school the first couple of times I applied. So I went back and got a master's degree and I threatened the admissions committee at the University of Illinois. I told them, you have two choices. You let me in and I'm gone in four years, or I stick around, I get a PhD and I'm on faculty for the next 30.

SPEAKER_01 21:50

Say, here you go, sir. Here's your diploma.

SPEAKER_00 21:55

So yeah, I had no plan B. I I I interviewed, I think, to do some sales. Work for Upjohn in because I wasn't sure if I'd get into vet school and I was going to do some research, but yeah, I really didn't have a plan B. I, you know, I would have loved to have been a roadie for Bruce Springsteen, but it's just not something you do. And I would love to play center field for the New York Yankees. But back in the 60s, they had this guy named Mantle, then they had Mercer, and then CBS bought them, and it would as a nightmare for about a decade. So, but no, that's that's that's that was my that was my that was my answer.

SPEAKER_01 22:29

As we think about future shows, by the way, we should we should do one on no plan B because I think there's actually something, I think there's something to not having a plan B. Like it's it's it's highly motivating if you don't have a plan B.

SPEAKER_00 22:44

Wasn't it Cortez who burned the ships? Right.

SPEAKER_02 22:46

That's exactly right. No plan B. There's only one way forward.

SPEAKER_00 22:51

Okay. Question, Martin.

unknown 22:53

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 22:54

What's something about you or your work that would genero genuinely surprise most people?

unknown 23:01

Oh boy.

SPEAKER_01 23:02

And it's funny, like I know these questions are coming, but I hadn't thought about answering them. I procrastinate a lot. I I love to like I love to, I'm a bit of a control freak. Like I like to control all the externalities to the best of my ability, which is can be somewhat problematic, number one. And and I combine that with procrastination, and it means that I'm often thinking about a lot of stuff before I actually put it down on paper. Like it's been really helpful for this for me, because as I'm I'm just gonna use the word agonizing, agonizing, but I'm just like overthinking and thinking and thinking and trying to worry about all the externalities. And as a result, procrastinating my deadlines, I've managed to start a lot of projects in AI where I put down a lot of those externalities and I put down the outcomes that I'm thinking about, and it sort of helped push me along and get get me more productive. But yeah, I'm I procrastinate.

SPEAKER_00 24:06

Really? So you put the pro in procrastination.

SPEAKER_01 24:08

Put the pro in procrastination.

SPEAKER_00 24:10

Yeah. There, you know, there is no amateur procrastination.

SPEAKER_02 24:13

So that's right.

SPEAKER_01 24:15

Peter, what keeps you up at night, professionally speaking?

SPEAKER_00 24:18

Well, I'd say Bruce keeps me up at night because he likes to sleep on top of me. Bruce is my dog. You'll see him in some podcasts coming up. You know, it's a good question. I think personally and professionally speaking, what keeps me up at night is being relevant. I worry about losing relevance and imposter syndrome. And so a lot of what I do and the messaging that I have is really to keep the profession front and center and keep the profession relevant. And then as a result, I worry about keeping myself relevant because as I get older and I see all these young go-getters, influencers, I realize at some point in time I will be put out to pasture. But in the meantime, I worry about being relevant. Surprise?

SPEAKER_01 25:10

It's not a surprise. I think it's it's I think it's one of those hard human truths that befalls all of us, right? It's the like Times Arrow marches on and and like at some at some at some point you you end up hanging hanging up your hat or your hat is hung up for you, and how that happens and and your identity and all that stuff. Yeah, that can be pretty deep. That can be pretty heavy.

SPEAKER_00 25:39

Yeah, I'd like to be the one who makes the choice, though.

SPEAKER_02 25:41

Yeah, for sure. Yeah, for sure.

SPEAKER_00 25:44

All right, dude. What's your greatest joy in this work?

