Episode #49 – Dr. Peter Weinstein

Do you work in the animal health industry or veterinary profession? Have you ever wondered how people began their careers and how they got to where they are today? Hi everyone. I’m Stacy Pursell, the founder and CEO of the VET Recruiter, the leading executive search and recruiting firm for the animal health industry and veterinary profession. I was the first recruiter to specialize in the animal health industry and veterinary profession in the United States and built the first search firm to serve this unique niche. For the past 25 plus years, I have built relationships with the industry’s top leaders and trailblazers. The People of Animal Health podcast highlights the incredible individuals I have connected with throughout my career. You will be able to learn more about their lives, careers, and contributions. With our wide range of expert guests, you will be sure to learn something new in every episode. Thanks for tuning in and enjoy the episode.

Welcome to the People of Animal Health podcast. On today’s show, we are talking with Dr. Peter Weinstein. Dr. Weinstein is an author, a veterinarian, an educator, and an industry leader. With a career spanning from kennel kid to hospital owner, Dr. Peter Weinstein has held leadership roles in organizations like the Southern California Veterinary Medical Association. He is the author of the E-Myth Veterinarian, a must read on why many veterinary practices struggle and how to help them succeed. Currently, Dr. Weinstein teaches business and finance at the Veterinary College of Western University, and he is the president of Simple Solutions for Vets. We’re excited to hear his insights on veterinary medicine and practice management. Welcome, Peter, to the People of Animal Health podcast.

Thank you, Stacy. Thank you for the wonderful introduction and it’s an honor and a pleasure to be a part of your podcast and your messaging.

Well, thank you so much, Peter. I’d love to start off at the beginning. What was your life like growing up and where did you grow up?

I grew up just outside New York City on Long Island with two professional parents. My dad was a CPA, MBA, my mom was a biology teacher, and my grandfather on my mother’s side was a medical doctor. The classic Marcus Welby. So I grew up in an environment that was full of education, full of professionalism and a lot of philanthropy and I think a lot of my upbringing helped to set the foundation for the variety of different things that I’ve become involved with, except my parents weren’t veterinarians. We did have some cats and that was how I got introduced to veterinary medicine is just going to the veterinarian when my cats were ill or needed vaccinations, et cetera, et cetera.

Well, Peter, you’ve had a long and diverse career in veterinary medicine, starting as a 15-year-old kennel kid to eventually owning your own hospital. You mentioned having family cats. Sounds like that initially sparked your interest in veterinary medicine. But how has your journey shaped your current outlook on the profession?

When I started as a kennel kid, as a volunteer, it was at the practice where we brought our cats. It was also around the time that James Herriot’s book, All Creatures Great and Small, came out. And so I would like to say that I was one of the first people who bought the book and read it, but I think there are probably a couple of million others who read it. But that book, the exposure to the veterinary profession growing up, being in a family with a biology teacher mom and a medical doctor grandfather, I think all of those showed me that I had an interest in medicine, that I showed an interest in science. And then like many of my colleagues, I really didn’t care about the people side of things. I really just wanted to help with pets.

And so the veterinarians for whom I worked, which was in Port Washington, New York, one, they were both small animal clinicians. I loved what they were doing. I loved the challenges of veterinary medicine. And one of them also did equine work and so I talked to him frequently about horses. And I think just having that opportunity and having two doctors who were supportive of my desires and efforts and not being told that I shouldn’t become a veterinarian, but being encouraged to do so both by my mentors in that first veterinary practice and by my parents, I think those helped coax me along and have also given me the desire to help others become veterinarians as well.

Yeah. And your daughter, we’ll talk about that later, but your daughter is one of those people that you helped become a veterinarian. Well, Peter, you’ve served in leadership roles in organizations like the Southern California VMA and the California VMA. What have been some of the biggest lessons you’ve learned about leadership and collaboration within organized veterinary medicine?

