Episode #27 – Dr. Jeff Rothstein

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Hello, and welcome to The People of Animal Health Podcast. On today’s show, we are talking with Dr. Jeff Rothstein. Dr. Rothstein bought his first veterinary practice within one year of graduating veterinary school. From that, he built it into a multi-hospital network, the Progressive Pet Animal Hospitals, which he merged into Mission Veterinary Partners in 2017. Dr. Rothstein is a longtime contributor to a number of practice management journals and other publications. He has more than 100 articles to his credit. He has served on the advisory boards of Veterinary Economics and Veterinary Practice News. He currently serves on the advisory board of SnoutID. Dr. Rothstein also enjoys working with veterinary students and new and recent graduates, with a focus on how to succeed in practice and the overall veterinary profession.

Additionally, he has a particular interest in veterinary hospital real estate and design, and has participated as a judge in the DVM360 Hospital of the Year design contest. Dr. Rothstein lives with his family, including his golden doodle and three cats, in Ann Arbor, Michigan, where he has resided since graduating from Colorado State University, where he received a joint DVM and MBA degree. On a personal note, he’s a longtime runner who frequently competes in running and triathlon events. In addition, he’s a big Michigan Wolverines fan, making him unpopular with most of his local veterinary colleagues who attended Michigan State Veterinary College. Welcome to The People of Animal Health podcast. How are you today, Jeff?

I’m doing great. We’re here on a Friday. I guess it just turned afternoon here in Ann Arbor, so looking forward to the July 4th weekend.

Yes, that’s coming up. I’m super excited about that, and very happy to have you today on our show, Jeff. I know you have had tremendous success at this point in your career. I would like to start off at the bottom, in the very beginning of your career. I’d love to learn, what was your life like growing up and where did you grow up?

Sure. I grew up in Burlington, Vermont. My dad was a professor, a zoologist biologist at the University of Vermont. I have my whole life basically been living on university campuses. Here in Ann Arbor, got the University of Michigan going. That was my basic upbringing. Grew up on a hobby farm, and with a science background. Later on, found my way to an interest in veterinary medicine. That’s the childhood story.

Yeah. We’ve had quite a few of our guests on this podcast who grew up on farms. That’s been a common theme with a number of our guests. Growing up on the farm, at what point did you figure out what you wanted to do professionally?

I’m not one of those that grew up knowing necessarily that I wanted to be a veterinarian. I’m not that person, from seven or 10 that knew that. I moved from Vermont to Michigan in the middle of high school, and my dad took a position at Wayne State University’s medical school. Most of my buddies in Southfield, Michigan, where I went to high school, were all medical school bound. In my freshman year at the University of Michigan, I thought I might do that, but I kind of wanted to do something a little bit different and unique from my buddies. As it turned out, I had a work study program in the medical school for a exiled cardiologist from Poland, Dr. Stanislau Passatch.

He kind of took me in like a son, and had me working all types of crazy hours in his research lab, where I was in charge of the research dogs. Had visions of re-homing those dogs, but had a chance to work pretty closely with the lab animal veterinarians at the University of Michigan. They have a big residency program there. All of a sudden, the light switched on. I like the intellectual aspects of medicine, but it really fit in well with my upbringing, having grown up in kind of farm country. I was a big outdoors person. That’s really when I first I think discovered, “Hey, this is something that I want to do.”

Well, tell us the story of your early career starting out into the veterinary profession. After you graduated from school, how did you get started?

Sure. I will add one more piece to this. My dad transferred from Wayne State University to Fordham University, which was a big, big change. That’s in a small Jesuit college in the Bronx of New York, but it’s on the same campus as the Bronx Zoo. So I was able throughout the rest of my college years to work with the zoo veterinarians at the Bronx Zoo. That really cemented my interest, and I’d say my entry into veterinary school. I went on to move to Colorado. I got in as a out-of-state student. At that time, they only took a couple out-of-state students. Anyway at that time, this is mid, let’s say 1990-ish, it was still close to $25,000 as an out-of-state student. I asked about, if I moved to Colorado for a year, if I could become in-state.