SPEAKER_01 25:48

This one's much easier for me. I love helping people be even more successful than they already are. And so in my current operational role running that books, like this idea of so it's a bookkeeping company. That's the service we sell, but the outcome that we sell, the product that we sell is actually financial control. And when you've got a business that's under financial control, meaning you know your numbers, you know they're right, you might not like the numbers, that's a different problem. But then you've got this baseline that you can actually make decisions off of and teaching people how to make decisions, financially driven decisions, it modifies or can influence all of your business relationships, your supplier relationships, your operational relationships, your banking relationships, your wealth, wealth planning and estate, estate planning relationships, insurance relationships, everything is modified based on being in financial control. And I love that. Any success that I've had in my businesses has been because I've invested in being in financial control, and I'm wildly passionate about it.

SPEAKER_00 27:03

Yeah, you've used control freak about every answer so far. So that doesn't surprise me.

SPEAKER_01 27:09

Okay, I'm gonna take that to my next therapist session. Peter, what's been your hardest client or business conversation and what did it teach you?

SPEAKER_00 27:17

It's a tough one. I think there were times in practice where the hardest conversations were end-of-life conversations. And I don't think there's really anything more emotional and more difficult than those end-of-life conversations. And so you develop a compassion and empathy for people, and that's an art that we don't learn in veterinary school, it just comes from from doing it. So that you know, when it comes down to business conversations or client conversations, it was those end-of-life conversations that were most difficult. And what they taught me is is really how to be caring for people, how important the pets were to them, and how important we were in practice to that relationship, and and sustaining, maintaining, retaining, obtaining, and attaining the human-animal bond. That was damn good alliteration.

SPEAKER_01 28:31

And I try to record recorded for posterity.

SPEAKER_00 28:35

Yeah. I try to carry that in terms of empathy with clients now, and I I don't work as much with independent veterinary hospitals or I do mostly writing, speaking, teaching at the moment, so it's not quite as courageous conversations, but actually, we can do a plug on my other podcast, which is entitled Courageous Conversations, because those are the conversations that I have about other issues, the non-business issues, the social issues. And I think sometimes those issues, which have nothing to do with this question, but those conversations on social issues, especially in this day and age, are really important. And they teach you how to listen and they teach you how to be empathetic, and they teach you how to be to respond back and make sure that you're hearing the messaging that's across from you. So I do think that courageous conversations in everything you do. And I and I would suggest, even probably in the work that you do, when you look at a PL and you have to call the doctor and say, I've never seen a negative PL, a negative profitability as negative as yours is. And it's like, I've got good news, no, I don't. I've got bad news and I've got worse news. That's right. So I think the toughest conversations we're always seeing the life conversations. And and now there's Bruce. So cute. And now it's really about the courageous conversations about what's going on in the profession and the challenges that we're facing and the pressures that we have. And those are not they're not easy when you're talking to colleagues who maybe aren't even aware of all the different pressures that are going on on the veterinary profession externally. Yeah. That was a long-winded answer. I'm sorry.

SPEAKER_02 30:26

Good answer though.

SPEAKER_00 30:27

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 30:28

I get I get number six, and then we'll we'll we'll we'll we'll take we'll shake a crack at number seven.

SPEAKER_00 30:34

All right. Number six. Tell us about how come you get number six? All right, tell us about one animal that genuinely changed you.

SPEAKER_01 30:44

So I have not had that many animals in my life, but but by far the most profound relationship that I've had with with an animal is the one that I'm currently in with my buddy Austin. Austin was a rescue dog that we got during COVID. He was an absolute hot mess, anxious, rambunctious, you know, reflecting his sort of tough start in life. And we we we bit off a lot when we took this when we took this sweet boy into our life. And and and I was thinking about this actually just like just recently, like over the last 48 hours, about how much uh patience and and uh love and attention and time I've wanted to give to this guy who just gives it all back. And it's been a he's just a really special, special, special dog. He's just he's just a great, great guy. And I never I've never had a sort of meaningful human-animal relationship like the one I have now with this dog. It's just, it's it's it's deep and it's personal and it's full of love. And I just I love this, this, this guy. He's such a good guy.

