Hello everybody and welcome to another episode of Vet Chat. Today I'm very excited to be joined by Doctor Libby Kemuram. Libby ran a management consultancy in the city before she then decided to retrain to be a vet, graduating in 2011 with the Pfizer Animal Health Prize for outstanding Achievement.
A lifelong student of behavioural psychology and neuro associative conditioning, she took the opportunity whilst at Cambridge to undertake a degree with a major in behaviour, specifically the neuromechanic mechanisms. Of behaviour. So welcome, Libby.
Thanks so much for joining us today. Hello. Nice to be here.
Thank you for having me. It's very funny when you hear someone reading your bio, like, I did those things. I did.
I did. I always look forward to these podcasts, but I am being particularly excited for this one. So I'm a human resource graduate.
I love psychology, anything to do with psychology. I also recently trained as a flow consultant like yourself. So I'm really looking forward to hearing all the insights.
It's so exciting though, and I, and what I love is the fact that. The veterinary profession is finally waking up to the the big need for us to understand the human animal more. Like, it's so focused when you go through your training as a vet, it's all about the, the animal animals.
And actually, every animal comes with an owner. And so just knowing the medicine side is, is not enough. And especially these days when there's so much short staffing and there's so much pain in the profession.
Understanding your humanness and understanding what your flow state is and how to feel good is now becoming vital, in my opinion. So, yeah, I'm really excited to be here. Thank you.
Oh, pleasure. So how did you go from retraining as a vet and then going back to doing what you're doing now? Well, it was, it was a bit of a, it was one of those funny things where you, you look back and think, what if I'd done one thing differently that day.
But I was, I was working as a vet, and I, I graduated in 2011. I was so happy being a vet, and I'd done a, a three year at one practise, and then I'd switched to locumin because it served me and my, and my young family life better. And then there was this one day that I'd, I was at work quite late and Exhausted and you know, when you're, you're sort of leaving after a long day and you, you just enjoy that time in the car cause it's a break before family life hits you in the face.
And so I was, I was leaving the practise, and I just paused to let one of my clients leave before me and sort of waved her out and goodnight and all that. And that meant that she was ahead of me when we got to the temporary traffic lights at the top of the hill. That meant she went through as the light was turning red and I got held at the red light.
And it was a foggy day. It was, it was November the 2nd and Dark fog in in the middle of England and I was at the top of a long hill, and these were temporary traffic lights that weren't normally there. So the other car coming up behind me didn't know I was going to be there.
Mhm, smacked into the back of me at full speed and because I was having that moment's peace and quiet, I was, I had my head turned and I was looking out the window gazing around whilst listening. I still remember the music that was playing and at that moment, and because my head was turned, C2 to C6 and my neck got compressed, so suddenly I couldn't hold a scalpel, and I couldn't do the vetting that I'd trained so hard for and that I so loved. And so I had to reinvent myself.
I tried for a year to carry on vetting, but one day vetting would leave me flat on my back for 3, so it wasn't sustainable. So I had to, I had to reinvent. So I, I went and started, I looked at my old skill set of, of coaching and training in the city.
I looked at my new skill set of vetting, and I put the two together. So I started. Coaching vets.
And originally I started coaching them just in business, just as a practise development coach. And then, and then I shifted that to actually going a bit deeper into the person, into the human behind the practise. And, and what I learned is, it's so interesting that there's so much of the veterinary experience is based on the team around you and the team harmony, and, and how, how well, you know, it's, it's easy to feel good when you feel good.
But when you feel hungry, when you feel tired, when you feel lonely, when you're sad, It's really hard to feel good. And so we've got this huge amount of pain building up in the veterinary industry as people are just continuously, as you know, out of flow. Mhm.
No, absolutely. And that's the main, discussion point for today, really, isn't it? How to get your brain into flow and how to be the best version of yourself.
Yes. OK. Wonderful.
So how, why do you think it is right now that people are struggling so much and are so unhappy in practise? It's a double, it's a double header, this one. It's because there's 22 zeitgeists, if you like, going on.
One is this huge shortage that we've got, which means that everyone is being asked to do more. Combine that with the veterinary mentality, which unfortunately is usually wanting to do more. We have this perfect storm where there's more demand being put on people who will rise to that demand at the expense of themselves and at the expense of their mental health, and at the expense of them protecting and putting any boundaries around themselves, because how do you say no when you haven't had a wee in 14 hours and a and an RTA comes in, what are you supposed to do?
And when the resource isn't there as that good-hearted vet, you just go. OK, and it's that good-hearted vet nurse, you go, come on, team, you know, and, and so the, the, the snake is eating itself. And so we've got this perfect storm building of a huge problem where, and, and then couple that with the rise of social media bashing.
