Jan. 16, 2026

153: What’s Holding You Back? 3 Keys to Rewiring Your Brain for Calm, Confidence, and Clarity. With Dr Rod Irwin

153: What’s Holding You Back? 3 Keys to Rewiring Your Brain for Calm, Confidence, and Clarity. With Dr Rod Irwin
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Season 1

Ever feel like your anxiety or fear of failure is just... who you are?

The perfectionism. The overthinking. The constant pressure to “get it right.”

It can feel like it’s wired into your DNA.

But what if it isn’t?

Dr Rod Irwin, vet, former clinic owner and author tells us how who went from panic attacks in an empty vet clinic to a completely rewired life - thanks to neuroscience.

After hitting breaking point, a chance encounter with neuroscience set him on a 15-year journey into neuroplasticity and positive psychology - and ultimately changed how he led.

Together, we unpack how our brains are shaped by past experiences, why vets are particularly vulnerable to negative belief loops, and how we can deliberately rewire our thinking to reduce anxiety, improve performance and build healthier workplace cultures.

We explore:

  • Why early experiences like bullying and perfectionism hardwire us for burnout
  • What neuroplasticity actually means, and why this isn't just “positive thinking”
  • How emotions strengthen or weaken your neural pathways
  • Dr Irwin’s first 3 practical steps to start rewiring your brain
  • Why your identity is the key to lasting change
  • How clinic leaders unconsciously set the emotional tone for the entire team
  • And how reconnecting to purpose and values can transform your culture

This is a science-backed, practical conversation on mindset, leadership and wellbeing – tailored to the veterinary world.

Because your brain isn’t broken.It’s just wired by experience - and you can change the wiring.

 

The Neuroscience of Neuroplasticity: How Your Brain Can Change

The neuroscience of neuroplasticity is the study of how the brain remains in a constant state of flux throughout your life, rather than being a fixed or "hardwired" organ. It suggests that through intentional tactics and strategies, you can influence how your brain is wired, allowing you to rewrite your personal story and break free from unhelpful beliefs or emotional responses.

How the Brain Physically Changes

Your brain is like a muscle; the neural circuits you use most frequently become physically larger and more dominant. This process involves two main mechanisms:
  • Neural Strengthening: When you focus on specific thoughts or emotions—especially those tied to strong feelings—the brain cell networks supporting them grow larger and more enduring.
  • Synaptic Pruning: Conversely, when you stop focusing on certain negative beliefs or past traumas, those neural connections begin to disconnect. This is known as synaptic pruning, where unused pathways eventually shrink and lose their power over your behaviour.

Wiring vs. Rewiring

Dr. Rod Irwin distinguishes between two ways we can influence our neural architecture:

 

Concept

 

 

Definition

 

 

Goal

 

 

Wiring

 

 

Creating entirely new neural circuits or pathways.

 

 

To transform strengths into "super strengths" or learn new skills.

 

 

Rewiring

 

 

Modifying existing, neural circuits.

 

 

To fix issues like low self-esteem, anxiety, or lack of confidence.

 

 

 

The First Three Keys to Personal Transformation

Drawing from his research into neuroscience and positive psychology, Dr. Irwin outlines three initial "keys" to facilitate this change:
  1. Drop the Baggage: By letting the past be and focusing instead on the present and an ideal future, you allow negative circuits to shrink into "benign memories".
  2. Focus on the Positive: Actively identify the "flip side" of negative emotions. For instance, if you feel frustration, focus intentionally on patience; if you feel anxiety, focus on calmness. Over time, these positive circuits will outweigh the negatives.
  3. Create an Ideal Future (The Avatar): Use your imagination to create a detailed "avatar" of the person you want to be—how that person looks, sounds, and feels. This mental image acts as a guide, laying down new neurons that anchor your actions to this idealised version of yourself.

The Importance of Self-Awareness

For these changes to take root, self-awareness is essential. You must be able to recognise the moment you are triggered and consciously choose to pause. This gap between a stimulus and your response is where you can apply "strategic thinking" to redirect your attention to your desired "avatar".

 

Focusing on the Positive to Build Strength

Focusing on the positive is more than just a mindset; it is a neuroscientific strategy used to physically strengthen the neural circuits in your brain. By deliberately focusing on positive thoughts and emotions, those specific pathways become larger and more enduring, eventually outweighing and "pruning" away negative ones.

The Science of Positive Growth

Your brain is in a constant state of flux and can be physically reshaped through your focus.
  • Neural Weightlifting: Just as exercise builds muscle, focusing on positive aspects of your life causes the brain regions responsible for those thoughts to grow physically larger.
  • Wiring vs. Rewiring: While "rewiring" aims to fix dysfunctions like anxiety, "wiring" is about creating new pathways that transform your existing strengths into "super strengths".
  • Beyond "Positive Spin": Unlike temporary manifestation or "hype", this process requires consistent, strategic thinking to make changes permanent.