Well, I think the key word in your question is leadership. And I would suggest that veterinary medicine needs great leaders. I think this is a very small profession, and I think it needs to have people who bring other people together to work towards a better profession from that standpoint. So what I learned about leadership is first of all, I really didn’t know what it was when I was in high school. I didn’t know what it was when I was an undergrad. I really didn’t know what it was in veterinary school. I joke that I think I ran for class president and I got two votes because I voted twice. But what I did learn about leadership was from one of my early jobs working for Dr. John Hamill, who was at that point in time, president-elect of the California VMA. And I saw him negotiating some very challenging legislative issues in the state of California, which is kind of redundant because the state of California is one big legislative issue.

And watching him do that and then becoming involved locally, I started to understand what leadership is. And I started to dive deeper into it and I realized that there are a lot of people in the veterinary profession who are followers because they’re so busy doing the work that they do, but there are not a lot of people who really want to take the wheel of the car and navigate it and drive it. So I think what I found is that if you’re going to be a leader, you need to surround yourself with other people. They don’t always have to agree with what you are driving towards or striving for, but by surrounding yourself with other people, you learn to collaborate. And this world is not about individualism as much as it is about collaboration. And so whether it was the Southern California VMA and learning how to collaborate with industry players and members of the veterinary team and integrating all of them into the big picture, whether it was with VetPartners and also learning how to work with other consultants and advisors or at the CVMA or even AVMA level, leadership is all about bringing people together to work in a collaborative fashion to a common goal.

And sometimes those people who are your most challenging ones are the ones who get you to look at things differently and recognize that maybe the direction does need to change. So bottom line is veterinary medicine needs more leaders. We need to help grow leaders in the veterinary curriculum, we need to choose people who want to be leaders to enter into veterinary school, and we need to learn how to bring all of the different silos in veterinary medicine together so that we can work collaboratively to address the variety of internal and external variables that are impacting what we do every day.

That’s really good. Your book, The E-Myth Veterinarian, addresses why many veterinary practices struggle and offer solutions. What do you believe are the most common mistakes that practice owners make and how can they overcome some of these challenges?

The E-Myth Veterinarian is a part of a series of books that started with The E-Myth back back in the ’80s written by Michael E. Gerber. And I read that book probably three years into practice ownership when I realized I had absolutely no clue what I was doing. And I had heard Michael speak and I heard the book recommended at a veterinary practice management conference, and I basically became hypnotized by what was in the book. And I’ve read it a dozen times, listened to it a bunch of times. And what I recognized is that most of us who become veterinarians, most of us who become veterinary business owners really are not prepared for the job of business owner. In veterinary school, we are well-prepared for the technical work of being a veterinarian. Diagnose, prescribe, do surgery. But when it comes down to bringing together a team, working together in a collaborative fashion, again goes back to leadership, and comes down to legal issues, when it comes down to accounting issues, when it comes down to inventory and marketing, most of us do not have a clue when it comes down to it.

So the book, the E in E-Myth stands for entrepreneurial myth. And the premise behind the book is that most small business owners are not entrepreneurs, but technicians who had an entrepreneurial seizure. And that to truly be successful in business, you need to spend more time or just as much time working on your business as working in your business. But the safe route that most veterinary business owners take is to work in their business each day, every day, just getting through and grinding through exams and surgery and phone calls and lab work, etc., that they never take a step away from their business and set a direction, set a vision, set a plan. So we spend our days just kind of on the hamster wheel, running, running, running with no ultimate outcome. So the answer to your question is the most common mistake practice owners make is they don’t spend enough time working on their business because they are so embedded working in their business.

Yes. That makes a whole lot of sense. They’re educated as a veterinarian, they don’t have a CPA or a marketing degree. Good stuff. Well, as someone who teaches business and finance at the Veterinary College of West University, what are some key business principles that you believe every veterinary professional should know, even if they’re not a practice owner?

