Oh, hello, everyone. Good evening, good evening. Hello.

Just busy letting you all in, and, Rich will be busy meeting everyone as you all come in. So, welcome. I think we had 11 people waiting, to join the meeting, and then hopefully a few more will, will come in as and when.

And I know there's a couple of people who are either on call or hoping to join in a little bit later on in the session. So welcome, everybody. .

It's nice to see you all, and yeah, I hope everyone's OK in the, the madness, craziness of, coronavirus, there seems to be, yeah, it's, all, we're just waiting to find out whether Eva's school is gonna be closed. So, yeah, I hope everyone's OK. I've got a friend who lives in Sardinia.

And runs a business renting villas and so obviously that they're in Italy and the, the, the total lockdown is really for on it has been over there, so we've been messaging and I've been finding out about it all. Anyway, get my head off that, undo that. And, get my head on the Q&A session for tonight.

So we're into our third Q&A. So although it's kind of the career clarity blueprint module, really, the questions can come from any of the, the things that we've covered so far. And so, and we have got quite a wide, wide, variation of questions.

And also some of you I know have been, have started to Look at the materials for the resilience webinar we've got next week. So we've got a couple of questions around that topic. So don't worry if you've not had a chance to watch that or do any of those bits yet, you can always come back and rewatch this again.

If there's a particular question around the resilience where you're like, what? I haven't watched that yet. I don't know what she's on about.

So, I know these sessions can go on a little bit, so I'm gonna just dive in. And, get cracking. So first person up for this evening is Nicola McCallum.

Now, let me see, can I get my list of, participants up? Let me see, Nicola, are you on tonight? Can you just type, type into the chat box and give me a shout if you are?

Also, could everyone who is here just, just type live and hit return into the chat box so that Dawn can track you all for your, The CPD certificates, please. Oh, a waft of lives, hello everyone. Nicola, yep, I'm here, brilliant, cracking, right, I'm gonna launch it.

Er so. Nicola has, been thinking about what to, how to clarify her question for tonight. And she has sort of, watched the, the first part of the stuff.

And she's saying, over time, I have learned to put myself in situations where I feel vulnerable, especially if I think it will help me take my life in a positive direction. So that's great. It feels scary, and it, it always does.

That never really goes away. But I will do it. Although as you can tell from her, she, she's sort of, you know, all of you that have been sending your self compassionate scores will be going, Oh, got a bit of work to do, you know, and that's completely normal at this stage.

So, Nicky was saying, you know, as you can see from some of my scores, I need to then work on how I make myself feel if I've made a mistake. However, where I'm not good at being vulnerable is in claiming competence in an area or skill. And Nico, this is something you share with a lot of people on the course.

This has come up in a lot of people's questionnaires too. So she's saying many people, including my boss, tell me I should have more confidence in my abilities. And she's saying though, for me, to allow myself to feel, or even more frighteningly actually verbalise out loud that I'm good at something, feels boastful.

So when she hears phrases like believe in your abilities or abundance mindset, or choose to believe you have the tools to succeed. What Nicola's noticing is literally a physical response in her body. She has this visceral reaction, almost shrinking away from that as a, as a concept, because she's saying, well, what if I believe in myself too much?

You know, what if, what if, someone has to then push back and tell me I've overstretched or I've got too big for my boots, or that I really shouldn't have thought I could do whatever it was. So then along with concerns are very confident, she's also then worried the other way of what if I'm too easy on myself, so. She's trying to prioritise self-care.

But saying, I think I'm almost afraid of becoming too good at self-care. So there's, there's a worry there that, you know, so because of that, what she's saying is self-care is something she's only really giving herself permission to do the barest minimum to function and almost that self-care can then become a little bit of a, of a shame trigger, of kind of, am I just being lazy, am I letting myself off the hook, sort of how I'm reading that. So.

Her question is a really brilliant one, it's kind of how, how do we toe the line between crippling self-doubt, which, which has come out from so many people's phones, so Nick, you're really not alone with that. And her feeling of I'm only entitled to self-care if I'm really struggling, and having an appropriate level of self-confidence and self-care, that's not tipping into overconfidence or or self indulgence. So I get exactly what you're saying, it's kind of almost like you're trapped between those, those two, options if you like.

So there's a few things I wanna wanna pick out of that and it's a really brilliant question, so thank you. The first thing is noting, it's brilliant that you've noticed that you have that visceral reaction. So when someone says something like you should believe in yourself a bit more, believe in your abilities, you're feeling that resistance to that in your body.

So the first part of shame resilience, and I do cover this in the webinar, so again, don't worry if you've not watched that one yet. Our, our, our, our shame resilience kind of comes in four parts really. And the first step towards this, and this is really important for your self-worth and self-belief, improvements and healing.

So the first step is just recognising our shame triggers. So, what tends to make us not feel so shame is that, is two things. It's either that feeling of not enough.

Not feeling good enough. Or actually, interestingly, the other, the other tape that shame runs in our head is, oh, get you. Don't get too big for your boots, or who are you to think you could do that.

So, it's learning what triggers that in it. So you know, what are my shame triggers? And they are different for, we've all got them.

Absolutely everyone who has a normal, healthy mindset, who isn't, sociopathic. We feel shame. It it is a normal part of the human experience.

It's something that we all like to think doesn't apply to us, but it absolutely doesn't. And you kind of want it to, because, like I say, the only people who truly don't ever get a sense of shame is people who are sociopathic. And so that, that have, you know, a, a disability in their brain in that way.

So, but having it, so feeling that visceral reaction, Nicola is telling you that there's a shame trigger in there for you around that concept of believing in yourself and believing in your abilities and being it feeling safe or OK to own a competence or to feel confident about anything. So that's, that in itself is, is acting as a trigger. .

The step two of shame of, of sort of shame resilience is then practising critical awareness. So what that means is looking at what's driving that trigger. Why, why is, where is it coming from?

Where is that, where is that got into your subconscious and why, why is it there? So we, I'm not gonna spend too long talking about that right now tonight because we're going to, when we do the confidence, so we're in resilience next week, the week after that we're doing confidence and at that stage we will go properly into. The concept of limiting beliefs, and how they get into our subconscious and why they do and how we can work with them to neutralise them or remove them.

So, so, basically, it's looking at, and again, when it comes to limiting blue, it'll be interesting to do the work on this. So it's looking at, right, what's, what happens in my brain? What story is my brain telling me?

What comes up for me when someone says that to me? What's, what does my head say? So it's saying it, it's got a, a, a story at the moment that says, saying you're good at something is boastful.

So that's not a truth. And that's the thing about beliefs. They feel like a truth to us, but they're not.

They're just a belief. So a belief is something that may or may not be true, but it's a belief that we currently hold. But when you treat it like a truth, it like it can cause all sorts of problems there.

So, but the first thing is looking at, you know, what are my beliefs. So at the moment there's a belief that it's boastful to say you're good at something. So the critical awareness part of that is saying, right, where's that coming from?

Is that something I've always thought, Can I trace it back? How far can I trace that back? Quite often, most of these sorts of types of belief will go into our subconscious at a really early age.

Between 2 to 6 years is quite common. And it will come often from the, the culture and the caregivers that we were around. So the messaging we heard about ourselves, about the way the world works, a lot of, a lot of our beliefs are sort of passed down to us through our parents or caregivers, or.

Teachers or the culture that we that we grew up in. So it's looking back and thinking why, where, where have I heard that? Have I been told as a child, you know, don't, you shouldn't say that, it's boastful, you know, what particularly around that word, where have you heard that?

Where's that come from and, and seeing if you can trace back. We talked last week or the week before about the affirmation of, I want never gets, and there are lots of those things that I think that come from how we were parented, that then go into us at that age, at quite a young age, it goes into our subconscious as a programme that says, right, that is the truth. And then that's that then impacts how we think it impacts our decision making, it impacts everything.

And as long as that sort of track is running in our subconscious, we everything will continue to come in through that philtre. So, so we are constantly filtering all the information coming into our brain because we have to. Again, I'm sort of trying to summarise some of the stuff that I'm going to talk about in a couple of weeks.

When your belief philtres are set to something negative. And again this will apply not just to yourself, Nicola, but to a few people, within the, within the group. So if there's a setting of I'm not good at many things, there's not much I'm good at, your brain wants to come into alignment with your beliefs.

So your brain goes, OK, that's what you believe, right, I'm going to find evidence that matches that. I'm going to philtre all of the information coming. At you from all of your five senses and the brain then will selectively philtre things that are that match that.

So that means that anything that contradicts that belief just doesn't even make it into your brain. It doesn't, it won't, you won't hear it, you won't see it. You'll deflect it off, so that's where a compliment or a positive thing or a lovely letter from a client or any of those things, you might even forget you've had them.

They certainly won't land and sink in. You the brain will find a way to go, oh well, it wasn't really me, it was half so and so's case, and so that, you know, that should have gone to them. It wasn't really, you know, it's that deflection away of praise and positive feedback.

And we do that when there's a negative belief of I'm not enough and I, I'm, you know, if you're believing, there's not much I'm good at. Your brain will go, OK, let's find the evidence for that, and it will find it. So again, we're gonna talk about, and I don't need to worry about that because we all have beliefs, we all have negative limiting beliefs.

That's just part of the human experience, but we're not stuck with them. That's the magic in all of this. That's the brilliant thing about neuroplasticity.

That's the brilliant thing about showing up to courses like this, learning about stuff like this, and then actually starting to implement it. In that we are not, you don't have to choose to stick with the beliefs you have. Finding, finding them is the first stage, knowing that they're there, knowing that you even have them, because most people don't.

Most people are unconscious about all of this. So beliefs act like a set of glasses that we view the world through, and that's how we see the world. But they are a set of glasses.

They're not, you know, so most people go around just thinking that it's as if the glasses are welded to their eyes and they don't even know they're wearing a set of beliefs. That's they're just going, that is the world, that is the truth. That is who I am.

The first stage is going, oh, hang on a minute. I'm wearing a set of glasses that I'm seeing everything through, and they've got some cracks and some dust on them, and I don't really like that. So then it's kind of like, right, do you take it, take them off, give them a wipe, clean them up a little bit and go, oh, OK, I see the world a bit differently now, or do you keep them in place?

That is a choice. That's what we're gonna be talking about in not not next week, but the module after. So I would say, sit tight a little bit for that.

And when we do the exercise around limiting beliefs, then you can take some of the things from your question through that, Nicola. so the other thing is you're, you're kind of trapped in the classic, so shame, as we say, has two types, it has not good enough. And it has, oh, get you, and they hold us.