They were like, “Sure. You’ll have to reapply, but you have a pretty good chance of getting in if you got in as an out-of-state student.” So I did that. I also had a strong interest in business. Kind of at that time, the state of affairs in the veterinary profession was that there wasn’t a lot of business in the curriculum, and salaries were really low. I had an opportunity to do a joint DVM MBA program at Colorado State. That really was my, I think, interest in combining what I saw some good business potential in the veterinary profession. I also really wanted to focus on, how do we run well managed practices and so on. That combination kind of got me started off with an interest in owning veterinary practices.

You opened your first veterinary practice very early in your career, just one year after graduating. Let’s talk about that. What was that experience like for you starting out? Then I’m also curious, from there, how did you go from that one practice to multiple practices?

Yeah, so great questions. I don’t recommend anybody doing that, as far as getting involved in ownership too soon. I think it’s really important to get your veterinary training under your belt first. As it turned out, I came back to Michigan from Colorado for a couple reasons. My wife’s family had a family business here in the metro Detroit area. Also, one of the first group practices in the country, called PVH, or Professional Veterinary Hospitals, was in the metro Detroit area. It was a group at that time of 12 hospitals. I was going to get involved in doing some management work for them, as well as practicing medicine. About three months out, they got purchased by a private equity group, that ultimately got bought out by VCA. At that point, I realized I was not going to have the opportunity to get involved in management stuff real quickly.

So I was paging through our local DMA newsletter here in southeastern Michigan, and saw a practice for sale that was about an hour away. With a $10,000 cash advance on my credit card, and $57,000 in student debt, I was a practice owner about nine months out of school. It was actually, ironically, I remember April 15th. Ironically, I had the opportunity with that $10,000 deposit to at, the end of the year, either lose that deposit or take full ownership of the hospital. On January 1st, I had enough profit that it was more than my starting salary of $32,500. I said, “Yep, I’m going to keep it.” It was just an interesting structure I had with the seller, who was a pretty young individual. He was about 45 when he retired. He was a good veterinarian, a good surgeon, but he did not like dealing with difficult clients.

That really tied in well with my interest in practice management. He had a weekly newspaper column in the area, so he handed me the keys and the newspaper column. That’s how I started getting involved in writing for the general public, and then for a lot of practice management publications as well. It was a good launch. From that, because my wife was like, “Why are you buying a practice an hour away?” I was like, “Well, I’m interested in multiple practices and demographic clustering, so an hour away is not bad. And I’ll look for more locations within that same distance from home.” It was a good launching pad. Michigan, the southeastern area was a great area to practice medicine. We had a number of specialty hospitals. It turned out to be a really good home, and a great area to be in the veterinary business and profession.

Yeah. You were building that multi-hospital network, and then how did you go from the Progressive Pet Animal Hospitals, and then MVP? How did all that evolve?

Yeah, it is an evolution. Over a number of years, I’d built up a group of practices. At one point, had 10 to 12 locations. There was a couple times I sold practices to associates that had been running them for a while. I also got involved with the Banfield crew and group, served on their advisory board and had several locations. That first hospital I bought nine months out of school, we out-grew that location, and there was a Banfield hospital. At that time, it might’ve even been called VetSmart. If we go back into the early ’90s, they had a location, gosh, about a mile away. I was looking for a new facility, and I knew the folks really well from Banfield. I said, “Well, why don’t you move your clinic into our location?”

That was my start of owning Banfield locations. I ended up having three locations or franchises in the metro Detroit area. Then to answer the question, how that evolved into getting involved with MVP, in 2015, the Morris family was determined to buy out all the franchisees, [inaudible 00:14:01] charter practices. I had three of the last 17 locations. So they kind of twisted my arm to sell those to them, in their quest to basically not have any franchisees anymore. I sold those in 2015. And then worked with them for a little while with a group that was buying practices called Legacy Vet, sort of buying practices for Banfield. They were interested in buying some hospitals that were not inside PetSmart.

Anyway, at that time, it seemed like, gosh, every other week, every month, groups like VCA and NVA and VetCor were buying all these great practices in the metro Detroit area and across the country. I was like, “Wow. If someone doesn’t do something a little bit different, then we’re going to all end up in these three or four really large groups of practices.” I just looked at, is there another way to do the group practice thing? We basically focused on just being an employer of choice. I like to think of it as kind of a veterinary group run by veterinarians, for and by veterinarians. There were a number of private equity groups that were interested in partnering with me, based on my background in multiple practice ownership.