Tactical Strengths: The "Flip Side" Technique

Dr Rod Irwin suggests a practical strategy for building strength by identifying the exact opposite—the "flip side"—of a negative trait you currently possess. This allows you to develop positive beliefs that underpin more functional neural networks.

 

Negative Trait (Weakness)

 

 

The Positive "Flip Side" (Strength)

 

 

Frustration

 

 

Patience

 

 

Anxiety

 

 

Calmness

 

 

Fear of Failure

 

 

Courage

 

 

Low Self-Esteem

 

 

Confidence

 

 

Anger

 

 

Peace or Love

 

 

 

To apply this, you must utilise the "gap" between a stimulus and your response. By pausing in a moment of frustration to ask, "What is the opposite of this?", you are practicing self-awareness and choosing to feed the positive "wolf" in your brain.

Creating the "Champion You"

Building strength also involves using your imagination to design an "Avatar"—a detailed mental image of the person you want to become.
  • Visualisation: Imagine the "Champion You" in detail. How does this person sound? How do they look? How do they handle difficult conversations?.
  • Anchoring Actions: This Avatar acts as a guide for your future actions. The more you focus on this idealised version of yourself, the more your brain lays down new neurons and connections that anchor you to that identity.
  • Identity Shift: Instead of just trying to change a habit, you decide that you are that person (e.g., "I am a runner" or "I am a conflict solver"), which makes positive decisions more automatic.

Positivity in the Workplace

In a team environment, focusing on the positive is a collective responsibility. A single "drop of black paint" (negativity) can discolour the entire atmosphere of a workplace.
  • Leadership Impact: Leaders set the tone by leading with positivity, as their emotions and words directly wire the brains of their staff.
  • Creating Value: Shifting focus from personal stress to providing "massive amounts of amazing value" to others can help silence self-doubt and create a more rewarding environment for everyone.

Learn about all 12 keys here, or here if you're a practice owner or book a chat with Rod here.

Find out how we can support you in your vet career at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠thevetvault.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠.