Mhm. We're screwed. So it becomes now, not a nice to have, but a must have to be in charge of your own mental health.
And I'm not talking about resilience here, and this is something I need to really, this is a table thumping bit for me, so forgive me if I go a bit nuts on this stuff, but it's victim blaming to talk about resilience. You know, it's not, it's not up to the vet to be more resilient, it's up to the system to change, but that isn't gonna happen anytime soon. There's lots of good people doing lots of good work with Mind Matters and vetlife.
There's a lot of support, but that's like continually pulling people out of the river instead of going back up, walk the bank and find out who's throwing them in. And so we need to get better at shaping the system to serve bets. But in the meantime, what do we have to do?
We must learn the basic neuro hacks to work with your brain, not against it, because there is this flow state that we can achieve when we're, when we're operating at optimum frequency, if you like. Then we get to higher levels of efficiency and we feel better while we're doing it. And that's why I'm so passionate about bringing this technology into the veterinary industry, because it's what I've noticed from my previous careers and work.
Other industries use this stuff all the time. It's been mainstream for 20 years. The veterinary industry is just kind of coming around to this behavioural psychology piece and being aware that that actually this is essential from vets and I'm talking from vet student onward.
Mhm. OK. Brill, so you touched upon flow, .
How would you describe that to other people, if people are thinking, oh, I'd like to get into flow, where did they start? Flow is that glorious feeling when time collapses, when it feels like effortless effort. Flow is like water, so it's like it moves through the path of least resistance.
So there's no resistance in your way. So we think of it like electricity, like this wire. If you, if you think about the electricity flowing through a wire, then if you pinch it, or if you block it, you, you, you alter the, the current flowing through it.
And, and it's the same with our brain and our electricity. We're electrical beings. And when we are supercharged, when we're in that flow state, it feels glorious and, and we know this from watching athletes.
So athletes discovered flow state, they call it in the zone. And we love athletes because we can see when the high jump bar moves higher, you know, we've got a quantifiable, a tangible, but it was still sort of thought to be a bit kooky until 15 years ago we developed MRI functional MRI technology. And suddenly you can see the blood flow changing in people's brains as they think of different thoughts.
And so it's all about starting with your mind, and then, Looking at your body, or somatic responses, because there's this thing, the vagus nerve that feeds back and forth, and this is from a polyvagal theory, which is a very well researched scientific part. So it's not just woo is what I'm saying. And 80% of the flow through the vagus nerve comes back upwards from body to brain.
So we must, we must look at both. We look at how your brain. Is feeling and then how your body's responding and feeding back.
And, and both of those, we need, we need better and deeper understanding of those to get ourselves into flow state. Mhm. OK.
Well, so if you're a vet or a vet nurse in practise, if you're inflow, a sign of that would be the day goes by really quickly, you're really happy and really productive, I guess. Yeah. And it feels easy.
So you never feel that spiky feeling of Oh, why are they doing it like that? Because our, our flow state is also related to our team. So the veterinary team is such an interesting environment and again, I've worked in other environments, and this is the first one that I've been in where there's such a clear three way split.
You've got vet, you've got nurse, you've got other. And that leads to a certain dynamic, right? That leads to a certain shift in, in power balances and, and people need to feel autonomy, they need to feel that they've got a job they can do that they have mastery of, and they need to feel a common sense of purpose, a common drive towards a shared vision.
And so flow state is the feeling that all the huskies are pulling in the same direction. Everyone's working together for a, for a shared goal, and they're doing it using their own superpowers. So everyone's got a zone of genius.
And I talk in terms of the big cats, big cat vet brain has just launched. It's very exciting. And so Tiger's superpower is the clinical, the data.
Most vets, 70% of vets are tiger brains. So that's all about that precision. Don't give me any of your chat.
I don't want your chat. Give me your bullet points. Tell me what's going here, tell me the facts.
Whereas a lion is the complete opposite of that, and a lot of nurses that fall in the lion camp, which is the, I need to talk this through with you. I need to hear it because I'm an auditory processor. Let's talk about what you did at the weekend.
So the vet's trying to do the bitch spray and the nurse is chatting away over the top of it and the vet's like, can you stop talking now? It, and it's not rude, it's not negative, it's just different brain types and different types of flow state. And so the the flow state for a lion brain is very different than the flow state for a tiger.
Equally, the cheetah, who's the usually the, the practise principal, the owner, the one with the vision, the one with the drive to set things up. They speak at 100 miles an hour. They're always 70 miles an hour on stop where they're, you know, gunning down the gazelle.