So, so we, we're stuck like a voice between those, you know, if, if we have quite a lot of same figures where either we're not feeling too good or we're feeling like we're bigging ourselves up to too much. And again, anything, so that's why I'm introducing you to these concepts. That's why if, when you watch the, these my little 30 minute webinar.

If any of that resonates, I would so strongly encourage you to listen to Brene's power of vulnerability, and, you know, any of the other references I put in there, because knowledge is power with this. The more that you can shine a light on what's going on in your brain and going, oh, it's not me, I'm not broken, I don't need to be fixed, I'm not defective. I just have a normal human brain and I can see now.

How these thought processes have arisen, and I have some choices about what I do with that information. That's so empowering and so comforting. So yeah, so, you know, we're, we're starting that process now, as well.

So in terms of the self-care stuff. It's, so we talked a little bit about the self-care stuff and we talked about the, the, the importance of, of play, and Stuart Brown's book on, on play and how play and self-care and those sorts of things. It's not just a frivolous, self-indulgent, nice to have.

It's as essential for our brain and bodily functioning as sleep, rest, and eating. So, but it doesn't come easily to us, and I've trans transversed this myself. And again, a part of it is around reframing what we're trying to do when we say I cannot stop doing tasks.

I must be actually doing stuff all the time, all the time. I need to be, I I can't give myself any breaks because then I won't achieve what I want to achieve. The problem with that is that as we become more overwhelmed and tired, and we've got a few people asking questions tonight about constant overwhelm and just not having any headspace, when we don't take self-care breaks, when we don't prioritise that enough.

Then we become progressively more overwhelmed, progressively more exhausted. Our prefrontal cortex slows down. We can try and push our way through it, but we generally become less effective.

And so what we're trying to achieve, i.e. Being high achieving and not letting people down and doing really good quality work, we're actually sabotaging by not paying attention to self-care.

And so it's reframing self-care as not something self-indulgent, but if you actually want to make an impact, if you want to be able to think creatively, if you want to make a good contribution, you have to do the self-care. It's kind of like that, that, that then allows you to do what you're trying to do by never taking a break and always being, always being switched on. But to do, to make that switch, we do some self-worth work, .

And also need to, you know, the best thing to think here is to tell it is to tell the story of of how I kind of suss this out very, very briefly. So when I first went non-clinical. I was like, Oh, hello.

Oh, Rich, is that you chatting away? I just wasn't quick enough muting Hannah coming in late. Oh sorry, OK.

Oh, Nicola's just, oh good, sorry, I'm just seeing a comment from Nicola as well. It's something I remember being told in childhood as a general concept, so absolutely, therefore I think I've always tried to go for the complete opposite, yeah, absolutely. So, so you've got that philtre set within your brain, Nicola, and it's, it's absolutely something that even though it's been there since childhood, the brilliant thing about subconscious changes is we can, we can change.

You can't ever remove a programme. So it's not about removing it from your subconscious, but it is about if you stop using it, it will atrophy and you can write a new programme that then becomes your go to. The old programme will always be there, and certain situations will probably poke it.

But the threshold of what triggers it can come up and up and up, and I've really experienced this so much myself, so I hope that, that gives a bit of, hope. So yeah, with the self-care, and I might have said this, said this story before, when I first went to non-clinical and conceivably I could finish at 5 o'clock in the afternoon, I couldn't do it. I couldn't do it.

I just, it, to me, as a vet, he was used to consulting till 7 and then being at the practise for another hour, speaking to owners and then dealing with, you know, putting a cat on a drip and stuff. 5 o'clock was like the middle of the afternoon, I would barely have started consults, and so I could not give myself, and I couldn't write. That permission slip to myself to say, it's OK to finish at 5.

You've done enough work. I was like, that's lazy. I can't do it.

Everyone else will be working. And I just used to sit at my laptop working until 7, and my husband would be like, What are you doing? Why are you still working?

And I'd be just like, I, I can't, I feel too lazy. . And actually it, it took really, he's much better at self-care than I was back then and he used to literally grab me and say, look, you are officially allowed to finish.

We're going out in the kayaks, I'm dragging you. And I would do it feeling more guilty, come back, have time to cook a nice meal, and I just started noticing that actually. Working, stopping at a good time and doing something else, non-work related, and then eating a really good meal, not rushed, and at 9 o'clock at night, I was so much more productive the next day.

I, I stopped feeling disengaged. My burnout levels got so much better, and I was able to contribute and give so much more. And then I, I hear your fear of what if you go the other way?

What if I get too good at self-care, and then I can't turn it off and then I become lazy. And that's, it's. That's when you, if you have a goal that you're working towards and you know what you're wanting to achieve, that and your.

You can set targets around that. It's, it, it sort of doesn't really oscillate the other way in that sense. you, you, you still have to achieve what you have to achieve.

And so, it's kind of, it's, it's about boundaries. Everything needs boundaries. So work time needs a boundary.

Self-care time needs a boundary as well, and it's about. Playing around with those boundaries and then experiencing it, seeing how it feels and tweaking them as as and when, necessary. But I would say, yeah, have it setting an intention to, even if it's the tiny, you know, it's a tiny increase in the amount of self care and giving yourself permission to feel OK about that or starting to just stretch as much.

As much as you can in that direction, a little bit at a time, you're not gonna suddenly buoy into going, oh my God, I can't be asked to work anymore because I'm, I'm just doing so much self-care. It just doesn't, it just, it won't work like that. And as you start to unpick the shame triggers and do the work, it, it, hopefully you'll be able to relax a little bit more into, into the self-care, piece because.

You know, you you deserve to be happy and fulfilled and not, and it is again it's about uncoupling that productivity is self worth. So, . Because, yeah, so Brene has a mantra.

She talks about it saying kind of don't shrink and don't puff up. You know, when whatever the situation is, some situations will trigger us to shrink and retract and become less down and small, but actually that's not always serving us, that's not always serving the people that we're trying to serve by us shrinking and becoming small. But equally there are some situations where we do want to puff right up and sort of, you know.

And actually excessively puffing up is not going to help either. Now I don't think, given everything that you've written, Nico, that you're in danger of excessively puffing up, but just recognising that there are those two possibilities and thinking, right, what's my truth? What, what's my integrity, and it's OK for me to to say that, then it, it, it can just keep, keep you between those, in that sweet spot between those.

And you don't have to get that perfectly right. Again, we, we, we can make mistakes with this, and that's OK. That's all part of the growing process and being so resilience is about when we do make a mistake with it, that it doesn't crush us completely and we can be compassionate with ourselves and go, OK, I got that bit wrong.

What can I learn from it? How can I move on? I'm not a bad person.

I'm a normal person. So, it will be interesting to see, see how you feel after the shame, more of, more of the, resilient stuff that we're gonna do on, on Tuesday. With that, as well.

So are there a couple of bits in there that have helped Nicola, for now. I'll check back in, I'll check back in a second. OK.

So, Rosie, Rosie and half the group are up next. So Rosie asked a really, a good question, and then lots of you on the Facebook group have gone, yep, spot on, absolutely, totally this is me, I'm feeling the same. So thank you, Rosie, for kind of voicing how, a lot of the group are feeling.

And Rosie, I can see you're here tonight as well. So. Just to recap for anyone who hasn't read it, Rosie was saying, I found thinking of work things I enjoy that I can do without being tired or without feeling like work to be nearly impossible.

I have some things, problem solving, communication-based stuff, that I do find, hi, Rosie, energising. In short, 1 to 2 hour bursts, but I don't have anything clear that doesn't tyre me out. And the things that she really does enjoy, like singing, playing music with friends, cooking at home, and not things that she wants to monetize, that she doesn't want to turn those into a job.

Like there are things that, that, that you, obviously you do enjoy those that make you feel good, but they're not things that particularly you, you want or need to make, income generating. So. You, so work is something that I find rewarding and entertaining when it goes well, but I wouldn't turn up if they didn't pay me.

And yeah, I get that. So if you won the lottery tomorrow, you would not then still be going into work. Although there are parts of it that, that are rewarding and fulfilling.

So she's saying, I'm finding it really hard to understand how to bridge that gap between things that I enjoy, but don't want to monetize and things that people would actually pay me enough money for. So. There's a, there's a few things in that, and I think really probably my answer to this question is probably not going to be what everybody would like to hear, but I, it's, it's, it's sort of the, the, the realism really of, of where we are in the process, at this, so.

What I would say is that in terms of having identified even just two things that's not that, that you can that you can enjoy in small burst ros is really, really good progress so far at this stage. So we only started this process 44 days ago. I had added it up this evening when I was preparing.

So that's like, it's a month and a half. It, it, we're just kind of really beginning the process and Introducing the concepts. And it's really brilliant that everyone is, is, is, is taking hold of the concept.

And I totally understand that need to go, right, I want to know my own genius, I wanna know that now. I wanna know how that translates to a job, and then I want to be looking for that job, like now, because I don't want to be feeling like I am, and I, I completely get that. .

At this stage, you know, only being sort of 6 weeks into the process, it's, it's understanding that this is quite a process, and it does take some time. I think, like I said last time, when I, when I very first did the, the first lot of this work. And then trying to put that knowledge that I'd gained into some form of, right, how do I take that forward into a change.

That process took me a year. I mean, that was the very first hop, and I'm not saying it will take anybody a year at all. But even the second time round when I knew that I wanted to, well, the second biggest shift, I suppose, which was going first biggest shift was clinical to non-clinical.

Had a few hops within that. Next biggest shift was going from employed to self-employed and out of veterinary, you know, into coaching. And that second time as well, I'd got that inkling of not feeling like things were right at Bes now, applying this knowledge again and sitting with that and working through it and reflecting on it.

And it was 5 months before that opportunity came along. So, so at 44 days in, we're really, really still just at the start of the process. And I know that's not what everyone wants to hear.

And I know that I would love to wave magic wands and say, it's gonna happen really quickly. And for some of you, it might. But I'm not in the slightest bit worried at this stage that that's, that there's just the beginnings of a couple of concepts, but they're not, they're not there yet.

Because, often, also, the other thing is, and I was saying this to Ali on one of the intentions that post as well, is sometimes when you're not in the, when you're in a situation that isn't in alignment. So either it's not quite the right practise or maybe first opinion in clinical practise isn't gonna end up being the perfect niche or even if you already know that you need to do a total pivot. When you're in a situation where you're not in alignment.

It's not that surprising that actually it's quite difficult to find things that put you in flow, because if you found a lot of things that put you in flow, you wouldn't be out of alignment so you probably wouldn't be on this course. So, so it's so, sometimes, and also, you know, some of the things that, you know, the little inklings of things are probably at the moment, hitched or tied to stuff that is like an unwanted side order that's impacting your ability to enjoy it. So, in your example, Rosie, when I was thinking about this.