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Unpacking Insecurities: Dr. Rod Irwin's Journey from Anxiety
You know those things that annoy you about yourself, Some habit, trait, or believe that you picked up somewhere in your past that you wish you didn't?
Maybe you struggle with those money conversations, or you start sweating like crazy when you have to speak in front of people.
But some of those internalized beliefs can be much more than just annoying and can sometimes seriously get in the way of your success and your happiness.
You know the ones I'm talking about, deep seated insecurities and anxieties that eats away at your confidence and yourself with.
Wouldn't it be great if you could just magic wand them away?
What could you achieve?
Who could you be if you could rewire those traits, the stored patterns and emotional responses that add such friction to your day-to-day life?
Doctor Rod Irwin is here to tell us that we can.
Not with a magic wand, but with a system.
He has learnt through personal experience that it is possible to rewrite those stories and rewire your brain.
Speaker 2
When I read those two facts, the light bulb went on and two things sort of crashed into my consciousness.
And the first was, if that's the case, maybe I can wire my brain for greater calmness and courage and confidence.
Speaker 1
I'm Hubert Tim Strat, and you are listening to The Vet Vault, where we love to unpack the messy human bits of vet life to see if we can figure out ways to make it just a little bit less messy.
And in this episode, you'll hear from Doctor Rod Urban, whose story starts with him as a practice owner, drowning in dead and at the end of his tether.
Speaker 2
The clinic was empty, alone, and I just screamed.
It was just this gut visceral reaction to where I was and it echoed out and nothing happened and I screamed again and nothing happened.
Speaker 1
The story takes a 15 year detour into neuroscience and positive psychology and in this conversation Doctor Rod shares some of the things that he's learnt in that time and have applied to his own life to rewire his brain and rewrite his story.
Together we explore the science of neuroplasticity that allows you to rewire your neural circuits and to break unhelpful beliefs that get in the way of your true potential.
It's a good story.
You want to hear it because what you learn might help you with your own story.
Let's get into it with Doctor Rod Irwin.
How Early Experiences Wired Dr. Rod for Burnout
You talk a lot about the reason we need to rewire our brands, or many of us do, is because our fears and negative beliefs.
Do you remember what were the fears and negative beliefs that you think were holding you back that was responsible for that happening?
Speaker 2
I think we're unconscious of the influences throughout our life a lot of the time, and a lot of our personalities are driven by our lifetime experiences as an infant, a child, an adolescent, and if you're an older adult, as a younger adult too.
And so we get unconsciously wired in our beliefs and our emotions and our thinking, and they influence us.
And when I look back with the wisdom of hindsight, I can see that I had very low self esteem and that was schoolyard stuff.
I was mercilessly bullied and lacked confidence.
And that went back to my parenting because I had a driving perfectionist parent that pushed me into being perfect and I couldn't be perfect.
And I created this lack of confidence and fear of failure.
And that fear of a lack of confidence and low self esteem was like having, you know, software programs loaded into my brain preloaded.
I think we all come with our own stories, positive and negative, and they shape the people we've become and how we respond to situations.
In my case, the pressure of a large family, a massive amount of business debt and running a practice, being responsible for 12 employees, 2 1/2 thousand clients, dairy farms, horse owners, dogs and cat owners, the wheels fell off.
I just didn't have the personal skills to manage and the wheels fell off with clinical anxiety and burnout.
I was like that little duck swimming upstream.
Everyone said, oh, you're so calm.
Speaker 1
Oh, did you look?
Yeah.
Oh, really?
Speaker 2
Inside it was cactus.
Speaker 1
So were the the beliefs that you had because of that anxiety and all those, the negative programming, was it purely, yeah, I'm not good enough to do this.
I've got this thing, I've got this family, I've got this practice and all these people depending on me.
And I don't think I've got the, I've got the stuff to do it.
Speaker 2
I don't think it was thought of not being good enough.
He was lacking the knowledge and the ability to manage myself.
That's key, the ability to manage myself and then through that the ability to manage other people.
And if you come to work unhappy or stressed, that filters throughout the workplace and.
Speaker 1
Especially as the boss, right?
Speaker 2
Especially you set the tone in the culture and I didn't have the capacity to separate all that anxiety and lead with positivity all the time.
And so initially it was really hard going.
I feel perhaps now for the the employees when I first went out because the person I was when I finished was entirely different creature.
And a lot of that was due to the work I've done in neuroscience and positive psychology.
Panic Attacks and Screaming: The Breaking Point Manifested
So you said earlier, externally you look calm, but internally it was chaos.
It was cactus, as you said.
How did that manifest?
The things you're talking about, the the lack of ability to regulate yourself or control yourself, Give me, if you can, like a practical example.
And the reason I'm trying to get into specifics is there'd be a lot of people listening.
Yeah, that's me.
But I would understand What sort of things do you do or not do and how does it manifest?
Speaker 2
2 examples.
Speaker 1
Yeah, go.
Speaker 2
I did large animal work.
And because of my insecurity, and bear in mind, I had in 2008 $1.1 million in debt, which is a lot of money in those days.
I was so scared of losing clients.
And I'd go out on large animal calls and I'd get a panic attack on driving on the way out to the call.
And I'd get this pain across my chest and I'd be hyperventilating.
And I'd literally have to pull over on the side of the road and stop myself.