I looked at the different opportunities, and who I thought would best support doing something a little bit as an alternative to the really big groups. I think we have done a good job with that. MVP started in 2017 with 22 practices. We’re over, gosh, close to 350 at this point. Again, really focusing on putting the team as our number one client, so to speak. A lot of groups have kind of followed that model. I’d like to think that we’ve had a nice positive impact on the profession. Even in a lot of ways changed some of the bigger groups that I think initially were focused more on running the business side than really understanding the veterinary culture.

Wow. Well, my next question talks about leadership. You owned a practice early on in your career. You acquired other practices, you grew those. There’s some veterinarians that are in a practice situation, and they want to do more maybe than just be in a practice setting. What would you say to some of those people, and how can they branch out and get roles of increased… How can they be in positions with increased responsibility?

Yeah. It goes back to why I think I was interested in multi-practice ownership. I really looked at it as being able to share best practices between different hospitals. We’re a very independent profession. For me, I was a social person, and just really liked getting outside the four walls of one hospital. It’s not unusual for someone to practice in one location with 10 or 15 people for 20 or 30 years, or their whole career. Branching out into multiple locations I think was just a really nice way of seeing how other doctors and other team members maybe did procedures different, or approached cases differently. The other part of that was, look at what we’ve done to expand the career opportunities, which is really addressing your question in terms of leadership. Now, you don’t necessarily have to just practice in one practice.

You don’t have to be an owner, and take that risk necessarily. You can become a chief of staff, a medical director. You can go on to be a regional manager. And this could be for a practice manager or a veterinarian or a technician. Now all of a sudden, maybe you’re overseeing 10 or 15 practices. That whole structure has really evolved. I would say Banfield, which was one of the first big groups in VCA, they created some nice models like that. But now, the career growth and opportunities for leadership are truly expanded, and just a lot, a lot of great opportunities. Every veterinary is different. I recently was having dinner with some of my veterinary colleagues. We’re all, gosh, mid-60s, early 70s, still practicing full-force. I was like, “What’s motivating you?” It wasn’t financial reasons. They just love to practice medicine and like that legacy.

Whereas other folks, gosh, it could be five or 10 years out that are like, “Well, I’ve done enough skin cases and ear infections and anal glads,” and all these things that become sometimes fairly routine. So they look for other challenges. In a lot of ways, I think the profession has matured and evolved, so that you’re not necessarily stuck in a rut, so to speak, if there’s other things you want to do. A lot of times, folks don’t even realize that they thought they were going to do one thing, and sometimes they get tapped to do, “Okay, why don’t you be a medical director?” Or, “Wow, you’re really good at that. Why don’t you become a regional person?” Those opportunities, I think are just greatly enhanced. I think the profession just has a lot more to offer today than it did in the past.

Yeah, the good news is there are options. You don’t have to own a practice, or be an associate forever. You can, if you want to. You can practice medicine for the duration of your career. Or if not, there’s other opportunities in leadership. Like you said, Banfield and VCA kind of set the stage for that. Now there’s a number of other corporations too, but there’s so many different opportunities out there. I know that successful people have up and downs in their career. Not every day is a high. Not every day is a low. Careers are up and down. I’m sure that you’ve had some massive, days where you felt, “I’m having massive success.” And there have probably been some low points among the years too. Walk us through the highest high and the lowest low of your career.

A really good question. I think I really enjoyed the demographic clustering. I don’t know if the highest days, were just I think building that group of practices, building a business was really exciting. I don’t know if there’s, one day it was gratifying that there were a number of financial backers that were interested in partnering with me. That was exciting to see that we’ve done something that I believed in from the days that I was doing my MBA with the veterinary degree. Probably that culmination, where we actually joined with a financial partner. One of the things that’s interesting with the profession is that there’s a lot of banks that, they know it’s a really good business.

They always joke that veterinarians are at better risk than some other professions, be it dental or medicine, where I think sometimes they’re a little more materialistic than the DVMs. So banks love us, but they don’t like the risk of necessarily saying, “Hey, you’re going on to practice 7, 8, 9, 10.” So the infusion of capital from private equity groups and some really wealthy families is exciting. For me, that high point I think was seeing that dream of building that bigger practice take place.