Let me see. Yeah, so communications was one of the things, I think, yeah, communication based stuff. So, it might be, so when communication's going well, or perhaps when you're expressing yourself well with a client or that communication is going well, that might feel really good.

But communications in the vet practise setting are really quite often linked to a lot of unpredictability. We're a distress purchase unless it's routine healthcare, there's financial implications, and so there's quite a lot of vulnerability involved in the communications process. So it might be that when the coms are going really well, I love that.

Don't like it so much if it's a client complaint or the owner can't afford it and they're really upset, or I don't know what's going on with this case, and then that communication feels, feels tricky. So, so we've got an element, communication that you enjoy when it's going well, but currently, in the way you're currently working, it's coming with a, I would imagine, a side order of stuff that actually does tyre you out, doesn't feel so good at times. And, what was the other one?

No problem solving. And again, so being able to solve problems, being able to solve problems, it sounds like that's an enjoyable thing. But sometimes, you know, when when the problems that you're solving again in first practise are life and death, and the choices that we make feel like they carry a weight of responsibility.

I know that I found that when I moved from clinical to non-clinical, I was kind of like, well, If I made a mistake in veterinary, some somebody might die, whereas if I make a mistake in business, someone might lose some money and that felt different to me and my brain. And so it's kind of, yeah, the problem solving aspect again might be being hitched at the minute to some other stuff that then that is then reducing your ability to enjoy the problem solving. Rosie, I know you're happy to chat, so let me just unmute you.

Is that making sense? Yeah, I think that's reasonable. I think.

Yeah, I enjoy, I enjoy communication, I suppose. Communication in the veterinary industry is often repetitive, especially in first opinion practise. So I enjoy almost the weirder consults where you're trying to like, they've got a really weird problem or like I quite like when people have a, like a disability or something like that, or they have a specific limitation that we can work to solve.

I enjoy that, going over like why your pet's got fleas again. The gap is a bit tedious and yeah absolutely find that rewarding. Yes, definitely.

So, so at this stage it's tuning in to, so, so going so again that's like almost like those Russian doll things. So the overarching enjoyment is communication based stuff. And then it's looking within that of you, you're saying communi so those two ones that you've described, those feel quite good.

Well, why do they feel good? What is it about the communication within that that either feels safe or enjoyable or lights you up or makes you feel that it matches your skill set, because that's another kind of layer down, down into that. And at this stage.

It's kind of like, well, that's brilliant. How do I monetize that one particular skill? And I would just say, just hold that for, just hold that for a while, because it is, it's all going into this bank of, of elements that, that you can then, as you start to think, well, what else could I do?

You're you're wanting to compare and, and contrast to. The other thing that I suggested to Ali was, potentially just keeping a little bit of a diary. So maybe in, in the evening, just thinking back over the day, and were there any peak moments at all.

Now, that might be the most, most days, there might not be any. It might, might be like, yeah, it was all a bit meh. But there might be one day where there was a peak moment, so it's like, what was I doing?

What, what elements were in that? And just keeping track of that for like, say, the next month. If there were no moments of flow, that would back up the theory that actually you're really in a position that's not in alignment with you.

There's literally, if you're tracking it for a month and there's no moments of flow, that's just, that's, that would be, that would be very hard to really fine-tune your zone of genius from within that because you're not getting into flow to be able to recognise that feeling, if that makes sense. So some of this means it comes from. When you, once you start making a few changes, then, then, then it kind of deepens that, awareness.

So I was trying to kind of think of, my own hops in, in terms of going into the senior vet role at Vets Now. I was kind of like, well, I enjoy the leadership bits. I really enjoy the clinical development, and I did enjoy some of the HR stuff, but I didn't enjoy.

You know, I could really see the elements that I didn't enjoy and that for me were not sustainable. And then when I first, when I went to Pet Blood Bank, there was a massive relieving of a lot of pressure, like doing charity work, so there wasn't the finances involved. And there were a lot of really lovely things about that job that I was like, oh, they feel really good, because that was the first time I'd done teaching and doing CPD stuff, which scared me, but I still really enjoyed it.

But that role wasn't sustainable because it was only part-time, it was never gonna generate enough money, and there was a lot of travelling involved. So, but then I was like, OK, I'm fine tuning here which of my skill sets I like to use. Then going into the complaints role, I'm quite conflict averse, so I would never have proactively chosen that role, but magic looking, doing the work that I'm asking you guys to do with the career clarity blueprint, there were enough tick boxes for me to go, right, I'm actually gonna try that because for a lot, you know, I'm trying to keep this as short as possible.

And actually within that, again, I knew I couldn't have stayed dealing with complaints forever, but actually there were aspects of that role dealing with complaints at one level removed when it wasn't my clinic, I wasn't the senior vet, I wasn't responsible, they weren't my team. And actually I was really helping to problem solve, and it wasn't my responsibility that made dealing with it a lot easier. And so there was all sorts of further kind of, oh, OK, well, I've just deepened the knowledge even more, although I know I can't stay and complaint, so.

It's, it's that sometimes it's not till you start to experience stuff or try things that, that, that you will clarify more what feels like the, the, the skills that you most love to use. So I guess really it is just about that kind of you're, you're right where I'd expect you to be at the moment, and I know it's really frustrating. But, and it's just about, I think having a little bit of patience and you're doing the right things and just continuing to track that and sort of peeling back the layers.

Does that help, does that help at all? Yeah, I think that's really good. I also was, I hadn't realised everyone else was saying they were feeling really overwhelmed because I really like the last couple of days.

I feel like I'm firefighting everything the last week or so. Not specifically with the course, but like just generally, so that's very nice. I'm very pleased everyone else is feeling overwhelmed.

Yes, definitely the shared, there's been, yeah, a few, a few themes in that brilliant Rosie. We're gonna tackle overwhelm, in someone else's question in Nikki, Nikki's question. So brilliant, thank you for that.

I will, or can you just re-mute yourself if I can't I can't find you off the top of my screen, . Brilliant. Louise, I can see you've submitted me a question.

I'll come back to that at the end if I, if I may. Right, OK, so that's Rosie, right, Ali. Ali, are you on the call?

Let's have a wee look. Ellie, you are on the call, brilliant. OK, so Annie's question was, similar to Rosie's, but she, but over and above that, she was also saying, my question is, where do I even start to try and do an idiot's guide to business so that I can formulate a business plan and start to go forward with that side once the, the idea seeds that I've planted start to go.

OK, Ali, so there's a few quick, quick wins I can, get you on this one. So I had a little look because I I know where your address is. Hi Ali.

So, the, you don't need to have an MBA, you don't need to have done business training, you can go into this with, you're not gonna have no business knowledge because you're gonna have some knowledge of business just from having been working with finances within the practise, and you might have some business knowledge from outside of that as well anyway. But even if not, there are, there are loads of free business advice services, all over the country. There are various government funded schemes, bank funded schemes, and all sorts.

So I had a little look in your area, I might just type this into the comments box, for you. So, oh, send chat to everyone, 2 seconds. B.

BG B gateway.com. That should be, oh, stick a B on the front of that.

OK, go ahead. Twiddly thumbs, everyone. So it's Business gateway, Dumfries and Galloway, basically.

and if so I would try them. They look, they look really, really good. They've got free business advice from pre-startups, startups.

So you could go in there and say, look, I wanna put a business plan together. I haven't got a scooby how to do that. Who, who can I speak to who can help me with that?

if, if, if not, just putting in free local business advice into Google will bring up lots of things because there are quite often, enterprise companies in various areas around the country, that will offer free business advice. Speaking to your bank, quite often they will help, if you've got a financial advisor, you could try them. So I would say before reaching for any form of paid business coaching, which would be your next step, check out the free resources.

First, and that one, yeah, so Business gateway, Dumfries and Galloway, next step on from that, is, so for me with my business, I then, recruited a business coach. It's not that cheap to do that. However, it's worth the investment because Certainly for me with that harmony, I knew I had loads of good stuff in there.

I just didn't know how to turn that into a product and a service. I didn't know how to price it. I didn't know how to run an online business.

All of that stuff you can learn. and as I say, the basics you'll get from the free services if you want them to then specify that within a niche, then a business coach might be the way forward, and I know that Ebony Escalon has got one as well. So come back to me if you get to that stage.

Does that help as a starter, Ali? Let me know, . Mm mm.

Got a bit of a delay on the messages. Let me know, Ali. If not, I'll come back to you again.

So, Aileen is next. Aileen's question, is Aileen on tonight? Oh, no, I think she said she wasn't on tonight, she was gonna watch it back.

So, would you be able to give some advice on how to prep a CV? In order to make it more attractive to employers outside the veterinary field. Working through this course, I think that I may well end up looking for non-clinical work in the long term.

As of any other works in veterinary, I don't know how to sell my skills. I also struggle with the confidence to do so. OK, so, and again, this might apply to a few people, let me just check, .

Ali's saying, brilliant. I thought it was too simple when I did that, but it's good to hear. I was thinking along the right lines.

Yeah, absolutely. Start there, Ali. There's, there's so much brilliant help.

There's loads of schemes, out there, and they're often really, really high level business advice, actually, it's good. OK, so CVs. First things first, a quick resource.

Now, I am going to attempt to share a screen, Rich, just wingman me, please, if I mess it up. So share. I want to share, ah, there we go, right, let's do that one.

Share that. So hopefully you're looking now at my perfect. Perfect, lovely.

So, good place to go would be onto the Vettega diversify website. So this isn't on their Facebook page, it's on VSGD.com.

On the stream online section, Adrian Nelson Pratt from Emerge Veterinary, one of my fellow coaches in the, in the profession, he did a really good session about this. You can download this per session. You can either download the entirety of the thing for 60 quid, as I said last time, or you can pick off a session at 10 pounds plus VAT each.

So his session was on the Sunday, so he go, pay as you go, 1010 pounds per session. And on the Sunday, I think it was Stop selling yourself short, CV and interview clinic. So that's the place to go, Aileen, for a tenner.

I would watch that because, I do know a bit about CVs. I probably, well, I know quite a lot about CVs, but I think, Adrian, that's more right up his street. I think he knows, more kind of efficient.

He'll certainly be a It's a bit more on the pulse because I've not had to redo mine for quite a while now, so I've not got my head as into it. So watching that one would be a good place. Now I'm also, I'm gonna try and share something else now, right, so I'll stop sharing that and, attempt to share.