And if I looked in the mirror, my eyes were bulging and you know, I'd have to literally stop hyperventilating because I'd over oxygenate.
And that's clinical anxiety, which is different from anxiety one might feel before an example being someone important or something like that.
It's a, a dysfunction.
The second example I can think of was being burnt out and it was only from I worked so hard trying to please everyone and having inherited the perfectionist side and ran myself into the ground.
And you know, you can only give so much to your family and friends and clients and colleagues.
And I was in the clinic one Saturday afternoon doing case reports and I just had enough.
And for some reason I just, and the, the clinic was empty.
I was alone and I just screamed.
It was just this gut visceral reaction to where I was and it echoed out and nothing happened and I screamed again and nothing happened and then I screamed 1/3 time.
I got up sort of white with rage and just paced the clinic and eventually I kicked the door and the mark is still there when I left the clinic very low down on the door.
There's this little dent and and the poor dogs on drips the thing right we've.
Speaker 3
We've got a.
Speaker 2
Right one here, he's meant to be looking after us and he's gone.
You know, it's sort of crazy, but that's, you know, I laugh now, but at the times those episodes were acute and I think a lot of people, you know, you don't necessarily get like that, but there's little bits and edge rough edges with we all have I I, you know.
Speaker 1
It's interesting you say you screamed out loud.
I could certainly attest.
But I'm sure pretty much anyone listening will have had moments where you feel like screaming.
Maybe, yeah, maybe the clinic's not empty, but you feel like it.
Yeah, I was I.
Speaker 2
Was concerned the neighbors across the street would hear me.
Yeah, I really went for it.
Yeah.
And and also no good Kayla.
I just knew at the end of that I felt absolutely drained and then I had to continue to function and right.
Speaker 1
And could you?
Yeah, because when we had.
Speaker 2
Burned.
I had no option.
Speaker 1
Burnout's thrown around a lot as a as a but, but were you still?
Speaker 2
Functioning I had yeah, you'd like the choice debt and family and a clinic to run and I just had to get on with it and so I did and and around that time I read this book.
You know that was life changing.
The light bulb moment.
Light went on and wow.
Speaker 1
Quick interruption here to tell you what we've been up to at the Vet Vault.
The other day, a colleague asked me how the Vet Vault Clinical was going in terms of membership size.
We chatted a bit, and then he says, yeah, it's hard because podcasts are so competitive these days.
And I was like, yeah, I know.
Which is exactly why our clinical content has moved way beyond just podcasts.
The podcast is the starting point, but show me one other vet podcast that comes with comprehensive show notes for every episode, summaries for when you're too busy to listen, and it's very AI search assistance.
I've just spent all of the same, but rebuilding the key to the event vault, our AI assistant that has access to all 600 plus episode show notes to help you get lightning fast answers to your clinical questions using everything that we've ever discussed on the clinical podcasts as a resource.
So when I ask it, can you tell me what Doctor Houlihan's favorite treatments are for managing skin barrier dysfunction in atopic dogs?
It lists them instantly and beautiful with a reference to which show notes there.
I did literally this just last week.
And what's really cool is that I could then take that answer and ask AI to put it in an e-mail to my client, which is exactly what I did.
As I said, we have a 2 point O version out now with a better brand and more knowledge.
So it's smarter than ever and it's available at no extra cost to our subscribers along with our other AI tools.
OK, back to Doctor Rodd.
The Light Bulb Moment: Rewiring Your Brain's Potential
So you get the book.
You're on holiday at the time, right?
Speaker 2
I was well read.
My wife and I decided that we needed a break because you can't keep on going like that and we, my wife is Igmish and I have rallies in the UK.
So we went to England and we were settling down in the cottage overlooking this beautiful English countryside, so remote from where I was.
My son had given me this book, which I dug out from the suitcase and started to read and it was a business management book.
And look, it was OK, but it was a business management book about the 1st 27 pages were about the way our brains work and it taught me two lessons.
The first lesson was that our brains constantly change and although we're not aware of it, they're in a huge state of flux throughout your life.
And secondly, there are tactics and strategies we can do to change that change to both wire it and rewire it.
And I'll explain that difference.
And when I read those two facts that our brains change and we can influence that change, the light bulb went on and two things sort of crashed into my consciousness.
And the first was, if that's the case, maybe I can wire my brain for greater calmness and courage and confidence to overcome the lack of confidence and low self esteem and fears.
And maybe I can go from being cactus as a veterinary practice owner and vet to being a fully functional one.
Maybe I can train my brain.
And it started the rest of my time since then, 1520 years since then has been going down that pathway.
So I mentioned wiring and rewiring.
I think we get a lot of, oh, rewiring your brain and people think, oh, there must be something wrong with it.
Well, for most of us this is not a lot wrong with it.
And I phrase wiring is when we create new wiring that we hadn't imagined before or we transform our strengths into much better versions.
Super strengths if you like.
Sounds a bit flash, but super strengths rewiring is when we have dysfunctionalities like low self esteem or lack of confidence or any other problem with our mental well-being and health.
Then we can rewire it into a far more functional situation and even turn it into a strength.
Most people would have a an aversion to being rewired because oh, there's something wrong with me that I need fixing.
No, not really.
We just need to optimize our performance a bit.
Speaker 1
I want to circle back to your story very quickly because I'm fascinated by the fact that you read the book and acted.