And they, so they're always running after the big ideas, but they forget to see problems until they're on fire. So then there's the leopard who's in control of all the things and all the systems, tapping them on the shoulder, going, you said you'd ring Mrs. Jones at 3 o'clock.
It's now 4:30. And the teacher and say, what? Hang on.
And so, so these are the four characters that we see in practise. And, and when we have a deeper understanding of our flow state in that zone of genius that we all hold, we can be valued for what we're great at. And we can be trusted to do what we're great at.
So it's all about value and trust within your neurology and within what you do naturally, beautifully, because it's It's so uncomfortable to try and do all those things that aren't your flow state, but we have to do them for some of our roles. But understanding that they're out of flow means you minimise the time doing it and you buffer yourself with lots of other of your flow tasks around it, and suddenly the day goes better. Flow is, is that bit of your job you never want to delegate that stuff that you love.
And for each of us, depending on our percentages, that's slightly different. So the goal is to try and keep people in their natural flow, and then the teams will work together. Yeah, perfect.
Brilliant. That makes perfect sense. So if, if somebody's listening and thinks, oh, I'd like to know more about that, or I'd like to find out what, sort of type of flow is best for me, where would you recommend that they start?
Start with a profile test. That's what I tend to do when I go into work with the practise team or a leadership team. So, for example, I coach, Bristol Vet School's leadership team, and, we start with profiling.
We always start by getting your own personalised profile, and the big cat vet brand is the only profiling tool specifically designed for the veterinary industry. So I'm quite excited to, to have birthed that. It was a long time coming.
10 centimetres dilated for a long time, but it's here now. It's finally here. And it's, and it's, it's ready to give you that clarity of vision of what do I need to shift for me?
Because my mission on this planet is to educate and empower people to do the best version of them whilst their time here on the planet is playing out. Cause we are here for a very short time. We get a maximum of 99 turns around the sun.
And it is so sad when people are living their everyday experience in pain and suffering. Because that hurts my soul, and I don't like it. So my vision is to put this tool into the hands of people that need to elevate their life to a better level for them.
And the first step is getting the clarity. So I, my branding is called Tame Your Brain. And tame actually stands for something.
It's a 4 step methodology for creating lasting change, so it's not just a cute marketing slogan that ties in with my big cats. It actually means something, and the T of tame your brain stands for terrain. You must know what is the ground beneath my feet, not just the map in your head.
Because the ground beneath your feet is very different. You can't go to Paris and say, I want to go to the Tour rife without knowing, well, where am I standing right now? If you give your map to a stranger, the first thing they do is say, you are here.
You know, so we, we have to get that you are here, pinning the map first, and that's what profiling does is it gives you a, a road map and tells you this is where you are. Now let's walk. Mhm.
OK, interesting. And is it quite a quick process to 20 minutes. It takes 20 minutes, and it's literally, it's a series of questions.
It's best answered with a glass of wine and not overthinking it too much. Because, because everyone overthinks this massively, but just, you just go with the answer that you feel is most likely most of the time, and then you get a very accurate readout at the end. But it's really simple.
It's all done online. It's all done remotely. You can do it of an evening, 20 minutes, and bang, you get your report immediately.
OK. Brilliant. And then what would next steps be for teams to get them all involved?
Well, this is exciting. When you start to get a whole team profile, what you can see is where your gaps are. You can see what, what of the big cats you aren't represented by.
Usually there will be several hefty tigers, there'll be a cheetah, there'll be a lions, sometimes we haven't got a leopard. And the leopard is the one that actually holds everything together. So, leopard brains have got this ability to link people to systems.
So they, they are, they own the customer journey. They own the, the, the process that wraps around the customer as they walk through the practise. So they're so vital in veterinary.
Sometimes we've, we've managed to miss out recruiting one of those. So we're sort of a bit over heavy on the tiger side and a bit over heavy on the lion side, and that means. There can be a bit of headless chickening running around without being very effective, and the thing that a leopard does is make things very effective.
So we analyse your team grid, and then we work out what you're missing, and then we see who could move into those roles until we find another warm body to take that chair. Then we work out who could do that and still remain in flow, because that's the, that's the trick to this. And then we educate and empower the team to keep each other in flow, and that's when things get really exciting.
Because suddenly, when it's not just you waking up in the morning going, how can I stay in flow today? But your team members are waking up, saying, how can I keep Katherine in flow today? Suddenly you've got like 20 people looking after your flow state.
That's really powerful. But that only comes when everyone understands this game and understands the behavioural psychology around it and understands how powerful it is. And, and the benefits are huge.
Everyone benefits when you've got that set up. So I do, I do group training and I do individual coaching around that, depending on what's needed. Yeah.
Brilliant. Sounds great. And if a lot of the teams that you've worked with, they see positive impacts from all the coaching and work that they've done with you.