From the low standpoint, we’re a really seasonal profession. When you have, again, six, eight or 10 practices you are dealing with, there’s eight months out of the year are great times. You have to get really good at managing your budget and finances, so that you are not running into trouble during the slower times of the year. I would say at some point everything just gets magnified. So I would say there were some stressful days, just in terms of, “Okay. We’ve got three or four months where we’ve got to get through this, and get into the busy season.”

It’s kind of feast or famine. Those are things that I think people in the business have to be aware of. It’s not as seasonal as it used to be, but folks will recall heartworm season, it’s still out there. That’s a challenge with the business, is being able to forecast that. It’s not like everything is all boom, boom, boom. There’s definitely some financial risks and challenges that you’ll face.

Yeah. You’ve got to be able to manage the finances and, like you said, business ebbs and flows. You’ve got to be prepared. Well what has been the most surprising thing to you during your career in the veterinary profession?

Surprising actually would be that we have not embraced pet insurance in a bigger way. I’ve been a big fan of wellness plans. I’ve utilized it a lot in my own practices, as well as the Banfield practices. Have been a big proponent of pet insurance, where only like 3%, if even that, of pet owners have insurance now. I was looking, I think it was actually just yesterday with my ChatGPT. I just wanted to see the differences in average compensation for veterinarians versus MDs. I’m in a town of lots of medical doctors that are my friends and so on. That’s not the easiest haul right now, but the salaries are still… I like to compare it to like a pediatrician or a general practitioner. The average veterinary salaries are still not a heck of a lot over 100,000. So it’s maybe half of that of an MD.

A lot of that, to me… This is my own view. Not MVP’s, but just my own personal belief, is that we aren’t charging enough or appropriately for our services. If we embrace pet insurance, which is really big in Europe, countries like Britain, that’s maybe like 85% of people have pet insurance, and a lot of Europe. That if we would charge appropriately, we’re in a situation where people then are going to be, “Well, I need to have some way of paying it forward, so that I’ve got some protection.” Veterinary care is not inexpensive, which it shouldn’t be.

I think pet owners are at a point now where they realize how valuable their pets are, that they would embrace insurance as those prices get to a point where they realize they need to budget it out. I think what we do is we keep our prices as affordable as we can, and shoulder that burden ourselves, as opposed to charging what we should. Just a, I’d say surprised that we haven’t embraced pet insurance. And even more in the wellness plan aspect, which I think was in some ways more popular even five or 10 years ago. Now, I think a lot of hospitals are like, “Hey. We’re busy enough that we don’t really have to worry about that, because we’ve got enough clients. So if one client’s not affording our services, then somebody else will take that appointment.”

Why do you think that is? Why do you think that the US hasn’t embraced pet insurance as fast as the UK?

I think originally it was that a lot of DVMs didn’t want to mimic what is a little bit of a mess in human healthcare, in terms of a lot of red tape and getting reimbursed third party payments. That I think is the original genesis of it. I think also the media’s played a part in it. Where they’re like, “Hey. If you did the math, you’d see that you spent… If you just paid out of pocket, you would in the long run not be saving money.” The reality is, though, insurance companies only exist because they take in more money than they shell out. So you could say the same thing for human healthcare too. Really the point is that, when you’ve got that five or $10,000 vet bill, which is not that infrequent now if an emergency happens, or if you need a major surgery, for a lot of people, they can’t pay it right then and there.

I think economic euthanasia is one aspect that we’ve kind of said, “Hey. Pet insurance will help with that a lot.” But I think there’s also a lot of just economic denial of care. It may not always be a life and death scenario, but it may be things that, “Oh, if I could get that surgery done for the knee or the hip, my pet would be more comfortable. But you know what? I’m not in a position right now to spend three or four or $5,000 on those type of procedures.” There’s just a lot of I think more [inaudible 00:29:54] things that would make a pet’s life better if people were able to budget out that care.