Because if I acted on every book or podcast that I'd read or listened to and life advice, if I actually did the stuff that I learned, I'd be amazing.
But usually I don't.
I read it and go, that's interesting, and then life carries on as before.
Why do you think you acted?
Speaker 2
I've asked myself that question.
I think pain, well, there's more to it of course, than that.
I didn't want to take medication and I'd been offered medication.
I knew it had side effects.
Every medication has a side effect and I wanted to do it scientifically and without medication and I wanted to experience life to the full, not have it told over by medication or whatever.
Speaker 1
I'm curious, I mentioned the fact that you're on holiday.
I wonder if that's relevant, the fact that you were in a different headspace, because I often people, I don't know if this is from a personal experience, you get so stuck in that rut and you're like, I'm not happy with this.
I'm not happy with this.
But you're so in the rut that you can't see what else is out there.
And then the moment you get over the headspace, the light bulbs start going off, you know?
Speaker 2
Totally.
Yeah.
We were staying with my brother in Lauren, sister in Lauren, and you know, there was nothing to do for a morning.
We were going to go out somewhere, grab the book and I read these 27 pages and because I'm obviously a vet, I understood the science intuitively and I can remember still looking out the window going holy.
That is true and that is true then My whole life has been built on assumptions and and we needn't be on a path predetermined by our circumstances and others.
We can take control of our path and write our own story and not live by the scripts that we've been given and people assume of us.
We can write our own script and those are powerful thoughts.
Dropping Baggage: Focus on Present and Ideal Future
Is there more to the because we have a scientific audience listening to this, mostly.
Is there more to the neuroscience that's worth discussing at this point beyond knowing that the brain is is not fixed?
Speaker 2
It's massive.
In short, after I read the book it gave me what I call the first 3 keys to wiring your brain and then five years follow where I read every book I could have.
I did a certificate in neuroscience and then read dozens of books and some of which were rubbish.
I mean, Rhonda Burns the secret.
Speaker 1
Yeah, it's a quite a famous.
Speaker 2
Famous book.
Speaker 3
Yeah, rubbish.
Speaker 2
Oh really?
Manifestation rubbish.
There's no scientific basis for it at all.
And others are are just hype and spin and positive things.
There's nothing wrong all four positives spin, but you can have all the positive spin in the world, but it didn't necessarily get you anywhere.
And then that five years gave me another 9 fundamental truths of neuroscience that enabled me to be my own lab rat and wire my brain for what I think now is amazing success.
Speaker 1
So how does it differ from just positive spin, from positive thinking manifestation, you know, but what's the the scientific difference?
Speaker 2
I'll give you an example.
We've all woken up in the morning with just a fabulous mindset.
You know I can do anything.
And something's switched on and you hit the ground running and beautiful refreshing shower and great breakfast.
Just as you step out the door, your cat poops on your shoe.
Then you get to work and two of your colleagues are having an argument in the corridor.
You've got your best client raging down the phone wanting to speak to you because the treatments failed or interest rates have gone up, or you name it.
How much will this positive spin help?
Because you know it's very easy to cycle back down.
By the end of the day, you're stuffed, you're tired, worn out, and there's positive spins a distant memory.
You know, one of the keys is focusing on positive because if you focus on positive, the neural circuits that hold those thoughts are actually strengthened with time and get bigger, but we have to do other things as well to make them permanent.
So you asked, you know, is it just about positive spin and so on.
An example I can use one of the keys is emotions, either positive or negative.
Why the brain strongly and enduringly.
And it's profound because if you want to make a good impression on someone, all you have to do is use good emotions.
If you want to create a -1 the flip side, if something happens to you that's positive and it really creates a, an emotional feeling, you're going to remember that.
And likewise negative.
You've been bullied by a boss, say, that stays with you for your life because of the negative emotions.
So you have a little circuit in there that says warning someone like this, that pay attention.
This is survival.
And that's just one aspect of it.
So if you know that emotions are important and why your brain strongly and for a long while, that helps to buy your brain for great outcomes.
Speaker 1
Is that why we are so prone to in clinical practice, because we get fixated around the negative interactions often the bad client, the rude client.
Is that because you have 9 neutral clients, but fine, they're great.
They're not, you know, they didn't tell you that you're amazing and bring your box of chocolates or something, but they didn't complain.
They didn't.
They're just did what they're supposed to.
And then you get the one that says that does something negative and that wires that pathway to say clients are bad.
Speaker 2
I think we have a negative bias generally, and I think that comes way back when we were evolving on the grassland that we will learn to run fast from lions before we ate, slept and had six, you know, survival 1st.
And the dangers are more important than the other bits.
So I think we fear more strongly for good reason.
But the problem is for us living in the world that we do, and this happened to me, the fears become so dominant that they interfere with our ability to function properly.
And that's where the problems come in, when your fears or anxieties stop you from functioning fully as a human.
Speaker 1
So what do we do about it?
Is it possible to to get a couple of highlights?
I'm curious about the the first three things that you learned from that book.
First three of the twelve.
Yeah.