I think I do teach the class with the hope of convincing many of the students to become practice owners who may be sitting on the fence. I would suggest about a third of the students are interested in entrepreneurship, a third are probably going to end up in specialty or public health or shelter, and a third are sitting on the fence. My goal is to give them the tools to understand how a business works. So on day one, I tell every student in the class, and there’re 105, 107 students, that each and every one of them is their own small business and that they should consider themselves Stacy Pursell, Inc. Peter Weinstein, Inc. and conduct yourself as if you were a small business, which means you have to understand leadership. You need to understand communication, you need to understand training. You need to understand bookkeeping and accounting. You need to understand law. You need to understand marketing because every time you meet somebody, you are marketing yourself to them. And so what I think my premise is is that every veterinary professional, whether they’re going to be practice owners or not, need to think of themselves as a small business and conduct themselves in that fashion in a professional fashion. And to be successful as an individual or in a business, surround yourself with a success team of people who can ultimately get you from where you are to where you want to go.

And how does that tie into personal branding?

When it comes down to personal branding, there are a lot of veterinarians who all look the same. And so I think it’s extremely important, and one of the things I ask the students to do is create a career path and set a plan for the future. I think personal branding starts from having a vision of where you see yourself one, three, five, 10 years down the road and being able to communicate that clearly and succinctly to somebody who asks what makes you different. And I jest that if you’re in an elevator for three floors, about 30 seconds, and somebody said, “Tell me who you are,” the first thing somebody’s bound to say is I’m a veterinarian. Well, that’s not enough. What makes you special? What makes you unique? What makes you stand out? Because that’s what will help you get everything that you’re looking for. And so when it comes down to personal branding, ultimately every student needs to develop their own identity, and that comes from having a vision and a direction.

Can you give an example of a good personal branding statement or a good elevator pitch?

Basically, I’m a veterinarian, but what I hope to do is make a difference in the lives of underrepresented minorities in the community by helping them access care and making the cost of care affordable to them.

That’s really good.

That was a total improv, by the way.

Yeah. Well, it was impressive you came up with that so fast. Peter, you describe yourself as a free-thinking change agent and disruptor in the industry. Can you share some examples of the changes or disruptions that you believe are necessary for the future of veterinary medicine?

We only have an hour, Stacy. Well, I think we have a lot of moving parts going on right now. We have economic issues in 2025. We have continued inflationary world external to the veterinary profession, but also from a fee standpoint, internal to the veterinary profession. Concurrently we’re seeing some recessionary aspects in terms of client visits. So if we look at that and then we look at some of the discussions that are going on from a workforce standpoint, whether it’s the veterinary workforce or the credential technician workforce or even the faculty workforce at universities, we have some people issues. And so my thoughts are we’re never going to solve this by doing what we’ve done in the past. I think Einstein said that’s the definition of insanity. So what we have to do is start to get people in rooms together and in my opinion, at the grassroots level, and start to share the problems and discuss the issues and look to make baby steps forward in identifying cause and then solutions.

If we treat veterinary medicine as if it were a patient, we need to soap the veterinary patient, we need to look at the history, we need to look at some vital signs. We need to set up a diagnosis of what we think is going on, and then we need to look at treatment plans so that we can help the profession. And we have to do that by integrating technicians, integrating managers, integrating veterinary associates, veterinary owners. We need to integrate industry players. We need to have the state boards involved. We need to have the veterinary colleges involved. We need to have the professional associations involved. We need to bring all of the players together to listen, to think and to try to figure out how to get to where everybody wants to go. Because right now, in my opinion, we have a whole bunch of backseat drivers, but really it’s almost the self-driving car.

Nobody has put in the GPS. Nobody knows where the car is going. And I really do think that if I could suggest a need for the future of veterinary medicine, it really is bringing all of the stakeholders, and there are a lot of stakeholders, to the table in a facilitated conversation that starts locally, becomes regionally and then becomes nationally part of the conversation. And whether it’s done from a virtual standpoint, whether it’s done face-to-face, which is what I would prefer. I don’t think we can sit back and wait for change to happen to us. I think we have been victimized by external variables in this profession, and I do think it’s time for us to grab the reins of the horse, a.k.a. veterinary medicine, and start to rein it in and try to figure out how do we get to the outcomes that we’d all like to have.

Well, your daughter’s part of the future of veterinary medicine. With a daughter who recently graduated from veterinary school, what do you see as the biggest challenges facing new veterinarians today, and how do you think the profession needs to evolve to better support them?