My CV. OK, so I'm now sharing my CV hopefully. Now if anyone wants a copy of this, or you want me to ping it up in the files, to crib anything off it at all, so the format, the layouts, then please do.

Mine is kind of optimised for, it's for being outside of the profession as well, or, or kind of, you know, this would work as a professional CV format. You can, so basically I would say with CVs you always want them on to no more than 2 pages. People scan CVs really, really quickly, so you want to, if if they get 4 pages of tiny typeset with loads of details, they're just not gonna read it.

So it's about finding the most concise and visually appealing way to get across your key points. Now I know that then brings up a lot of the things that a lot of you are struggling with in terms of selling yourself and that feeling really icky, and, and either going, I am so uncomfortable with that, I can't even say that I have a skill, or going, I've got skills, but I don't know how to blow my own trumpet. So that's something that when you, if you can.

If you can shift to a place of of of service, so we all have something to offer, we all have skills and talents, all of you that have graduated as, as vets have graduated as vets. Like you can't, you haven't got no skills in order to be able to do that. It's just that we are in a cohort of very high achieving intelligent people and we're constantly comparing upwards and going on not enough.

But, but we're all vet, you know, we're most of us are veterinary surgeons or vet nurses or professional people. We haven't got to that point without skills. And those skills can be of use to other people.

Those skills can allow you to make a contribution, whether that's big or small. It's about making a contribution. When you shift to a place of service, instead of making it about you.

Making it about other people, I don't mean make it about you as in in a narcissistic sense, I just mean that when we're worried, when we're anxious, we focus on how we're feeling and our, you know, our thoughts go internal. And actually if you can think, I do have something to offer. And actually, if I can, if I can just be genuine about my skill sets that could be of benefit to another organisation, to other people, then I am, I have an opportunity to help make a difference.

Then you shift from selling to service. So don't see a CV as, as a sales tool, as an icky selling thing, see it as being of service. So, I've got the wrong paycheck here.

What I've done with mine, and again, if you want me to, I can, I'll happily post this in the, in the group. I've tried to get the, the concise sort of, bits that I've had from feedback, from appraisals, things that, you know, I've that I've picked up off various profiling things, and it's really hard to write this stuff. I can't, I can barely even, I'm quite good at self-belief.

And even I read it going, bloody hell. Like I do, I, I am those things, but it's, it, it's still, it's, it's tricky to own it, and that's OK. The discomfort, that is OK.

Be OK with that discomfort, Push through it, sell yourself anyway, so that you can be of service. So it's about taking a deep breath and, and, and going, I need to connect with that person, you know, the person who's reading this so that they are interested enough to speak to me, and take it to that next, level. With your roles, your, so when I, when I had roles where I did, you know, my early roles, there's probably no real standouts other than gaining experience in them.

So I didn't really listen to any bullet points of experience. But as soon as I had a role where I started to do something, anything, and that even within a practise, that can be just, I'm the person who set up the practise Facebook page. Or it's looking back and thinking, right, as what, what have I done, anything at all that you can turn into a bullet point to say, I've done this, this shows a competency, it shows some training, or it shows me using my CPD knowledge or it shows me being a good team player or anything, at all, then you can stick that in as a, as a bullet point.

So, hopefully those two things will, will help. You can have a look at mine and also, yeah, go and maybe check out Adrian's, session from the Vetsta go diversify thing. So I hope that helps Aileen, when you watch it back.

Right, it's a quick cough and a sweet drink. OK. Nikki, Nikki Lao, Nikki, it looks like you are on here tonight.

So, Nikki's question is about overwhelm. So this is gonna resonate. And Nikki was like, it's kind of a bit off topic and not to do with the, with the, modules.

I was, and I, I was kind of like, it's gonna affect a lot of people. It's a great question. So Nikki says, I am struggling a lot with time pressure and feeling overwhelmed, so I was hoping to enter this as my questions in the session.

She's trying to do a bit of work on this in the past, journaling, prioritising daily planners, but nothing has really stuck. I know I've overcommitted a bit this year. But I generally will feel squeezed for time regardless of what, what's going on, which does make me think at least part of this will be an inner issue.

So almost it's sounding like, Nikki, whatever amount of free time we gave you, you would, you would still probably end up feeling overwhelmed and like there wasn't enough time, potentially, is what I'm hearing from that. and she was saying, it sounds like the bonus webinar link, so the bonus to the time management, things will help with this, which, yeah, I really think they, they will. But it's an area causing a stre, a fair bit of stress at the moment, so there are a couple of bits I need to pull up to this.

So the first, the first part is where is the overcommitment part, and that's kind of almost the easier bit to deal with. You've identified, you've got the overcommitment and then maybe the mindset stuff. So you're aware of that, that's good.

You can start to look moving forward, how you can gradually be uncommitting from things or not then following that through to another term of it or finding ways to put a boundary in place or to say no, or certainly not taking anything new on, unless it's absolutely on track with your values and it's totally what you want to be doing. So the assertiveness piece, the boundary setting, and the gradual releasing yourself from whatever commitments are not absolutely business in life critical until you've figured this out, would be, would be a good way to go. So that's, because ultimately, if you've let too much stuff under your umbrella, if you've literally got too much stuff to do, then you can tweak and optimise and improve your time management skills so you're blue in the face, you still will have.

Too much to do and, and that's just, you know, so that is about boundaries saying no and cutting back. And dealing with the shame gremlins that come from that. So we talked a bit about that last time in terms of that, what will people think if I bow out of that or if I say no to that, or if I uncommit from something I've committed to, and that's the work that we're doing, you know, we're going to be working through a lot in terms of.

Standing in your integrity and knowing that you're OK as a person, and that, that people will, will handle it and that you can handle that as well. If there is a small period of uncomfortableness, that's better than 6 months of resentment because you said yes to something that really you don't have the time and energy to do, that you might not be able to do well, and you're gonna feel a bit resentful that that you've, that you've said yes. So choosing discomfort over resentment is the way forward there.

So it's the inner issue really that I want to speak to, of, of kind of almost, almost it being like a habit to be, to be overwhelmed. So that can come, that usually comes from the productivity is linked to self-worth thing, where we have that belief that I am what I do and how well I do it. So if I'm not actioning stuff, or if I'm not actuallying stuff really, really well, then that's gonna impact me.

It's gonna make me feel like I'm not good enough, or I'm not good as, as good as as a person. When that's linked also with perfectionism, we then either don't get started, we fall into procrastination because we want to do stuff to a high standard, but we don't feel like we have time. Therefore, it feels almost too scary to start.

And then that, that can just build up to this big sort of inertia that's really hard to get over because we want to do it to a certain standard. So those high standards also, if there's too many things that come up onto our radar and we're trying to do everything to the absolute maximum standard, then, then that's, that's really challenging as well. So, the, the perfectionism stuff that we're gonna be covering, I think will help with that.

We also, we talked about affirmations and like that that we can have negative affirmations as well. So just like I want never gets, it's quite a negative affirmation, there's not enough time. Can become like a mantra.

We, and I know that Nikki, because this is something that I struggle with as well. It's something that I'm battling with you very much and making good progress, but it's still something that I totally resonate with. So, so we can have a mantra, there's not enough time, I don't have enough time, I'm too busy for that.

And we can be literally constantly affirming, usually every day at some point we will utter the words, there's not enough time. And that really anchors it in. Similarly to what I was saying to Nicola at the beginning, when we have a belief, if, if there's a deep groove in our neural network that says there's not enough time, our brains will be looking for evidence of that.

And also then an interesting thing happens is when you believe there's not enough time, it will become very panicky about what to work on and where to start. So, when, when you think that there isn't enough time and that feels really genuine, so it's kind of, you know, there probably isn't enough time to do everything you have on your plate to the standard you want to do it, and we know that. So then that can then trigger us to go into freeze or under functioning mode where we go.

There's 10 things to do. They're all equally as important. I can't prioritise them by importance, and they all needed doing last week.

Where do I start? And that can feel so overwhelming. That we don't start anywhere or we shoot into a numbing activity that we, there is something that needs to be done, but it's not as critical as some of the things that really need to be done, but they feel a bit scary because we're worrying that we're not going to get them done, and then what will people think of us.

So I don't, does that resonate, Nikki, let me know if that's sounding like it's how you feel. . Interestingly, when you start to affirm that there is enough time, and it's, it's interesting, there's a chapter in the, the Big Leap book that we talked about where he can, and I've not got this definitely resonates here.

I've not got this completely dialled in yet, but I've been experimenting with it, and on occasions I've been able to do it. So Gay Hendrix in the book talks about the difference between Newtonian time and what he calls Einstein time. So Newtonian time is, you know, the theory that there are 60 seconds in a minute, and then there's so many minutes in an hour and we have 24 of those, so this, there is this finite amount of time that we have.

Einstein's theory of time is much more stretchy than that. And he is saying that time is a perception and that we are almost the creator of time. Now you will all have experienced this from a perceptual point of view, in terms of we've all had times when minutes have felt like hours, usually when something awful is going on, then, .

Oh, Louise is recommending a book recommendation, not enough time. SJ got How to Stop Procrastinating, it's a fairly quick read and has some brilliant thank you for that, Louise, that sounds great. I'll add that to my list as well.

So yeah, we've all had minutes that have felt like hours, and we've also had whole days that have just gone in a flash. So our, we, we know what that feeling is of the perception of time not really fitting into Newton's theory. And Gay is saying that we can use that to our advantage, so we can choose to know that we are the creator of time.

And, there was one sweet spot for me when I did manage to do this. I just had a week of intensive coaching with my coach, and we were working a lot about self-belief. This was in the run up to me doing the lectures at Wellett where I was doing the opening address and just for 3 other talks, and I'd only just come back off holiday and I hadn't done any public speaking for a while, and it just felt a bit, a bit big.

And I hadn't had much time. I had all this content I had to prepare and I really didn't have. If you'd have asked me, I would have needed 4 or 5 weeks to prepare that content, and I had about 5 days.

And so I was running up against my own limiting beliefs of I'm slow at creating content and there isn't enough time. And if I don't do it well and I do a rubbish job, I will feel less of a person. What I did with the, the coaching work on the self-belief and the work on choosing to go into stretchy time mode and choose to start affirming, I have absolutely as much time as I need.

I have exactly the right amount of time, maybe even spare time. Even though I didn't know how to believe that, I was starting to try and affirm that to myself. And I'd worked on my self-belief so hard that I was really choosing to know, going into that speaking thing, that it's not good.

The result of this is not going to define me. I'll be really pleased if it goes well. But if I totally mess it up, if I can't get my words out, if everyone thinks I'm rubbish and I have to close that harmony and I end up on the streets, you know, where your chimp mind can go on a, in a dark day.

or is that just me? . I choose to believe that I'm enough already.