Because what I want people to take away from this is one or two things that sparks that action that you had on your holiday to go, OK, I need to learn more about this.
I want to change it.
Speaker 2
Sure.
The first one is that focusing on negative wires, our brain more strongly to make the neural circuits to support that negative thinking bigger, more enduring and more dominating.
So ultimately we have a baggage of our past that haunts us a bit and can affect our future performance.
And the way that we let go of the baggage of our past is to let the past be and not focus on it.
And as we let the past be and focus on two things, the present really important to focus on the present and an ideal future, the brain cell circuits that support the negative aspects of our past shrink, become less controlling and ideally a benign memory.
Speaker 1
It reminds me of when I talk to an ethicist about pain and pain control and stuff.
As a clinical practitioner.
That's what happens with pain.
That's that wind up pain principle.
As soon as that pain gets stimulated, Yep, it just gets easier for that message to travel.
So as soon as you switch that by the way off beforehand with good analgesia, that doesn't happen.
And and again, the the more it uses that pain pathway, the easier it becomes.
So it's the same thing with emotions as well.
Speaker 2
Yes it is and thinking and beliefs.
So the less we focus on the negative thinking, emotion and and beliefs, the less dominating they will be.
And we do that by focusing on the present and the future, and ultimately the traumas of our past can become a benign memory.
Now we don't forget them because our emotions have imprinted them on our brain, but they no longer 'cause dysfunctionality or grief or trauma or whatever.
Speaker 1
So the question is how, because a lot of this stuff's really interesting and I go, oh, that's cool, I should do that.
But how do you, if you say focus on the present, I'm going to walk out of here and 2 minutes later, I'm not going to focus on the present.
Diverting Attention: Practical Steps to Rewire Negative Patterns
I'm going to worry about my interview later and think, well, did I stuff up that question of the ride?
Speaker 2
How long have we got getting back to the first key to drop your baggage focused on the present and ideal future.
The practical aspects of that are that we can leave the scripts of our past behind.
So obviously people have traumatic pasts and some of those influence our progression forward in our abilities succeed and function, but we're not controlled by those.
We need not be controlled by those.
And that immediately, you know, you think of the number of people with post traumatic stress syndrome who are controlled by their past.
I'm not saying that this necessarily would, you know, clearly it doesn't.
You know, I'm not holding it up as a cure, but it would help if we can teach these people to live in an in the present and an ideal future and the past may fade.
Speaker 1
Is that never looked into it, but I've heard a lot about CBT, cognitive behaviour therapy and that sort of stuff.
Is that does that tie in that totally?
Yeah.
OK, so that's that.
Speaker 2
Sort of in in some ways.
I teach COVID behavioural therapy.
Speaker 1
You've talked about letting go of the past and focusing on the now and the future.
So stop dwelling on the bullying that happened to you when you were a kid or the thing that happened in your eights or the way your parents treated you, which sounds great, but sometimes easier said than done.
I think most people who have some sort of a negative story, if they're aware of how that's impacting them, would love to let it go.
But how is the question, how do we utilize these concepts of neuroplasticity that you talked about to rewire those title circus that that don't serve us well anymore?
Speaker 3
How do we put it into practice day-to-day living.
So in summary, the negative brain cell networks of our lives that we acquire during our life become even stronger if we focus on the problem.
That's the science.
More neurons, stronger connections between the neurons, more enduring connections.
So we end up with hard wired brain cell networks that can dominate our lives and interfere with the future.
And why I put this first is that we want to move on from the baggage, to drop the baggage of our lives before we really kick off on the positives as well.
So the first strategy then is really strategic thinking.
Learn from the past, but let the past be.
So our past is critical to our future in that we learned valuable lessons from it, but we let it be and I'll expand on that later.
There's nothing we can do about it.
Whatever we've done in the past and whatever has happened to us, we can't recreate.
So this is really strategic thinking rather than do something is be aware of the fact that in order to move on from the past, you have to let it be, not be dominated by it.
The second strategy is this, and this is more do this when negative beliefs and thinkings and emotions arise, Do one of two things.
Divert your attention to either the present, what you're doing now or an ideal future.
And that's in some ways infect me.
Practice very easy because the present can be time consuming and absorbing.
You know, if we really are passionate about our job, then it should absorb our attention.
But of course, even in our professional lives, those negative things can come up and divert us.
So diverting back to what we should be doing at the time, are we engaging with a client?
Are we doing surgery?
Are we interacting with a veterinary nurse or whatever, or thinking about an ideal future?
What's the ideal for this surgery?
What's the ideal for this case?
What's the ideal outcome in handling an interaction between a member of the team or not?
And that also plays out in our professional lives exactly the same way at home.
If negative aspects of our past, the emotions, the fears, the anxieties bubble up, what are we doing now that we should be doing and what are we planning for in the future, be it a holiday or a weekend off or whatever, Same thing.
And what tends to happen with those negative brain cell networks that are hard wired is the less you use them, the more they become disconnected and the less they become connected in a letting go process.
So they're less enduring, less neurons, less connections between them.
And that's called synaptic pruning.