The media, I think again, has played one part of that. I think the pet insurance companies originally haven’t always done the best job of either promoting their services or making people feel like they’re getting a benefit from it. I think we’re at a point, a tipping point really, where we now have millennials and Gen Z that are becoming the main pet owners. They want a really high level of care, but they don’t have the deepest pockets. So we need to figure out that budgeting piece, be it wellness plans and pet insurance. I think that’s why you see there’s probably over 30 pet insurance companies. We’re going to hit this I think threshold, where it’s just going to be, “Why wouldn’t I have pet insurance?”

The other aspect is, on the veterinary side, which would take a lot of stress off us obviously, if we don’t have to deal with clients not being able to pay for services, would be that we get these pets insured from day one as a puppy and kitten. Because then you get out again of the… The bad rep that the pet insurance companies get is, “Hey. I just have a cruciate ligament problem.” Yes. If you go and try and get insurance after that, of course they’re not going to pay for it. So you’ve got to really get insured early on. I think that’s one of the keys to success.

I think for a veterinary hospital, you don’t have to endorse any one particular pet insurance plan. But just I think encouraging your clients to get those pets insured at an early age when you see them on those puppy and kitten visits is really huge. From that aspect, it’s not a matter of when your pet’s going to have an emergency or an illness. They age a lot faster than us. I don’t know many people that, if it’s not once a year, sometimes it’s twice a year that they get themselves into a bind. I think it would help the profession and pets in the population, client owners a lot better.

Yeah, that’s so interesting. Well, Jeff, how have you seen the veterinary profession change over the years?

In some ways, it’s changed a lot. I was just looking, or I just gave a presentation actually to the ACVIM, so the veterinary specialists regarding practice ownership. Two parts of that is, yeah, we’re not as likely to all become practice owners. That was just kind of a given. I would say even when I graduated, it was 25 or 30 years ago, most folks went into that, if you’re going into small animal practice. We’ve been told for the last five or 10, maybe a little bit longer that, “No. You’re not going to be an owner, and there’s lots of reasons why you don’t want the responsibility. You don’t want to work that hard. You don’t know enough about business. You’ve got too much student debt.” A lot of those aspects that have shifted away from I think the typical veterinarian becoming a practice owner.

There is a resurgence, I think, of interest in practice ownership now. You see that in the VBMA groups. Part of that is because I think they’ve seen a lot of the corporations come in, or groups that are paying premium dollars. People have to realize that’s for a select group of practices, ones that have been typically well run or multiple doctors. So it’s not every practice. But I think there’s that aspect that they look at it and say, “Hey. Practices can be worth a fair amount of dollars, so a good retirement investment strategy.” Also maybe a little pushback on, “Hey, we like that independent culture.” So practice ownership I think is a big factor. Then the other thing in this presentation, I was showing a Veterinary Economics magazine that I saw cleaning out my basement.

It was from 1993, and it was kind of a gloom and doom scenario. How about three quarters of veterinarians changed jobs after that second year. Ironically, I just heard that number has not really changed that much. I think there’s still, you come out of school really idealistic. We have to make sure that we don’t, for lack of better words, curb or kill that enthusiasm. One of the things that I think the bigger hospitals and some of the groups can do a great job with that is mentoring. That mentoring is getting back to maybe teaching some of the leadership skills, but also just getting doctors up-to-speed medically and surgically, so they’re confident, and also building good cultures in those hospitals. I think those are two things I’m surprised about, is that we still have that much turnover a year or two out, and again the practice ownership part.

Yeah, I was at one of the veterinary schools speaking in the spring. The professor who invited me said that the class of last year, in 2022, a third of them were already in their second job at a school. So within a year, 30% had already gone from their first job to their second job. That was surprising. Well, what does your crystal ball say about the future of the veterinary profession?

The future I think is bright in many aspects. I mean, the whole technology aspect is really exciting. I just did a piece for DVM360 on artificial intelligence. For lots of years, we’ve been talking about leveraging your technicians and your staff. And that doctors should prescribe, diagnose and do surgery, and let your team do the rest. I think if we can lean on artificial intelligence for a lot of things that it’s able to do, that can help a lot. So many clinics, as you know, are very short-staffed. So if we can free up the team to do the things that they’re uniquely able to do, and that’s working with the pets and pet parents, as opposed to maybe taking time reading a stool sample or cytologies and so on. I mean there’s just a lot of things that we can take advantage of that artificial intelligence is bringing.