I'm an amazing person. My family will still love me and I am enough. This is not riding on whether that goes well or not.

And this weird thing happened that week because when I choose to know that I was enough already, and when I choose to just trust and relax that I had enough time, and the third thing I did was I just, I, I said something, I relaxed on the perfectionism. I, I said, getting something to them. Is better than me, aiming for what I think is perfection and then totally not being able to get anything to anybody.

So I just really focused on how can I make it easy? How can I just produce something. It will still be of good quality.

It might not be where I'd hoped it would be, but will it make a contribution? Will it tick a box? Yes, it will.

And, and actually, the weird thing was when I used to chose to believe there was enough time, it was a weird thing. It just, I relaxed. And because there was enough time, I could, I just got started.

I didn't procrastinate. I could, I wasn't panicking. My brain wasn't cutting me off from my ability to think clearly because I was like, I've got enough time.

And so I cracked on, I didn't procrastinate, and I was able to, to move forward with that. Now I haven't been able to always repeat that, but I do know that it's possible. I experienced it and it was amazing.

So what I would say to you, Nicky there. There's so much good stuff in the time and energy management. There's 12 different topics that we work in there.

Louise has recommended that book. But certainly in the videos that I'm putting out about the time and energy management, there will be lots of things predominantly around how to stop trying to carry it all in your head, because we have, we do a lot of that. We carry it as well as open loops in our head.

So there's, there's things in there that I think will hopefully help. As well, weirdly, the self-belief work, work and the reducing perfectionism will actually help you with your time management for the reasons that I've just mentioned. So, hopefully, there's a couple of bits in there.

Right then, Jenny. Jenny's saying. Good, thanks Nicky.

When I think about potential careers, ideas, opportunities. One of the main obstacles for me is location. We're really limited due to my partner's work.

So Jenny, if you're right, your husband's a hydraulic engineer, and I think he works in the family business, doesn't he? So during a lot of the exercises, I keep coming back to an interest in working in the equine charity sector, either UK or for an international charity, in more of an operations education role. Unfortunately, the closest would be positions at least one hour away from where I live, which is just too much of a commute for me.

Have you any ideas on how I am best to take that interest and adapt it in another way, or any advice on how to approach these ideas when I come across obstacles that don't fit my blueprints so well? Jenny was on call tonight, so she said she might have got called out, so we'll just see. I can see a Jen.

I think that probably is you, Jenny, you're here. Oh, I'm good. Excellent.

Hi, Jenny. So the first thing, so there's a few points in here, and you might have already tried these, so we'll just see, I was trying to think, right, how would I handle that situation, and what would I do? So the first is trying to Definitely trying not to look at anything as utterly black and white, so trying to look for, are there any shades of grey?

Are there any creative solutions here? So obviously you're saying that the nearest place would be a one hour commute, and that feels like it's too far. So, it's, it's, I don't know, and I don't know the answer to these questions now, but I don't know where you, how far you currently live to the family that your husband your partner's family business soon to be husband.

Family business, and what would happen if, if, let's say you got a job at the place that was an hour away, so you could try it, so you could experience it, so you could see how does that feel? Does that, does that tick a lot of boxes, like I think it will, does it feel really good, and sort of cope with the hour commute for a little bit. And then if, if that was feeling really good, then thinking, well, what would happen if we moved literally 15 minutes more in that direction?

Would that then make it completely impractical for your partner to get to his work, or would that mean that you'd be looking at a 40 minute drive, and he might be looking at 15 minutes extra, but that might still be manageable, I don't know. So, so it's, it's, it's thinking, because ultimately, you don't want to be in a position where your belief is. There's nothing for me here, so I have to say what I'm doing.

It's it's just keeping the doorway open to to possibilities that might mean some slightly challenging decisions that as well, and I think especially we don't often want to do that if our decision will impact someone else like our partner. But sometimes having a chat with them about it, then that might be an absolute no, I have to, it's not possible. But so that was just one idea of of thinking about that.

But I would probably be trying the job, coping with the commute for a bit to see first before, before moving. what else? If not, I would also say just still be speaking to them anyway, because you could explain the geographical, you know, having a chat with them, opening up that conversation, doing the networking, finding out more about it, then it's kind of saying, look, this is the barrier that I'm seeing.

Because they might have some solutions that you're not seeing. If they had a chat with you and they, they were like, we really like this, we really like this person, we would love to, we would love to work with her. And you say, well, I have this challenge, they might come up with a solution that you're not seeing, at the moment, or they might be, there might be a need, if, if, if the nearest place to you is one hour's drive away, then that would say to me, is there a need in your area that's not being serviced by anyone currently?

Could you be doing something maybe linked to them but within your area, so there there might be just some solutions within that that might come out of you actually brainstorming it with them and having a chat. The other thing is looking at the working hours. So if the, it, it depends what the challenge is with the commute.

So is with the commute, Jenny, you can either type or unmute yourself, is it that you don't want to spending 2 hours a day in a car because that feels like you just don't want to be driving that much, or is it that you're, you're worried that you'd have the working day and it would be extended by 2 hours? What's the challenge with the commute? Excuse me while I just have a cold.

I guess part of it is, so the, the closest thing that I'm thinking of, the closest places would include like red rings and water. The trouble is both of those. The minute aren't recruiting for anything other than a clinical role, and they're at least an hour away if not a bit further and that includes on call and I can't like on call to theirs on call to their animals they've got in.

There would be an on-call element. OK. And, and then when you look at a non-clinical role, yes, that that commute wouldn't feel impossible to me.

I already do a half an hour commute, so an hour, you know, if there was no, if it was my working day and I got home at the end of the day. That wouldn't be too bad for me, but these, these places that are about an hour away both would probably include some on call work, which is just not feasible really. Yeah, I'm struggling to hear a little bit.

So, so I get, I get the on-call one. So with the non-clinical, is it more just the extension of the working day? No, I, I would be able to cope with it if there was a non-clinical role available there.

OK. Non-clinical roles in that sort of sector, they are often sort of a head office which seems to be London, which isn't feasible. So yeah, so it's something that's always piqued my interest, but yeah.

Definitely. I would still maybe just still maybe have a have a chat just to, to, because, you know, even just still going and having a chat with them just to make a connection. And talk to them and find out more directly rather than just in the research and, and see because if you're on their radar, you'd be more on their radar then you don't know for definite what might come up.

So I would still be, even if you can't see kind of logistically how it would work at this stage, I would still be wanting to, you know, to have to have a chat, . That's interesting, I think I will. Yeah, just to see how it feels, because especially if you go and you have a chat and you have a look around and you talk about it a bit more and stuff, and you come away from that going, oh man, that's just sounds so much up my alley.

Then, then it's kind of, it's asking those questions of, how can I make that possible? How could that be possible? Because what our, our natural negativity biases go, well, that will never work because, well, that can't work because, and it's having that, well, how could it work?

Could I make, you know, what, but what if it could? And, and not necessarily needing to know the exact answers to that, whereas if you went and you had a chat and you found out more about it or spent a bit of time there and came away feeling like. Yeah, it's alright.

Really kind of mashing you know massive passion kind of coming from that. Well, then yeah, you're definitely not gonna attempt to commute an hour, so, so yeah, I would say still have a chat. Because if you're if you're really geographically fixed, then I had a, I had a think in in terms of what the options are.

So the options there are obviously, if you're very geographically fixed, then you, you have to work within a business that's within the catchment. Now that could be veterinary or non-veterinary, so that would be looking at how far you would be willing to travel and then literally looking at everything that falls within that, that catchment. Or there's remote working from home possibilities, so that opens up.

All sorts of areas. Or there's creating your own business. Now that might feel like a massive big jump and you might be like, well, I wouldn't have a clue what I would do.

But it's still, if you're geographically fixed, it is an option. Or it's considering is there, are there any way that there are any move options that it is, you know, that I know at the moment it's feeling like there aren't so. Really it's about thinking, well, what are the boundaries when I'm geographically fixed?

So it's, there's, there's these things within my area, or there's working from home, or there's starting something partially or, you know, by yourself, or there's ultimately thinking, well, are there any, any form of move option. So. I think again at this stage, a little bit like I was saying to Rosie, it's quite, it's still quite early days, you're still sort of piecing things together.

If you can get out there and start having some conversations and just keep an open mind to those, those sorts of those various options at the moment, does that feel like something you could be getting on with for a little bit? Yeah, yeah, absolutely, yeah. Good, because I know you've got the wedding to organise as well, so there's quite a big life event, coming up that, yeah, it's gonna take a lot of lovely energy, hopefully.

But keep talking to me about that. If there's any more questions that crop up on that, Jenny, just bring them to a to another Q&A. OK.

All right. Cool. Catherine, your question was next.

I know you said save you till the end, but you look like you're here, so are you happy for me to go ahead, Catherine? Yes, good. .

OK, so Catherine's saying, I'm planning to set up my clinic, and I have done a lot of research to work out budgets, but I feel I've come to a standstill. I really need help to do more detailed planning, but I'm relying on other people to get the building work done before she's got space available to her. And that's at least going to be September now.

So it sounds like the date for that, Catherine, is sort of gradually being pushed back, so. She was told originally it'd be the start of this year, then Easter, and now September, so, you know, she's thinking, well, could it be put back again, and if I, if I remember correctly, Catherine, this is you work between two independent practises and they're talking about creating your own space within one of those clinics, is that correct? so she's saying, I've looked at getting professional advice, but I don't want to start paying a monthly fee when it could still be a way off, long way off actually making any money.

So, yes, OK, good. So do you have any tips for how to keep momentum going and be prepared, or will it be worth it to start paying for the professional advice? So, 3 things I've thought of there, Catherine.

Yes, absolutely, I would say that at the moment, if you can get away without, Doing something that gives you an outgoing where you haven't got the cash flow coming coming in yet, then, then that would be a a secondary option, I think. So the two things, the three things really that came to mind. The first was, that dynamics.

Have you tried, I don't know if you've tried chatting to them at all. Obviously they have a lot of paid for services, but I'm pretty sure that they would have an initial chat with you, like, like most, like I do with clients and . Most services like that will have a an initial chat where they can either point you in the right direction or link you up with someone in their network who might be able to help.

So, so, so they do quite a lot around startups. So that dynamics traditionally we're always helping independent practises. With how to run their businesses, but as the independent sort of The gang has become smaller because of the rampant increase in corporatization.