Yeah, huge. And it has an impact on bottom line. You know, and that's, that's one of my taglines is change your mind, change your life and change your income, because it does have an effect.
I also partner with the Entrepreneurs Institute, so I work with outside the veterinary industry as well. And this works in every sector. This isn't just a veterinary specific thing, although this tool is veterinary specific.
It works in coaching industry that I'm part of. It works in the entrepreneur industry and and and I I see other bricks and mortar businesses, like there's a couple of florists I work with. I've got a couple of property developers, and the once you get this aligned, the profits go up.
Yeah. Brilliant. And I guess for people who are in teams who are maybe not feeling in flow, would.
Is that something that they can work on within their teams to try and get them into flow? Or? Yeah, and, and people struggle with the word flow cause it sounds so woo.
But if you think about it as electricity in your brain, it makes a lot more sense. And if you think about the wiring and firing, pathways that have wired together fire together. So if you've got a common pathway that you're used to running, it's like software in your brain.
Until you upgrade that software very deliberately, you Keep running those old triggers. So I've got a product on my website that I created specifically for vets called the Stress Solution, which unpacks this in more depth for anyone that wants a short 2 hour masterclass on it. Go and have a look.
The stress solution was designed because so many people take the worries home with them. You get an angry client, and that that feet, that burden sits on you, and you go home and then you take it out on your family, and then you can. There are techniques that you can shift your wiring.
And I go through all these in the stress solution because I think, I think that's one of the biggest gifts you can give yourself is how to, how to discharge that electricity at the end of the working day, so that it doesn't impact your family life. Because, again, again, this is my life is short principle, but, you know, you go home to that family. You want to spend time with that family, or your hobbies or your social life, if you, if you're not covered in children like I am.
But you want to actually, you know, not carry the burdens of all of the things that have happened in your day into that next part of your life. Because we're not just born to work. We should live as well.
Mm. Absolutely. And that it's so difficult to be present, isn't it, in the moment with family and friends if you are thinking about the day you've just had.
Yeah, very much. Brilliant. Is there any other we are getting close to the end of our, our time already, but is there any other sort of takeaway messages or anything you'd like to share with our listeners?
Well, this is a predominantly female industry, and I do want to make the point that whilst this stuff works for both sexes, it it actually has a hugely beneficial effect on female empowerment, because there is always this feeling as a female in business, as a female in the working world, of, especially if you've got young kids, always being in the wrong place at the wrong time. And always somehow compromising yourself, you know, when you're at work, you feel like you should be with your kids. When you're with the kids, you're worrying about stuff at work and the, the relief for me when I learned about flow state and when I learned how to switch my brain on and switch it off.
God, that was huge. And I'm a big advocate. I spoke at BSAVA this year with a fabulous stream, set up by Poppy Bristow on, the female voice and the female empowerment theme of, you know, how can we ensure that females are getting the most out of.
These jobs that we're working in. And honestly, neuro coaching and flow state has been one of the biggest breakthroughs for me. So I would urge everyone to just think about looking into this, even if you just get your profile at this stage, it's such a, a gift to yourself to then live a higher quality of life, because life is short.
Don't waste it being miserable. Mhm. Thanks, Libby.
No, absolutely. I mean, we at the webinar that we do, a similar type of tool. We all, we recruit using profile in tools, you know, right from the start, and hopefully the team would agree that it, it has really helped us as a business as well, you know, to really work together and get the best out of each other and have happy teams in, in work.
So I find it hugely beneficial. It's when you use it from recruitment onwards so that everyone comes in knowing, that's so, that's such a great strategy. And, and, obviously, Antony's one of those cheetah brains that we talked about earlier with the vision to to plug that into his business.
I do the same. And most of my retainer clients do the same where we profile everyone as they come in the door, and it just becomes a normal part of language. Absolutely.
I find it so beneficial for the team around me as well to understand how to get the best out of them. So yeah, I completely you know, agree with everything you say and then I couldn't recommend it enough either. So, where should people go to find out more about all the work that you're doing with this?
You can type in my ridiculous surname because it's so unusual. There is only one of me. And so Kim Karen.com is my website.
Tame Your Brain is my brand, so if you type that in as well, that comes up too. I also have a The veterinary entrepreneur Training Club, Facebook group for those that want to go into their own side hustle their own business. I've been doing that for a couple of years, helping those that want to escape the profession or just earn extra income.
So that's there as well. But the quickest way is just to drop me a line, Libby at Karen.com.
Wonderful. Oh, that's brilliant. Thank you so much Lily for giving up your time being here today.
Thank you, Catherine, right. Take care. Thank you.
Bye, bye.