So I like that technology change. I think it comes down to in a lot of ways that there is a lot less stresses when practices are profitable and busy. I know you get the knock on, again, some of the bigger corporates that are, you need to see, whatever it is, 20 or 22 pets a day. The reality is, if we’re able to see more clients or helping more clients and pets, it also is a big help for the bottom line. I think we’re still really inefficient. That’s another surprise to me, is that we’re still maybe stuck on, not only has the technician looked at the cytology, but then the doctor wants to go back and double check that. I mean, those are things that I think we don’t need to be doing. It’s just one example.

If we can work more with clients and see more patients, that’s helpful for everybody. So that’s a hope for the future, that we will just be more efficient. Again, it gets back to good medicine is good business. If we’re able to not have to turn away two or three clients a day because we’re too busy, again, that’s going to help the pet, it’s going to help the client, it’s going to help the team. So that’s the hope for the future. I think we always kind of go back and say, “When were the golden years in veterinary medicine?” I think in a lot of ways we can be in a really sweet spot here, if we get more efficient, we embrace pet insurance, and we have all this great technology allowing us to do great medicine. I think some gratifying times, and just a heck of a lot more career options. Evolution in the profession I think is a good thing.

Yeah, that makes sense. Talking about evolution, I know you talked a lot about your early days and how you got started. I’d love for you to share with our listeners about the kinds of projects that you’re up to right now. Also, what is a typical day like for you these days?

Sure. We are, gosh, five or six years out since MVP, Mission Veterinary Partners started. A really strong leadership team, so I’ve got a lot of flexibility, which is great. I enjoy doing various types of consulting and advisory board type of work. I’m pretty involved in the wellness plan pet insurance aspect of things, as I’ve mentioned. Then just general mentoring for those that are interested in the profession. And an interest in diversity in the profession I think is something that is really important too, so I have an interest in that area.

Then as you mentioned in the beginning, I am a long-term runner and triathlete. In my presentation that goes back to early days in veterinary school, just had kind of these mantras of work hard, play hard, sound body, sound mind, it’s risks and rewards. So I just have kind of followed a lot of those throughout my career. Again, when we get back to the aspect of running and triathlons and stuff, that’s just been there with me for a lot of years. I have the Boston Marathon coming up in April of next year, so hoping to show up and have a good run for that.

Oh, wow. Wow. That’s incredible. Well, speaking about mentorship, what advice would you give the younger version of yourself?

I think just keeping an open mind. There’s a lot to this career in terms of just career planning. You can look at it… I go back to, you sit down with a financial planner hopefully early on in your career, and you kind of map things out. Well, I think you want to do the same with this. There’s a lot of parallels. We should be doing that every year with our business, going through this strategic planning. On a personal level, I think really the same holds true. You can say, “Hey. After one year, I want to be at this point.” Hopefully, it’s not changing jobs after that first year. Maybe at five years, I want to be a medical director. Or who knows, maybe you want to work for one of the different pharmacy companies, whatever it is that works for you.

Including in that again things, for me, keeping in good shape and exercising was always a big factor. But what are those things that are important to you, in really planning out your career very specifically to make those things happen? If you do that, you can have a really nice I think career, for sure. Some of that may be, “Hey. By the time I’m 50 or 55, I want to be in a financial situation where I can retire, or go and do other things.” That’s I think stuff that I’ve done from the beginning, and has made a big difference. As opposed to waking up one day 10 years out, and saying, “Oh, I wish I had done the 401(k),” or, “I wish I had planned a little bit more in terms of enhancing certain skillsets.”

Yeah, that’s great advice. Stay in shape, take care of yourself, and be strategic about what you’re doing. Have a strategic plan for your career. I think career planning is very important. What’s a message or principle you wish that you could teach all of our listening audience out there today?

It goes back to some of these, I guess mantras that I had. Working smarter may sound cliche, working smarter than harder. I mean, sometimes you just have to step back, and again, look at the things you want to achieve during your life. It’s really easy just to get into your day-to-day, and not look around. So stepping back, and making sure that you’re doing the things that you want to do. I think a lot of the newcomers in the profession, work-life balance is important, but with that, setting yourself up. I mean, there’s a lot of opportunities to do some great things within the profession. So just planning wisely, and making sure that you are strategically planning your career.