They've got quite a lot more focus now on helping startups, and that doesn't necessarily have to be a startup of, of an entire practise that that can be startups of, of a service, or of, you know, particularly niche practise like your, like yours. So I would say if you haven't had a chat with them yet, . Yes, that's the company I spoke to, and Victoria, Victoria only said about a monthly fee to help.

So, so Vicky from Vet Dynamics is saying, kind of, yes, we could help you, but that's the, the monthly fee. OK, so that, that is Vet Dynamics. Shucks.

I was hoping they'd give you a bit of free advice, Katherine. But they are amazing, they're brilliant, and, and they're, they're, I mean, what Alan doesn't know about business isn't worth knowing, they are absolutely, you know, any, the investment, any investment spent with them. The, the, the standard of what they do and what they know about and the people they can link you up with is, is really phenomenal.

So, so if it did end up being an investment in that direction, then you'd be in, in safe hands. The other thing you could do, Catherine, is try and find . So is it mainly detailed planning sort of with your your financial projections, that sort of thing?

What part of the, the, is it or is it planning on how to more operational planning or is it more with the numbers? Because what I'm thinking is that if you, and you might have tried this already, if you can find another independent exotics, so it's a mix both of financial and operational. So finding a non-competing exotic service, so someone who's not within your catchment area, then, and being brave enough to reach out and say, look, I'm wanting to set up, a service.

I'm, I'm not in your area at all, but I would really, I, I like, like the look of what you're doing, you know, gently blowing a little bit of smoke at the bottom. If, if, if, if you do like their service, obviously, you wouldn't pick someone's service that you didn't like if you're gonna ask them for some advice. And just say, look, can I, would I be able to pop up, maybe take, you know, maybe we could go out for lunch or a coffee, and could I just pick your brains?

Or you could just do that over the phone. Most people in that instance are really flattered to be asked, and again this this touches on a little bit of what we were talking about last time, in terms of. You know, looking at it for people who are wanting to do a career change in terms of picking people's brains.

I've done this with my own clients. I worked with a dermatology as well dermatology vet. She's, was a locum, but has done a certificate in dermatology, really, really wanted to go in and set up, an independent dermatology service within a practise.

And I linked her up with, so she was in Wales. I know a practise who set up a really good dermatology service, but they were over in a different part of the country. So I just put her in touch with the practise principal and said give him a shout.

And he took a while to come back to her cos he was really busy, but he was absolutely like, yeah, no problem, and he was happy to share financials, he was happy to give her a bit of a steer on how that experience had gone for them. And because when you're non competing, and this is what we used to do at that dynamic, which is what they still do, running the group coaching programmes is that when you're in an area where there's competition. Nobody will share anything.

And I used to find this when I was setting up Vets Now clinics in that I would get all the practises in the area together in a hotel to talk about outsourcing the out of hours. And they would all sit there and, and nobody would, few of the practises knew each other, but there would be a lot of kind of, how's business going really well. How's business, how's practise?

Well, we're really busy. Which, half the cases wasn't true at all. So when there's competition around, people are a bit cagey about sharing stuff, but when, when you're in a non-competing situation, often people will be really, really open and really, really willing to share.

It's just getting past that. Who feeling of asking and being willing to take someone saying, actually, no, I'm not comfortable to do that, and being like, OK, that's OK. I'm not gonna be crushed by that.

I'm not gonna take that as a massive rejection of me as a person, that, that person doesn't want to speak to me, but I'm gonna try a couple of other practises. Because, that might be a way forward, at least trying, trying that, because that would be free, especially if it was, it was over the phone, or on Skype or something. So that might be an idea.

The other thing is a little bit similar to what I was saying to Ali about trying, looking for local, obviously local business services are not going to be able to help you predict clinical case load, but they would be able to help with the, you know, the, the mechanics of a financial plan, or help you to think of what aspects of the operational side of things you would then need to apply your, you know, your veterinary knowledge to. So, and if, if you draw a blank on that, then it may be worth, it depends how long vet dynamics want to tie you in for. I don't know if they have a tie in, but even having budgeting for 2 or 3 months' worth of support, even if then you pause that because actually you're not going to launch for a while, just to get you off the ground and see that almost as like a consultancy fee, then if you're really feeling stuck, that's, that's kind of how I would go about it.

So do any, does any of that help? If it doesn't, Katherine, come back to me, and let me know. Oh, hello, can you hear me?

Oh, I can, hello. Sorry, I thought it would just be easier to talk. Yeah, absolutely.

Yeah, so it's mostly just the, kind of things about running a practise in general, rather than exotics related things. Yeah, I've only ever worked as an employee or as running my independent business with no employees and not, not had to deal with my own. Kind of premises and things like that.

So isn't it's that kind of thing, the premises and employees and so more kind of the practise management type thing. Yeah. Yeah.

So with your, with your clinic, so they will give you the space and then will that be or That will be almost like your practise within their practise. So you will have your own team, so you'll be the practise owner and you'll have your own team. So basically, you are starting, you are starting that in practise.

Yeah. Yeah, use some of their facilities, yeah, sure, to make it a little bit. Yeah.

So, operation, so operationally, something like the BSAVA manual of practise Management might be, might be a good thing to, to dip into, just to, to give yourself, some idea. There's, there's probably some bits and bobs I can send you actually, Catherine. I'm just thinking, because, just some sort of buckets to be thinking about in terms of categories of things to be then thinking forward on.

The other thing is, if it's, if it's general practise operational running, then in terms of finding another, finding someone to talk to you about it, I mean, how, how well do you get on with the two independent practises that you're currently working with? Yeah, quite, quite well. So is there any scope for talking to them about it?

Maybe, I suppose. Because that, that might be quite helpful. I guess if I, let me send you, I'll make a little note, let me, let me send you, I've got kind of like, I've got there's a diagram I can send you that kind of categorises all the things you do need to be thinking about in terms of what makes the practise run.

And what general overall areas they fall into in terms of systems and process, team and clinical marketing, the finance, and then the kind of the, the, the management team element of it, if you like. So I can send that, and that might be a nice framework to be able to then perhaps just start, start really locally if you've got a good relationship with the current practises that you, that already know you. Just, you know, pick, picking their brains, almost saying, right, if you could go back to the beginning and start getting, what would you do differently, or what's the top, you know, like a top three.

So top three things that you would focus on in a startup, or, what are the biggest challenges that they have maybe when they were starting out with all of this, they can be good kind of. Almost interview questions really, and, and army with the, the diagram. If I forget because I'm kind of in flow with question answering at the moment, just give me a nudge, Katherine, and and I'll send you that.

OK. Yeah. I think that'd be a helpful start.

Yes, that'd be great. Thank you. Good, lovely.

Brilliant, yeah, so it sounds so interesting. I definitely want to hear how, how it's all going. OK, so yeah, keep, keep me posted with that because as I say, there's probably some bits and bobs that I can, I can help you with, as well.

Right, brilliant, thank you for that. OK. So I think we've only got, we've got a couple of questions left and then Louise, need to remember to go back to Louise's questions, so.

Hannah, you're up next. Let me just see. Hannah is on the call.

So Hannah had a specific question relating to the career clarity Blue Point webinar. In saying that she found the work elements exercise quite hard. She was saying, I don't really feel like I know myself.

I keep coming up with examples of why I'm not good at a certain, why I'm actually not good at, why, why I'm not actually good at certain skill. And similarly, really struggle with a unique ability, . She said, I feel quite attached to my current job.

I want to make it work, which is silly if it's one of the main causes of stress and feeling inadequate. But I guess it's that sense of not, you know, not, I get that. I understand that.

I don't know if I'm just being a bit ungrateful because I hear stories of colleagues or friends who've had much worse clinical roles, and I think, I wouldn't be able to cope with that situation. So is it maybe my attitude that needs addressing? Am I too negative and quick to complain and have the grass is greener type, attitude?

So Hannah, I'm just wondering actually if some of the stuff that we've covered already tonight, is, is, has been of use. So particularly around, I think it was Nicola back at the start, saying that she was finding it really, really difficult to identify what she's good at. So we touched a little bit on that there and then also the struggling with finding a unique ability with what we were talking about with Rosie.

So just obviously I've got some stuff that I want to go through with you, but just, just if you're on the call, if you can type in, just let me know if any of the bits that be covered with Nicholas and and Rosie's questions have have helped already, with that, or if it or if it's still feeling the same. So, obviously I know you've been out 5.5 years now, and I was reading back through your questionnaire as well, and obviously we spoke because you, you had one of the bonus, strategy sessions at the start.

So it is around having that self-belief and and confidence. And that's similar to many, many other people within the group as well. So we are, as I say, we're gonna talk about the, the power of beliefs, in not the next module, but the one after in the confidence one.

So, as I was kind of saying to to Nicola, sit tight a little bit on that one, because at the moment, again, it sounds like your belief philtre is, yeah, Hannah's saying can relate to both situations, yeah, absolutely. It sounds as well that your belief philtre is set to. I'm not good enough or I'm not as good as other people, or I'm comparing yourself negatively.

I think reading back in, you remind me of me when I read back in your questionnaire of comparing yourself to specialists. I so used to do that when I first graduated as well. And if I could go back to myself then at that stage, I'd be like, Stop doing that.

Because it's just when, when you compare yourself to, you're not comparing light to light, you're not comparing apples with apples in that sense. And of course you're gonna compare negatively downwards, but that's not actually, a helpful or, or a realistic thing, but I understand it because I've done it myself. So.

Again, there's stuff coming about the belief philtres. And in terms of whether, so, yeah, so one idea that I had, if you're really, and this would probably apply to any, any of you that are struggling, with how to identify your strengths, you can ask people close to you, for this. So, obviously you'd have to think about who you would send this email to and who it would be appropriate to send it to.

But it's, it's, you can send like pick 5 people or colleagues maybe. And again, this is, this probably might feel really, really uncomfortable and you might be like, whoa, I can't do that. But at least just think about it because it is a thing, it is a recognised technique.

It's really, really useful, and, and again, it's one of those things where most people don't mind being asked at all. So 5 people close to you, or even 3 people close to you, what they would say, your top three strengths are, because you could say, look, I'm, I'm doing this personal development work. I'm trying to work, I'm working, I'm not trying, I'm working on my self belief, and this will be really, really useful, useful for me.

To see, because, and especially asking more than one person, you will often see them coming back in. As well, that would help you, you know, more than one person says the same thing, you'd be like, oh, well, that must be a thing because, you know, more than one person is seeing that in me. You can say what, what would you say are my top three strengths or three things that you feel that I'm good at, and maybe one area for development, as well.