It’s kind of a question about education and then it’s a question about individuals going through the education and then it’s a question about the opportunities that are out there. I think that one of the things that I want to mention is I believe veterinary medicine, although we go to school to become healthcare providers, is actually a service industry. And we have to better understand … And I don’t care whether you’re talking companion animal or equine or food animal or even research, we are servicing somebody else. And so I really do think that we need to focus a little bit more on the people skills, also known as EQ, and parallel them with the knowledge, known as IQ. And so a combination of EQ and IQ will help to take veterinary medicine and become a service industry that delivers healthcare instead of a healthcare industry that doesn’t focus on service.

And so when it comes down to the veterinary students, I think they need to understand that it’s not just about their ability to diagnose, it’s also about their ability to communicate that diagnosis to the client. It’s also about their ability to work with the team from that standpoint. And so I really do think that some of the way we choose veterinary students should look at more veterinary students holistically as a combination of work experience, life experience, education experience, and balance a multitude of variables and not just how they did on a bunch of tests, but how they did in life. And then once they get into the curriculum in school, help them understand what to expect after graduation.

Now, that’s the next challenge. After graduation. We got at least in companion animal, 30 to 35,000 companion animal practices. About 25% of those are owned by corporate national corporations and basically with a few, they all do things differently. And so when it comes down to leadership in a companion animal practice, you really don’t know what you’re getting yourself into. And so we need to help the practice owners understand what the veterinary students are looking for, mentoring being one of those things. We need to better clearly define what mentoring is and then help to provide a roadmap. And the roadmap is collaborative again. It’s collaborative between the new graduate who is going to help this practice become successful and the practice who is going to help the new graduate become successful. Again, what I would love to see is many of these recent veterinarians who sold their practices and were quite successful, I would love to see them on faculty at veterinary schools, teaching what they did to ultimately become successful.

So the biggest challenge facing new veterinarians, self-confidence, imposter syndrome, dealing with debt that’s right up there with the national debt, but they’re having the individual national debt, the economic issues, understanding what a budget is. And again, goes back to my teaching, which is that they are a small business and they have to act professionally. And I think all of those moving parts make it a … I think veterinary medicine is probably one of the most challenging professions for those people who are coming out of school, and we don’t always set them up to be successful. And I think we have a responsibility to set them up in the veterinary schools, and I think we have a responsibility to ensure that they’re successful in clinical practice once they get out. But we really don’t have clear definitions of what all this looks like.

Peter, one of the things that surprised me a year ago, I was invited to come and speak at one of the veterinary schools, and I was talking in front of the third year students, and the thing that surprised me was only one person in that group had ever had a job before and was currently working. The rest of the students, no one had ever had a job before. So when they graduate from veterinary school, that’s the first job they’ve ever had. I don’t recall that in the past, but it seems like it’s more of a common thing now. What do you have to say about that?

It’s challenging. And it’s challenging because we have more and more diversity within our profession, and there are veterinary deserts in areas where there’s not easy access to veterinary care so people of color may not be able to have work experience in the veterinary field. Doesn’t mean they can’t or shouldn’t become veterinarians, but they really don’t know what they’re getting themselves into, number one. Number two, because of the academic competition to get good grades, many people will sacrifice their work experience to get the necessary grades to get into a good undergraduate program and then into a good veterinary school. But how can you determine that you want to be a professional without walking in the shoes of the professional? When Brooke was growing up and she showed an interest in becoming a veterinarian, I sent her with my wife who was a zookeeper to go clean up the mess at the zoo. That was shoveling.

Then when I could, I tapped into some of my local colleagues and I said, “Can you do me a favor? My daughter’s thinking about becoming a veterinarian. Can she come in and shadow you?” And maybe because of who I am, maybe I had a little respect, I don’t know, maybe because I wrote them a check, whatever it was, Brooke was able to go in and watch TPLOs and lumpectomies and all sorts of different things. And I said, “Brooke, if you can handle surgery and you can handle the smells of death and the smells of feces, the rest is easy.” So I just don’t know how we can create a profession of people who know what the profession really is and understand that it’s a career, not just a job, unless they have actually walked in the shoes of veterinarians. Equine, small animal, food animal, research, poultry, swine, whatever the case may be, you got to smell it.