SPEAKER_00 32:13

This is a PG, you know, podcast. So be careful. Don't go too much further than that.

SPEAKER_01 32:18

No, man. He's just like he's my buddy. He's there for me all the time. I'm there for him all the time. He's like, we're just we're we're connected. It's good, it's great.

SPEAKER_00 32:30

Like this.

SPEAKER_01 32:31

Oh, can't see because can't see because the background.

SPEAKER_00 32:34

Well, that's because Bruce is on my lap and we're totally connected, and we will be until I get up. All right, number seven, you want to ask me first?

SPEAKER_01 32:44

Yeah, sure. What advice would you give your younger self, the version of you just starting out?

SPEAKER_00 32:50

What would I give my younger self, the version of you starting out? I think it it's to learn how to take 100% responsibility for your actions. I think we look to blame everybody and everything else for the outcomes, but really it's us because we choose how we're going to react or respond to different things. And you know, I'd love to blame Cornell for not getting me into veterinary school, but I have to recognize that I spent a little bit too much time partying, so I have to take responsibility for that. And I think taking responsibility for your actions is a maturing way of being a leader, and so I think the advice to younger self would be learn about leadership, learn how to take responsibility, learn how to surround yourself with resources that fulfill your weaknesses, do what you do best, and find people to help you with the rest. Because I think we all try to do way too much from that standpoint. But the minute I started to find people like yourself and others to become resources is the minute I could find focus on what I do best and let others do those things from a collaborative standpoint. So, question to you what advice would you give your younger self? No, you're young, so your even younger self, the version of you just starting out. I think I'm young.

SPEAKER_01 34:31

So I I would say two things, and they're kind of related. The first is to appreciate, appreciate and rely on this or secure a safety net as quickly as you can. And the second is to appreciate that it's a long game. And so I've had to think a little bit about how the two are connected, but they both they both sort of surface as really important lessons. The safety net one is, you know, I was fortunate that I had a supportive family behind me as I was going through my entrepreneurial journey, as I've gone through my entrepreneurial journey and knew that I would, no matter what, always have a roof over my head and always have a always have food in my fridge. And that means that you can take risk. And so the more you can sort of build that safety net, the more risk you can take. And then, you know, kind of remains that is the fact that it's a long game. It's like you're not going to win, you're not going to win every day. But if you set along your sights on where you want to go as your long-term objective and evaluate your progress towards that on a regular basis, you might change where you're going. But at least if you're sort of future focused and think of it as a long game, I think my younger self was impatient, got frustrated easily, and didn't appreciate that you know you can actually take your time and get there. And I think both of those things would would would have helped help would have helped me. Did help the safety net absolutely helped me. I just didn't appreciate it until much later.

SPEAKER_00 36:21

The assignment cynic calls it the infinite game. Oh, that's interesting. Yeah. So that's the stethoscope in the spreadsheet seven. And that's Martin Traub Heifen Werner. And I'm Dr. Peter Weinstein, and we will be your hosts and pests and interrogators and whatever else we're going to do on this podcast as long as we can possibly do it. So, Martin, thank you for inviting me to join you.

SPEAKER_01 36:50

And I feel the same, Peter. Thank you for your partnership on this. This should be super, super fun.

SPEAKER_00 36:55

So, for those of you who are listening, we appreciate it. Would love to get some insights, some input. When you get done listening, like us, follow us on all the podcast platforms. And hey, if you'd like to be interrogated by Martin and Peter, we are some of the worst interrogators when it comes down to a best interrogators when it comes down to it. So thank you to VMG for your support. And thank you to the veterinary profession for providing an opportunity for Martin and I to hopefully make a difference in the future.

SPEAKER_02 37:28

Thanks, everybody. We'll pop in.