That, that's some, so that's, that's, it's a good question to ask. Not everyone always feels comfortable with that, so you can just stick to the, to the top three strengths, but that might feel really, really scary, but if you even feel brave enough to do that, even if it's to really close friends where it absolutely feels safer, to do that, then that can be a good starting point as well. Because then it might be some of those things that come back might be things that you do sort of feel like you're good at, but you're just struggling to own it.

And that's someone saying, yeah, you are really compassionate, you're really empathic, you're really this, that or the other, then that gives you most permission then to, to own it. I mean, I want to get you to a point where you're able to give yourself permission to own those things, but that's a few, a few stages down the line. So with the comparisonitis, especially that upward comparisonitis towards, specialists, I think I might have talked before about the work of Professor Stephen May, where he's looked at vets and their satisfaction with their jobs, and vets who view the role as being about getting the diagnosis, making a definitive diagnosis and getting that right and getting the right treatment plan, are generally less satisfied and happy with the vet job than vets where they see themselves as being more of a service provider.

And it's not necessarily about nailing a definitive diagnosis, but it's about between you, the pet, and the owner, if together, taking into account whatever their financial circumstances are and whatever's going on with that case, if you've moved it forward, even a tiny bit, and you've alleviated some of the distress for that pet owner bond, that's, that's success, that's a good thing. The vets who can view the job, the vet job as as being more of that are generally much, much more satisfied. And in his research, he also identified that actually getting a definitive diagnosis, it's professionally satisfying for us, but it doesn't always actually help the pet or the owner that much because in many cases the prognosis might not be that great.

So there's that shift as well, which I felt that if I'd have known that in my first few years after graduating, I'd have been a lot easier on myself. . And then where you're comparing downwardly and going, well, other people have it so much worse clinically, or they have horrible bosses, or they're in worse situations.

And so I should be able to cope with this. That's just basically, again, that's kind of doesn't really work either because just because you'll always be able to find someone who's in a worse, a worse situation, but that doesn't mean that you should be tolerating something that doesn't feel in alignment. And I get what you're saying.

You're kind of saying, right, well, it's feeling out of alignment, but I don't know if that's just me, my mindset, and if I change my mindset, this could be OK. Or I don't know if I'm not in alignment and I could tweak my mindset and I'm blue in the face and it's still not going to feel right. What I would say at that stage is it's, this is not either or.

It can be an and and you can work through this as an and. You know, when, when, when I've challenged everyone on those questionnaires to say what, what is one thing that you're proud of, one thing that you, you were able, and I know you found it really difficult, but to identify within yourself was, you know, how caring and supportive you are towards friends, or I think it was helping elderly, yeah, caring for elderly clients and how you handle those. So you're clearly quite an empathic and compassionate person who feels things.

Now, that's an Not all vets demonstrate their caring via the empathy route, so there are vets where actually their knowledge base is huge, but their empathy is quite low and there are other vets where their empathy is really, really strong. Those, where your empathy is really, really high, that's often very useful in the consult room, you can connect well with clients, but it's a bit of a double edged sword because it also means you really feel things. You feel what the pet's feeling, you feel what the owner's feeling.

You're like a sensitive radar picking up what's going on, it, you know, tensions in the practise or whatever. And that for a very empathic person can be a real challenge, and it can really push those triggers in a way that, . Can be quite challenging, and, and there's, yes, there's resilience work you can do, and yes, there are mindset shifts, but when you, if you've been doing, if you've been in, in this situation for 5.5 years now and it's still feeling really, really pokey and you're working on your mindset and getting help with any anxiety or confidence challenges and it's still feeling really pokey, then.

It, it's kind of the, the problem, it's, it's easy for us to go. The problem is all me. And actually sometimes it's not, it's just that you're, if you were using those skills in a slightly different way, in a slightly different setting, potentially, you know, once removed from the absolute front line, then it, that might feel so much easier, so much better, so much safer.

And so if you're not sure. Then, yes, keep working on the mindset. That's, that's always a great thing.

And, you know, with, with anything anxiety related, it's good to work on the anxiety mindset to change that pattern. But at the end of the day, if you, there are two ways to deal with anxiety. One is stay in the same situation that you are and try and find better, better ways to deal with the anxiety, or look at what's triggering it and actually remove those triggers, because, and, and so sometimes that means trying something different.

And a little bit like I was saying, some, some of the others. Occasionally, you know, that just means actually trying something different for a while, even if it's only partially different to clinical work, and it's a bit like my hop into Pet Blood Bank where. Yes, it was still clinical, but it was very different.

So I was just going around doing blood drives and doing charity work and doing CPD and I wasn't doing first opinion work. And that for the, for me personally, the relief that came from so many things that were suddenly removed, I was still doing the nice bit of animal work that I enjoyed, but without a lot of the stresses was so you know, that was such useful information. Whereas I've had other people where they've stepped out of that and then gone, Oh, no, actually, I really miss the clinical.

I really miss that. And then they go back, having checked to see if the grass was greener, and going, No, actually, I miss that grass. I'm going back, and I will cope with the stressful days because, no, I'm now actually really sure that this is what I want.

So, hopefully that, there's a few things in there that help, Hannah, and sometimes it might be about, so yes, keep working on your mindset. But no, don't sit there tolerating something that's feeling out of alignment, and, and maybe that might be an indicator that it's time to just try something a bit different and see, knowing you can always go back. That is very forgiving in that, in that way.

So does that help? Let me know. Right, Marita, I can't remember if Marie said she was gonna be, so I've got Marita and Louise, .

Marta, you are on the call, brilliant, excellent. So Marita had sort of 22 parts to her question. One is, she's struggling to move on from her last job that was in her home local practise.

She's still feeling angry and harbouring resentment when she thinks about how she let herself be treated. So it was a, I think you were there a couple of years, Marisa, weren't you, and, and didn't have a very good boss, and it kind of gradually eroded her confidence. Hannah, yeah, lots to think about.

Absolutely. Come back to me, Hannah, if there's any bits of that that still, you still have questions about. .

So, Marita maintained a respectful silence when she left at her last job, but that's left a bit of a void with clients sort of not understanding why she left. And she's trying to move on. But every time she goes home, she's being told by neighbours and old clients what the old boss was saying when asked why she left.

And he hasn't said anything bad, specifically, but he says enough to suggest that she couldn't hack it and went to find an easy life. And I can totally understand why that it feels not great. And she's saying, yeah, this infuriates me, but I just want to move on and you know, you want to take, go forward with Grace and hold your head high.

So she's looking for tips on coping with that, . And she was saying, your comments with, on the vet identity takeover really struck a chord with me, that she hadn't realised that was what was going on. So she's always proudly kept professional distance when working so that her personal life was just that, her personal life.

But in a country practise, it's hard not to have both intertwined, so she found herself being recognised as the local vet and saying I I stopped socialising because I was meeting clients and it was awkward. And so 7 years on into this, she's saying I I now don't feel like I have a personal life. .

When when she takes stock and then her situation without veterinary that feels like there's not much else, which was a bit of a shock. So she's thinking of getting back to playing sport and doing things that she used to enjoy pre-vet life. However, at the minute, it sounds like you're just really feeling stuck, Marie says she's saying, I I can't see a future where I can do veterinary and have a happy personal life, and that worries me.

She tries not to worry about the future, but for the first time she's been like, she just can't see the way forward. So. I get that, that sounds it sounds tough.

Now, Marita, having a read back on your questionnaire, it sounds like you said you were in your first job for 4 years, and you said that you really enjoyed that, that that was a good job. So, were you able So did you feel like you had a personal life for those 1st 4 years? Is it just sort of start to deteriorate really with the second job that hasn't gone so well?

Or did you struggle to have the personal life thing going on in the first job that actually you did enjoy? So let me know on, on the text, or, or, or shout out. So, because.

What, what I'm hearing in your question is, again, it comes back to this concept of beliefs. So. There is a belief running for you at the moment that it's not possible to have to maintain professionalism and be a professional person in a local area where everybody knows you and have a personal life.

So there's a current belief there saying that's not possible, you can't have both. And I would say that that's not a truth. It's, I know that feels like a truth for you at the moment, and, and that will feel like a truth because that you've had an experience where that has been your truth.

You have had an experience where because there were clients and that felt awkward, you've then stopped socialising, so that has made it true for you that you maintain the professional peace in an attempt actually to keep your personal life precious. But in doing that, in separating the two, and then not being able to achieve them separately, then it's actually the personal life that, that has sort of evaporated a little bit. So, hi Jenny, yes, I had a good personal life, and excellent rota that allowed it as well.

As friends at work that I got along with too, OK. So that's really interesting to know. So, so you have had an experience where you had a job, a professional job as a vet that you were enjoying and you had a personal life as well.

So at one stage it was possible for you to have a professional life and a personal life, and for that to feel OK. What's then happened is you've had this negative bad experience where then that has not been true. And, and so a new belief has formed that is now said that's not possible.

And so because you quite rightly want a personal life and you want to have a sense of not having been totally taken over by being a vet, then that doesn't feel sustainable or viable for you moving forward. And it feels like it's gone quite black and white and that it's gone into an either or again, and that your brain is saying to you, to you. Well, I can either be a professional vet or I can have a personal life, but I can't have both of those things because of this last experience.

But we do have some evidence from the job before that that that that it is possible, and there may be circumstantial differences with that, but it is possible. So the first thing to start to dissolve that that the the the more negative, less helpful belief is to look for evidence that it has not always been so. Also, I know, from personal experience that it can work.

So my, I'm, I'm from a farming background, I grew up in Yorkshire. There's a lot of farms there. I know it's the UK versus Ireland, but, there, there, there may be differences, but certainly there in a, in a very rural, it was all pig farms, and pig and arab all around, myself, so there were vets floating around, and actually they were quite often in sports teams or pub quizzes or in discussion groups or things with their, with their clients and, and that could, I've seen it work quite well in, in, in my old local area, so.

Let me just see what she's saying. I think it was the novelty of being qualified and a good job and support, but that slowly disappeared as the vet identity took over. My personal life did not progress as I focused on my career, maybe too much.

Yeah, absolutely. So it's gradually been eroded. And I think it's also sometimes when that professional, if you have a belief that, To be taken seriously as a professional, I mustn't also be seen as a human.

I can't be normalised. I can't be seen buying loo roll in Tesco because I'm supposed to be the local vet and I'm this professional person. That's also a belief.

It's not necessarily a truth, but if it's a belief, then if you are buying toilet roll in Tesco and one of your farmers comes up, if you believe that's not OK to be seen as a, as a, as a person, as a normal person, you will feel awkward. When perhaps the client doesn't feel awkward at all. And the, the client might be just quite tough to tough to see you.