It’s a badge of honor to get anal glands in your hair, urine on your scrubs, blood on your shoes. But if you’ve never done that, I’m not sure how you can understand all of the challenges that we as a profession deal with on a day-to-day basis. So your assessment, which is why when I look at veterinary applications, which I do, I look more heavily at work experience. Somebody’s got 8,000 hours, it’s basically four years of work experience in the veterinary field, and I mean in the veterinary field or research or something else with animals, that to me is weighed as heavily if not more heavily than a 4.0 GPA. I think you need a balance of both.

Yeah, I agree. And not only did they not have experience in the veterinary profession, they didn’t have any work experience at all. I mean, not fast food or retail. When I was in high school, most of my friends either worked in retail at the mall or at a grocery store or at a restaurant. And the students that I was with that day, only one person had ever had a job, period. So then that means when they graduate from veterinary school, not only are they learning to be a veterinarian for the first time, they’re learning to how to have a job and to be an employee and to have a boss. And none of them had ever experienced that before.

Yeah, I think I had two non-veterinary jobs until I was in my own practice. One was working for my dad who was an accountant. And I would yawn, but that would be unprofessional about my feelings about accountants. And then I sold knives one summer for Cutco Knives, and it was fun because that summer concurrently, I was also working at a racetrack and I was also working in a veterinary hospital and selling knives. So I got experience in sales, I got training in sales, I got experience in accounting, yawn. But virtually starting at the age of 15, I have did all sorts of things in veterinary medicine that told me and showed me what I could expect in what would now be a 38 year career.

Yeah, because I know as a young teenager myself, working in retail, you learn a lot of life experiences. You learn how to deal with the public, you learn communication skills, you learn customer service, you learned sales skills. So those are all valuable things. And I’m sure you learned a lot of different lessons selling Cutco knives.

Absolutely. You learn how to take no for an answer.

Yes, I’m sure. Well, Peter, through your consulting work with Simple Solutions for Vets and PAW Consulting, what are some of the most common issues that you help veterinary practices resolve? I know we talked about some of those earlier, but what strategies do you use to address some of these common issues?

Okay. They’re kind of different business models, and so let’s talk about Simple Solutions for Vets first. Simple Solutions for Vets first started as a consulting firm and now has morphed into a more global mindset. But the first spoke on the Simple Solutions for Vets mindset is the business that my business partner Kelly Detweiler and I provide, which is control substance education, assessments, audits, and remediation. So we help veterinarians deal with the controlled substances in their practice. And the foundation behind that is to help keep controlled drugs in the practice and off the street. We have an opioid epidemic, we have a fentanyl problem, and the products that end up on the street are the same products that we use in veterinary hospitals. And so the concept behind Simple Solutions for Vets is to give veterinary hospitals the resources to help them understand what they need to do, help them do it if they need some help with it, help them deal with an issue if they identify one and then help them if the DEA or a state board comes in and they have a bigger escalated controlled substance problem.

So that’s the focus of Simple Solutions for Vets. Under the PAW Consulting banner right now, I do two things. One is teach speaking, writing, etc. The other one is a business that I’ve got called Veterinary Ownership Advocates, which focuses on educating the next generation of young entrepreneurs. So what we’ve done is create an educational platform for young entrepreneurs to get a mini MBA so that they can be the next generation of hospital owners. And so what I see my role, and it goes back to my personal mission statement, which is to make the profession a better for the next generation, is to provide the tools and resources to make this next generation ultimately more successful.

And strategically, it’s about leadership, it’s about team building, it’s about communication, it’s about training. And I think that it’s also, as I mentioned earlier, surrounding yourself with the experts because we’ve been a jack of all trades for so long and a master of none, but there are masters out there, and if you need somebody to help you find an associate veterinarian, call Stacy Pursell. None of us went to veterinary school to learn how to be a recruiter. If you need an attorney, call an attorney, build yourself a success team. And so my strategy right now is really to help my colleagues find those members of the success team so that they can do what they do best, which is to be a veterinarian.