And then thirdly, by focusing on the present and an ideal future, and this is again strategic thinking.
Rather than go and do something, realise that this liberates you from the scripts of your past.
You are not defined by your past.
You're not defined by your parents, by your school mates, by your friends, by previous relationships, both personal and friendships, by professional experiences.
None of those things necessarily define you from what should be a magnificent future.
And if we're able to let go of the past, but learn the lessons from it and focus on the future and the present, then it makes things a lot easier and a lot happier.
Speaker 1
Still the the hell, because the problem is the well worn path is there.
And if I'm in that situation and it's there's a lot of emotion and it's a it's a work situation.
Maybe it's a conflict situation or I'm feeling anxious about doing something and then my brain runs down that you get hijacked.
Even though I know I shouldn't.
I had to initially stop using the easy negative.
Oh, I'm such a loser.
You know, I'm too stupid to whatever that thinking.
Does it start with recognition?
Because I feel like sometimes these things happen so much in the background that you don't actually realize it's happening and you don't understand why your life's not working out, but it's because you're not recognizing that this is happening.
Speaker 3
Really good question and there's I'll answer it in two ways.
Firstly self-awareness is a key skill.
If you go down this pathway of wiring your brain for success, that recognizing the emotions and thinking patterns and beliefs that don't serve you well is really important.
And that's an aspect of emotional intelligence, self-awareness.
And if people are really not very emotionally intelligent, they're just acting on instinct the whole time.
And the second part is, and it's almost like he fell into my Jedi mind trap.
There are another 11 keys to this, and we're only talking about the first one again.
And the other 11 keys all interact with each other in a wonderful way that creates this very tight network of a way of thinking.
And you'll see that in the next two that we talk about today.
Speaker 1
OK.
Can I ask to develop that self-awareness and just the sense of recognizing what's happening to you emotionally and neurologically?
Did you for yourself to get better beyond just deciding, well I'm going to be more self aware developing that skill?
Was it meditation or did did you do anything to get better at that?
Because I hear people talk about meditation a lot.
To recognize that there's an emotion, see it, recognize it, let it go.
Speaker 3
Meditation is part of the eighth key.
But I think the turning point for me of being self aware was right back at that cottage in England when I read the book about neuroscience and that and mind is changing all the time, whether we're aware of it or not.
And there are strategies and tactics we can do to take control of that process.
And then I realised that was the moment of self-awareness that I thought, well, OK, things are dysfunctional in XY and Z parts of my life, so I can do something about that.
And you're right, in the hustle and bustle of life, it can be difficult.
And you know, as I say, I'm no, I'm not.
How can I put it?
My thinking and emotions and beliefs aren't perfect.
You know, I'm still learning all the time myself and back hoppers.
Speaker 1
Saint Rudd to the Guru sitting calmly on the mountaintop.
You're not him.
It's definitely.
Speaker 3
Not, you know, it's the beauty of this is and why it fascinates me so much is you continue to learn nuances and bits with it about yourself, about others, about, you know, I still read about neuroscience all the time.
So it's part of never ending personal development and growth.
And yeah.
Speaker 2
It's good stuff.
Did you want the other two?
Speaker 1
I'd love to quick Vets on Tour update.
Our upcoming Japan conference is now sold out and the Maldives event is almost full, so we are letting the cat out of the bag just a little bit for a New Zealand trip in August because we are just a little bit excited about our speakers.
Have you heard of a little surgery textbook called Veterinary Surgery Small Animal by Johnson and Tobias?
Well, that Tobias is Professor Karen Tobias, who is an amazing teacher and an absolute legend in the surgery world, and she's coming to hang out with us in Wanaka.
But we're not satisfied with just one legend.
We are going for a full house with ECC Master Doctor Clay Sharp and rounding things off with feline medicine specialist Doctor Rachel Corman.
As you can hear, our academic program promises to be as epic as the scenery, the mountains and the skiing.
Shoot me an e-mail at info@thevetful.com if you'd like to get early notification when tickets go live for this baby.
It will sell out fast.
OK, back to Doctor Rhode.
Feeding the Good Wolf: Physically Changing Your Brain
The next one is the flip side of the 1st and that is to focus on the positive.
And as we focus on the positive parts of the present and an ideal future, the brain cell networks responsible for those become larger and stronger and more dominant and begin to outweigh the negatives.
So that's where your positive spin comes in.
It by itself is, you know, is good, but we need more than that.
But it is important if we're going to be optimised to be able to move forward from the negative past and create a positive future, a positive ideal.
Speaker 1
There's a, a meme out there that I've come across that it, it sounds a bit woo woo almost, but it's, I think it's sold to you online as an ancient American story about each of us have within us 2 wolves, good and an evil.
The one you feed is the one that wins.
And this sounds a bit like that almost neurologically to say, well, inside you, there's negative, there's positive, and the one that you feed is going to be the one.
Speaker 3
That starts dominating.
Speaker 2
That I think that's a very good example of that.
The more we focus on the positive and the less we focus on the negative, our brains change and the areas responsible for those positive or negative things get physically larger in our brain depending on the path we choose.
Speaker 1
And they show that with, I've heard studies like that and it's through MRI scans and stuff, right?
They show it's physically gets.
Speaker 2
Physically gets bigger.
Speaker 1
Yeah, it's like weightlifting.