As you know, we have a lot of burnout in the profession. I think we just get really caught up in the day-to-day, and we’re not taking that time. Again, some of it’s cliche. I remember one of the things my dean of admissions said at veterinary school. She said, “The most successful students are those that work hard, play hard.” So that’s why another one for me is seek balance. Work hard, but play hard, enjoy life. I think with that, you can really have a great career. I mean, there’s so many avenues right now, and things that you can do in the profession. I think if you keep an open mind, and don’t get your head buried in the sand, then you have a lot of great opportunities.

Yeah. I think what you’re saying is to be intentional about it, because time passes fast. If you don’t stop and do that strategic planning, like you were saying before, then the time can get away from you. Then you might look back, and miss some things that you wanted to do. So be intentional. It’s important to have balance. If you are intentional with your planning, then it’s easier to have the balance. I like the work hard, play hard. Is there a key book that you’ve read that’s helped you to approach success, or do you have a key book in your life that’s impacted you the most?

I will give you two, if that’s okay. One is Sanjay Gupta’s, which is basically Keep Sharp. It’s a recent book. He was actually a graduate of the University of Michigan, so I’ve gotten to meet him here through a few of my medical friends. Basically this is a book that’s a couple years old now. He’s a neurologist and a neurosurgeon. He basically says you need to keep those brain cells healthy. That we tend to think they die off and aren’t replaced, but it’s like any other muscle in the body. You can really stay sharp if you use your brain, and kind of push yourself I think in a lot of different ways. He basically says, in order to avoid things like dementia and so on, and most of this makes a lot of sense.

He does focus on nutrition, sleep, exercise. I mentioned some of my friends that are still practicing medicine in their late 60s and 70s. He says, “Don’t retire unless you have a lot of other interests.” He really talks about making sure you have a good social network. If you get isolated, that’s a big factor for dementia. I like that book a lot. I’d say somewhat as a senior athlete, so to speak, that really follows suit as well. I just hit the 60 year mark. People are like, “Oh, you’re doing marathons,” and so on. If you keep yourself in good shape, it’s a lot easier to not lose it if you use it. I really liked that belief of his.

Then the other is a book called Grit, by Angela Duckworth. That’s a really great book, just in terms of people that are successful aren’t usually that person that’s naturally that great leader, or naturally a great musician. Hard work, and she goes through all these different stats, really is more significant in terms of success than just having natural ability. Again, some of it’s that work hard. I obviously like to emphasize have fun and play hard as well. Two great books.

I have the Grit book. It’s on my shelf. I haven’t had a chance to read it yet. I’m not familiar with the Keep Sharp. So that’s a book that I’m interested in. I’ve heard that before too. And there’s studies out there, too, I’ve heard about people that retire that don’t have anything to do, or they don’t feel like they have a purpose. There’s stats about people passing away shortly after they retire, if they don’t have things to do. I think that’s really good advice. If you are going to retire, have a purpose and have things to keep you busy. Yeah, very interesting stuff there. Well, Jeff, you’ve got the mic. What is one thing that you’d like to share with the listeners of The People of Animal Health podcast before you drop the mic today?

Sure. Well, I’ve given you lots of different philosophy, obviously. So I’ll go back to just the one. In life, it’s risks and rewards. As you said, it’s in some ways easier younger on to take those risks. But it could be at any age. I mean I think Colonel Sanders, who did Kentucky Fried Chicken, he didn’t get successful until he was 65, when that really took off. It’s good to take some risks. Again, planning can help mitigate those risks. But you only live once, so take advantage. Make the most out of life, and make sure you’re enjoying it. Again, I think that to me is something that I’ve tried to do, and you can set yourself up for success. That’s I think the other thing. There’s lots of room for success in the practice, but you can plan it forward. Be willing to take a few risks, especially when you’re younger and it’s easier to do, I think. Because as you said, life passes quickly. I’m a big proponent of start early, and failure is one of the keys to success as well

Yeah. Make good use of the time that we do have, because time is limited. It’s the only resource we can’t get more of. Well, Jeff, it’s been such a pleasure to chat with you here today on The People of Animal Health podcast. Thanks again for being here. I enjoyed our conversation.

Thanks a lot, Stacy. I really appreciate you having me here.