Yeah. That’s good advice. Well, in your experience as a hospital owner and consultant, how has the landscape of veterinary practice ownership changed over the years, and what do you think the future holds for independent practices?

I think the future is extremely bright for independent practices. In 1993, thereabouts, when Stacy was just a baby, I visited with VCA. They owned 18 hospitals. And I talked to them about what their business model was and what they wanted to do. And I saw that there was, and there is a role in veterinary medicine for national corporations, and I still think that there is a role for national corporations in veterinary medicine. I think they’ve done a marvelous job of providing some exit strategies for many, many practice owners. However, it all starts with independent hospitals. It all starts with me deciding to have my entrepreneurial seizure and open up my 1200 square foot hospital in Laguna Hills, California because I just decided that I could do so. So I do think that hospital ownership and the profession go hand in hand. I mean, veterinarians are pretty much entrepreneurs and just getting to where we are.

I think the future is bright. I think we have to understand the challenges that are out there, and I think we learn from those challenges. You’re going to fall down, you got to pick yourself right back up. But I do think that I’m very optimistic about the next generation of veterinarians. I think that the Millennials and Gen Z’s bring a completely different thought process to the way they do things. I love the work-life balance that they talk about. I love some of the entrepreneurial ideas that they’ve had. One of the assignments for the veterinary students was to come up with some innovations and even did some shark tanks, and they had some great ideas for the future. I think what we have to continue to do is strive to support independent veterinary practices. We need to go back. Stacy, you’ve been doing this for a while, but one of the things that was very exciting when I entered the profession a while ago was that many associates were then brought on board to be partners.

They were brought on board to be owners. And I think this hand-me-down approach to veterinary medicine needs to be recovered. And I think we need to nurture and coax young veterinarians to become associates, give them some equity in the business, and then help them become the exit strategy for the owners. And whether it’s a one-doctor or four-doctor practice, whether it’s a million dollars or $6 million in revenue, I think there are ways to do so and I think we in the profession and especially my generation need to continue to advocate for entrepreneurship, independent hospital ownership, and whether you’re going to start something from scratch with your own dream or whether you’re going to buy somebody else’s practice and make it even better, that’s where my advocacy is right now. I’m all about national corporations. I think they do provide a great resource for learning and how we can do things better, but I’m all about advocating for independent veterinary practice ownership.

Well, I’m glad to hear that you say the future of veterinary medicine is bright, and I would 100% agree with you on that. And you talked about the importance of leaders as a leader yourself in the profession and a veteran of organized veterinary medicine. What advice would you give to aspiring veterinarians and those looking to take on leadership roles in the field?

Well, as I mentioned earlier, I never thought I would be sitting on a podcast talking about leadership. Never thought I would run a local association, a state association, become an executive director of a local association, be involved with the AVMA in a variety of different capacities, be president of Vet Partners, which is some of the best and brightest in terms of consultants, but it was who I surrounded myself with. And it was being under the wing of leaders when it came down to consulting. It was Tom Catanzaro, who basically has probably the only book on leadership in the veterinary profession and learning about leadership. And leaders are a combination of nature and nurture. There are some great leaders who have done it through the school of hard knocks, and there are some others who have basically learned it through books and have applied it. I do think that if you are an aspiring young doctor, I think you attend educational programs, whether it is at the major meetings that are out there, or look at leaders outside of the veterinary profession.

Read the biographies of Abraham Lincoln, George Washington. Read anything written by John Wooden. Read anything written by John Maxwell when it comes down to leadership. I think if you are going to be a leader, you don’t have to reinvent the wheel. You just have to figure out which wheel is yours and use some of the knowledge and expertise that are out there to become a great leader. So I’m an avid reader, and great leaders are great readers when it comes down to it. So if you want to take a leadership role, start locally. Most of the time, if you go to a local event and they need officers, raise your hand. And if there are any students who watch this, and I hope there are, take some leadership roles in veterinary school, be an irritant, be a disruptor. Don’t take the status quo as the answer. Create a new status quo. And then just grow within the role.