So our beliefs create our experience. They create the narratives that we then run in our mind, and that creates how we experience an event. So what I was thinking is that there's, there's possibly, when, when we do the limiting beliefs work, Marita, there might be a couple of beliefs in there that it would be interesting for you to look at and think, right, what are my beliefs, what am I saying to myself, what do I currently hold as truth?

And are they serving me? Are they contributing to this problem? When I believe them, how do I act?

What do I do? What do I think? What, what do I distance myself from?

Because, I would say that when you're a professional person, yeah, you don't wanna be seen falling out of a nightclub drunk, but I can possibly imagine that that's not what you're doing at all. And so, but actually being, being, being able to see, for, for, for a client to see the person behind the professional, at the end of the day, we are hardwired for connection. We are all people, and it comes down to that vulnerability thing.

So, I don't know if you've managed to, if you've yet watched the Passion and Purpose webinar, when I, we, I'm so we're talking about vulnerability in there. And it's a really, really useful topic for, for all of this because vulnerability is that thing where unless you know about it and you've studied it, it's often the first thing we look for in other people. I want to see that you're human, but it's the last thing I want you to see in me.

I don't want you to see any vulnerability in me, but I'm probably, if I see it in you, I'm going to look on it favourably. So when we see other people perhaps doing something vulnerable, we we tend to see that as bravery and courage. When we feel it in ourselves, we see it as weakness, and it's so not true.

So, so I'll be really interested to see how watching the Paion and Pur webinar, especially if you then go on to listen to any of the Brunet references. If that will start to help, because I think almost rehumanizing your professional persona, and I'm not saying if you're quite an introverted person, for example, that you suddenly feel like I'm saying to you you're gonna be all extroverted. I'm not saying that at all.

But what I'm saying is it's OK to be human and be a person and to be a professional. It's not either or. There can be an and and that's time, and sometimes that can bond your clients to you even more.

Now within your clients, there are some people where. You absolutely want to keep, you might want to keep totally your professional persona in place, but there might be other clients where. Actually you do have a good connection with them and yeah, you, you could go out for a meal with them and have a chat or, you know, if that circumstance arose, and that actually they would outside of your professional thing, they might be the first person that you could socialise with, and that that's OK, it doesn't say anything negative about your professionalism at all.

So some of that might be looking about your at those beliefs, as well. Now there are boundaries needed. So with that, if you are in a, if you're in a situation where there are clients there and in, I don't know how it is in the large animal world, but certainly in the small animal world you do get people saying, can I just tell you about my neighbour's cat or my mum's cat or whatever.

And sometimes, sometimes I didn't mind that, but sometimes it'd be like, do you know what, actually I'm off duty, I'm, I'm in off duty. I would make a joke of it, but I would put a boundary in place and say, I'll pick up this out with you another time, but I'm actually just in off duty mode at the moment. Or I'd say, well, I can, but I'll, it'll be 36 quid or something, you know, pithy funny comment, so.

Marie saying a lot of this resonates definitely not drawing a line between truth and beliefs. I felt I couldn't be seen as anything other than the vet public persona and hide my hid hidden life. I think maybe I've encountered one too many nosy clients who left me feeling that way.

Yeah, absolutely. And some of that comes around boundary setting, as well, and being able to find, and sometimes humour is a good way of doing that in terms of being able to put a boundary in place but make it feel really. Not like you're shoving a boundary in place aggressively or just closing up quietly, but being able to kind of push back a little bit on that, or only socialise with clients, yeah, struggle to know how to draw boundaries, yeah, and, and a lot of that comes with the, the vulnerability stuff and that's to do with authenticity.

It's about, it's about, so boundary setting is about what's, what is OK and what is not OK. So first of all, there has to be the self belief there that it's all right for some stuff not to be OK and it's that, but then there are things that you are OK with, and that comes with, with, you know, a lot of the things we're gonna be talking about next week, and in this module. So hopefully there'll be, there'll be more things in there, .

Because, because otherwise that, with that professional persona, we can armour up to try and protect ourselves, and then what happens is it starts getting too it takes a long time to clap on all that emotional armour, and we start to be, it starts to feel like too much effort to dismantle it all when we come home from work. So then we just end up in this permanently armoured up state, and that's when you disconnect. That's when we just numb.

We just, our brains don't like that level of anxiety, not, not feeling, you know, it's the, the almost the only option the brain has then when we're completely armoured up and we're not willing to be seen at all because it doesn't feel safe, our brain's only option is to disconnect. And that's what results in how you're feeling at the moment, Marisa where you're just like, I just can't see the way forward. So the first thing is just starting to connect with yourself.

Good, I'm glad it's all making, making a lot of sense. So, so the, the counterbalance to this is, is, Is resilience, hope and reigniting your spirit. So resilience, resilience there is understanding your hard wiring, and that's a lot of what we've been doing in the first part of this course, is just tapping back in going, Who am I?

What are my values? How does my head work? What's important to me?

That's understanding your hard wiring, because you want to line your life up with that. . It's also then about, hope.

So hope isn't an emotion, hope is a cognitive process that we can develop, and it's got three elements which are the ability to set goals. The agency, so, so then knowing that we can work towards achieving them and be flexible, and the third thing is self-belief. And again, I'm, I'm racing a little bit here because I'm aware of the time and everyone's probably feeling like they're they're, yeah, it's been quite a long session, but that's something that again I can, I can, I can go into a little bit more in detail.

I'll try and see if I can build that into the next couple of modules because that piece about how you can develop hope. Especially that third bit self-belief, so it's OK to set goals. I do know how to flexibly work towards achieving them, and I believe in myself that I can achieve them.

Those three elements can all be cultivated separately and worked on, and together they get you out of that sense of powerlessness and that I can't, I can't change. And what helps most with that is exactly what you're planning to do. Which is re-engage, bring back online and into your life.

Some of the stuff that used to make you feel alive, that used to make you feel connected, whether that's a sport, a hobby, something creative, something that just gets you, you know, anything that, that connects you back with you and, and lights up your soul a little bit. That's what we need to, that's the only antidote to those feelings of, of numbing and disconnection is, is starting to, to allow your soul to come back to life in, in that way. So I'm glad that's making sense.

I would say you're, you're thinking about it in the right way in terms of wanting to bring those things back online. Stick through the process for the next couple of modules and then come back to me again if there's more that you want to to go through with that. So I hope that's, that's helping.

So I see where you are right now and there is a way forward, and you're doing the right things by being part of this process. Right then. Last but not least, oh gosh, I was, I was thinking I'd try and get it under an hour and a half and we say it seems to be stuck at an 1 hour 40.

Thank you everyone for, for, for, for, for your amazing for staying on. Louise, let me have a little look. Where's your question?

OK, I'm just gonna read the question to myself for a second. At the moment I think moving out of clinical work is for me. I have some input into clinical at the moment and would consider myself still clinical even though not in a hand-on role.

Moving away from clinical is a bit scary. The vet identity is a big deal. What advice would you have, For this transition Yeah, a bit hard to let go of my vet identity.

So the first thing I would say, Louise, is, hang on to your vet identity. You will always be a vet. So, so this, again, this thing that a vet means, in a consult room, in first opinion or referral work, dealing with animals in that, in that one way.

That's one way to be a vet, . I still am a vet. I'm not using my skills in that, in that way, but I, do I contribute to the profession?

Have I earned the right to call myself a vet because of the training I've been through and having been in clinical work for 7 years and then linked to the profession? Absolutely. I ain't giving that up.

You don't have to give that up. So that. Achievement, that sense, you know, so that, that part of the vet identity, you absolutely get to keep, you've earned the right, and it is a part of who you are and it always will be.

Even if you step away from from traditional clinical work, you will always be a vet, and that's, you know, that contribution that you've made and all those pets and owners that you've helped, nothing takes that away. So, so, so it's also, there is a bit of a process, I think. Some people I speak to are kind of like, I'm dusting my hands with being a vet, can't wait to stop.

I have no guilt whatsoever. I'm totally happy with this decision. I have met a couple of people that have felt like that about it, but they are in the minority.

Most people who are stepping away from clinical work will just lur a little sack of guilt or or or struggle around with them for a while until they get tired of carrying it around and just go, do you know what, I don't need that. It's not benefiting anyone, it's not. Helping you to make a contribution.

The the fact that you are evolving and growing and you know, shifting towards something else does not lessen the contribution you have made so far as a typical vet doing the veterinary thing. So it's being able to see that as an evolution that, because there is there and it's. You know, we, I think most of us want to make a contribution.

We want to have an impact. There are lots of different ways that we can do that. So I would say, be greedy and have both, get to keep the bits of the vet identity that you've earned the right to say, whilst at the same time releasing the need for that to be expressed solely in that one way.

And that it's shifting into, something else, and also just give yourself time as an adjustment phase. Quite often, most of us that go non-clinical will keep our hand in clinically for a period of time. Some sometimes that's a sensible thing to do because you're in an experimental experimentation phase of seeing like how does this feel doing something non-clinical.

And like I say, sometimes people go back. They are less in a smaller group, but sometimes it happens. So it kind of makes sense to gradually dismantle yourself from that part of the vet identity.

And, but then if you do try something different and go, oh gosh, that feels better and I'm less stressed and I'm more me and I'm using my skills in the right way for me. Then you have choices at that stage whether to keep any clinical work on or actually just release that and release it and feel good about, about it. So, let me scroll all the way down.

That's really helpful. Never considered the impact I've already made yet, or remembered that, absolutely, yeah, every second of that still counts and is still impacted and will always do so even if you do something completely different. OK, good.

I'm glad that's helped. Right, what a marathon session. And we had less questions this this time.

So, good, brilliant. I, I hope you're finding these useful. I'm assuming that you are because I keep getting the questions and you keep, and you're staying on.

So, thank you. thank you so much for engaging with this process. It's really brilliant and I'm sure that listening to other people's questions is, is really helpful for everyone as well.

If there are any additional things that are flagged up, I'm gonna call time on it tonight just because it is getting late. Just ping them over to me. If they're urgent, I can deal with them.

If not, we can just roll them into the next Q&A. So, good, thank you, Nicola, that's great. All the, she's saying all really useful.

Brilliant. Right, people, I've got a cheeky little glass of wine in the fridge waiting for me that I was going to wait, love the sack of guilt, absolutely. I loved mine around for, oh.

2 years, I think, and then went, oh, I'm done with that. I'm happy. So yeah, it's quite a good analogy, isn't it?

Right, I'm gonna go and have my cheeky little pre-bedtime glass of wine, and, I will love you and leave you. Thank you all, everyone, really good to see you, and I'll see you again on Tuesday next week. Good night.

Goodbye for now.