Leadership

There is a moment in practice ownership that feels confusing because, from the outside, the practice is doing well. The schedule is full, the team is busy, and revenue is growing. People trust you and the practice has a great reputation. The business thrives because you keep showing up, solving the next problem, and doing the work in front of you. Then one day, success feels like the problem. It’s too much.

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

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

“Pain is inevitable, but suffering is optional.”

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

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

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

After I bought my practice and inherited a team, it didn’t take me long (just a few years) to realize that my team wasn’t me – not even close – so expecting them to think and act like I did was never going to happen.

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

We’ve all been there: You return from a fantastic veterinary conference, your head buzzing with exciting new ideas. You’re eager to revolutionize your practice, but then… reality hits. The daily grind threatens to swallow your enthusiasm whole.

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

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

Taking the time to acknowledge and show respect to the support team you work with makes for a more cohesive and empowered team that clients trust so that you won’t have a group of nameless faces but respected professionals.

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