And volunteerism is some of the best ways to become a leader. And you’ll learn the hard way and you’ll make mistakes and you’ll learn what Robert’s rules of order is. But I do think that if you’re interested in leadership, find yourself a mentor who was a leader and listen. Leaders are great readers, but leaders are also great listeners. And so listen to how people deal with other people, listen to how people deal with issues, and start to learn even as young as veterinary school what leadership is all about. Because besides being your own small business, you’re going to be in a practice no matter what, or you’re going to be in a business no matter what. And it could be a house call business where you’re by yourself, but you still will engage with other people. And when you walk into a house and you’re the doctor, you need to be a leader in that situation as well.

What do you mean by be an irritant?

What do I mean by being an irritant? Ask questions. Don’t accept. Ask questions. Isn’t it irritating, Stacy, when somebody asks you a question, you just want them to say yes? And kids do it all the time. You’ve got what, three kids?

Five.

Five kids. So you’ve got a basketball team. How many times did you hear the word why?

Daily.

Why Mommy? Why Mommy? Why Mommy?

Multiple times a day.

Yes. Ask why. Don’t just accept. Ask why. Be a kid.

Yeah. That’s good. Well, what has been the most surprising thing to you during your career in the veterinary profession up to this point?

How rapidly we have evolved, and even more so in the last five years. I grew up thinking that I wanted to be James Herriot and do mixed animal practice in the Dales of the UK. And then I went through and I worked as an associate and then had my own hospital, and I was fortunate to have my own hospital when what I think one of the major disruptions of the veterinary profession occurred, and that was the flea products like Program came out. So all of a sudden flea and tick became an oral medication or a topical medication instead of bombs. All of a sudden, the human-animal bond became pets sleeping in beds.

All of a sudden, people were coming in with their pets that were part of the family. I think what I’ve seen is a dramatic evolution in the relationship between pets and people. And we now know how important pets are in the lives of people. Mental health, physical health, etc. We as a veterinary profession have had to evolve to meet the needs of consumers who have higher expectations. And to do so, we have evolved medically with new medications. We’ve evolved surgically with new surgical interventions. We’ve evolved holistically with all sorts of new therapies that we can use. So I would suggest that the veterinary profession in the last 25 to 30 years has evolved medically and concurrently has evolved economically. And I think we can reflect on that by seeing what the cost of care is, the level of cares that we can provide. But I think it’s can we keep up with the evolution of the profession and the evolution of the world around us when most of us would rather just go into an exam room and be a good doctor.

Well, Peter, all successful people have daily habits that help them to achieve success. What are a few of your daily habits that you believe have allowed you to achieve success?

Well, I’m a systems person, so I like to do things consistently. So one of the things I try to do at the end of every day is make sure my desk is clean and that my to-do list for the next day, week and month is in front of me on the table. So when I come in the morning, I try to get up at the same time, have breakfast, walk the dog, and then start my day. And I start my day by clearing out any junk that’s accumulated overnight because that’s the easy thing. What I really should be doing is using the early part of the day to go after the most challenging aspect of what the next week will bring. But I use the beginning of the day to just clear out the junk, clear my head of those things, and then I start to work on various projects.

And I’m habitual in the sense that I will work for three or four hours continuously, whether it’s phone calls or projects or writing, take a short break, go back to work. I don’t routinely have a lunch. And then towards the middle or the end of the afternoon, I go to the gym. And I try to do that every day because I do think for me, clearing my head towards the middle or end of the day sets me up for the next day, not having a lot of baggage. I used to work after dinner, after hanging out with my wife. I used to work again until midnight. I’ve stopped doing that. But I really have a pretty routine schedule of what I do. And what it does from a habitual standpoint is it helps me not forget to get things done and it keeps me grounded in making sure that I focus on the most important things first things first, and there’s an A list, a B list, and a C list.

And so I make sure that I work on the A list. And every once in a while you do a C thing because you just want to get something checked off. And I try to celebrate as I line things out on my to-do list. It’s like, okay, time to go grab a banana or something like that. Yeah, big celebration, right? Grab a banana. But I think what I do is try to be very routine in everything that I do so that I stay on time, stay on task, and feel like at the end of the day that I’ve accomplished something. So I think I’m a creature of habit, and every once in a while you break those habits and throw some fun in there. But for the most part, I’m a creature of habit and I kind of try to stay to a finite schedule.

So having a schedule and consistency is key. And at least it’s a banana, not a cookie.

Correct. Yeah. My meal during the morning is usually a banana, some almonds or a power bar or something like that. Lunch to me just makes me loggy for the afternoon.

Yeah. What advice would you give the younger version of yourself?

What advice would I give the younger version of myself? I think I would have learned a little bit more about business when I was in undergrad. I took economics as a senior at Cornell where I did my undergrad, and I did it because as a senior, all the freshmen girls would be in the economics class. So I didn’t take it because I wanted economics. I took it for the social aspects of things. It didn’t help. So I think I would learn a little bit more about business. I would learn about communication. I was pretty much an introvert, and I know it may be hard to believe, but I actually am an introvert. I do get up on stage and I put my extrovert hat on, but for all intents and purposes, I would just as soon shy away and sit in the corner.

So I think I would’ve learned about communication, business and just basically had a better understanding of the world. I didn’t pay a lot of attention to history and government because it really wasn’t going to influence my world in veterinary medicine. But looking back, civics, understanding history, understanding the different things that have influenced us. I’m learning so much now through the podcast that I do with Phil Nelson that you were on about the world that is around me that I wish I knew when I was younger, and I think it would’ve made me an even more rounded person than I am at the moment.

Yes. What message or principle do you wish you could teach everyone listening to this podcast?

I will borrow from Jack Canfield’s The Success Principles, principle number one. Take 100% responsibility for your actions. Stop blaming everybody else for the world around you. Stop looking to find somebody else because you didn’t get what you wanted to. So take 100% responsibility for your actions because they’re the ones that ultimately will define your outcomes.

That’s one of the best books. I’ve read that book. And my next question is, some of our guests say that they’ve had a key book that they read that helped them along the way. You just mentioned Jack Canfield’s book, The Success Principles. Are there any other key books in your life that has impacted you?

Well, I can turn around and look at my library. Definitely The Success Principles. Definitely The E-Myth and The E-Myth Revisited by Michael Gerber. I would suggest Start With Why by Simon Sinek. Anything written by John Wooden. I can go on because I probably have just in this room alone, 200 books that have been read and been used in talks and everything else. Ken Blanchard, The One Minute Manager. Damn, I don’t even know where to stop, so I’ll stop right there.

Well, that’s a good list. Well, Peter, you’ve got the mic. What is one thing that you want to share with our listeners at the People of Animal Health podcast before you drop the mic today?

Well, what I’ve learned, Stacy, is that AV people hate it when you drop the mic because they’re freaking expensive. So what I will do is softly put the mic down by saying, if you want the profession to be everything that you want it to be and can be, get involved. Don’t wait for the world around you to change, and then you change. Be the source of the change that you’d like to see. In one of my talks, I use a schematic of human lemmings because we very commonly will just follow others in some cases to our demise. I would suggest that anybody and everybody who listens to your podcast start to get out of their comfort zone and take an active role in defining their outcomes and the outcomes of the veterinary profession.

Each one of us has a role in making this world a better place.

Absolutely.

Well, Peter, thank you so much for being here today. I always enjoy seeing you and talking with you, and it was great to have you on the People of Animal Health podcast today.

Thank you, Stacy. I appreciate the invitation. I hope your listeners got a couple of golden nuggets and probably a couple of bronze ones as well. And I look forward to seeing you somewhere at one of the big events that we’ve got in the veterinary profession coming up in the next few weeks, and want to wish you and all your listeners a very happy New Year and here’s to a 2025 that gives us everything that we want it to give us.

Yes. Well, I look forward to seeing you as well. Happy New Year, Peter. Happy New Year to all of our listeners, and let’s make 2025 a great year to thrive.