Speaker 2
Give you 3 or 4 examples of that.
There's a fascinating example of London taxi drivers that they had two groups.
These were prospective taxi drivers.
They put the whole mob through fMRI machines and then they sat their exams as taxi drivers.
The ones that passed went on to be taxi drivers in London, the ones that failed and went on to other vocations.
And then a year later they whipped them through the functional MRI again.
And the taxi drivers, the professional taxi drivers, had physically larger hippocampuses than the ones that weren't.
And the hippocampus is the region of the brain responsible for geolocation.
It does a mapping in our brain.
And so they had grown that part of the brain physically to memorize the streets of London, whereas the other guys have done other things.
Speaker 1
It would have been an interesting study to scan everybody's brains before Google Maps came online, and now I reckon they all shriveled away.
Yeah.
Speaker 2
Yeah, slightly smaller if I can buy.
And that's the case for everything.
Our negative memories that can disable us will shrink with time if we don't focus on them, and the positive outcomes that ideal futures can grow with time and we can wire our brains for success.
Speaker 1
It's a little bit like, how do you stay healthy?
Well, eat less exercise more, but then I see a chocolate biscuit that I want to eat.
How, how do we get better at focusing on the easy to I, I'll wake up and go, OK, today is going to be a good day.
And then I go into the lounge and my kids can't find the shoes and I go to work and there's an aggressive variety in my third consultant.
Suddenly I'm like, everything sucks.
How do you shift that that mindset, that response of negative mindset?
Speaker 3
So this first strategy is that to turn your weaknesses into strength, say you mentioned it's the right word for when you're feeling stress like that.
Is it impatience or frustration or what?
When you're feeling like that, how would you put it into?
Speaker 1
Yeah, frustration.
Frustration pushing into generalized rage depending on the intensity of the day.
Speaker 3
Thank you.
Thank you for sharing that.
OK, So what we do is we turn our weaknesses such as frustration into strengths by focusing on the flip side of that.
So what's the flip side of frustration is patience.
What's the flip side of anger would be peace or love, either self love or love for others.
And in that moment of self-awareness, we catch ourselves being fearful or frustrated or angry or and think, well, OK, what's the exact opposite of that?
And so we develop positive beliefs in emotions and thinking that underpin positive brain cell networks and we can the flip side, the negative ones.
Speaker 1
So it's actively, again, when you're in this situations that that trigger an action or an emotion that you don't like.
So it's actively stopping and going OK, well, what's?
Well, how would I have acted if I was not angry but filled with love or.
Speaker 3
Yes, we're we'll get to that.
But before that step, everyone, heavy emotion and every belief has a flip side.
Identify what you're feeling at a time.
Am I frustrated?
What's the flip side of that patience?
What's the flip side of hate?
Love.
What's the flip side of sadness?
Joy.
What's the flip side of anxiety?
Calmness.
The big three.
I had anxiety, calmness, low self esteem, confidence, fear of failure, courage.
So when you label your for sale just described your morning as being frustration that the flip side of that I think is patience.
And that's that's all we need to learn from this strategy is to put a name on it.
What's the flip side of of that?
Because we're going to go into how you anchor that in your mind and until it becomes a new hue, as it were.
Speaker 1
I like that it's a so it's, it's getting into the habit of doing that.
They there's that famous saying that between the stimulus and response, there is a, a space and take that space because the dog poo's going to be in the lounge and the shoes are going to be missing.
Although it's always the one shoe that's missing, not both that's going to happen.
And then there's a response and pausing and choosing the response or at least recognizing the response, saying, well, what would the opposite response look like?
It's a practice.
Speaker 2
And that.
Speaker 3
Gap between the stimulus in a response could be synonymous with self-awareness and also could be in reflection.
You know you lose your temper.
Well why was I like that I was tired.
Why was I tired?
Because I really put into the gym yesterday and I'm buggered.
Well OK, don't be so stupid the next time you do that and recognise that you're tired and be more patient with the outcomes.
You know self analysis as well.
So for the practice owners, well, look, would anyone know?
I'd take that back for all those working in veterinary practice to create a positive workplace culture, we know how important that is.
We have to have an ongoing focus on positivity, particularly the leaders, because the leaders Dr. the culture, but we wire other people's brains as well by our words and our actions and our beliefs and emotions.
So even, you know, the most junior of nurses or kennel assistants can make a day wonderful by having this rosy outlook on things when all else seems to be failing.
So we all have a responsibility to focus on the positives.
Now, does that mean we're going to live in a rose coloured world?
No.
We know tragedy and sadness happens in veterinary practice, but by continually being self aware of the atmosphere and realising whether it's an appropriate sadness or whether you know it's inappropriate sadness or anger or whatever, we can sift our way through the emotions of a clinic and in generally make it a really fun, exciting, stimulating, rewarding place to work in.
Setting the Tone: Leaders Shape Clinic Emotional Culture
I've seen that first hand so many times.
I, I think I've said it on the podcast previously, but I, I sat at work once and saw that happen, saw that mood change for the worse.
And I, I got this metaphor in my head of the, the vibe, the atmosphere, the the emotional tone of a workplace is like a tin of white paint and it takes one drop of black paint to discolour the whole thing.
You could make it yellow or beautiful or pink and it's one or two drops of black paint and it goes grey and it's just flat and and it's so, so easy to be that.
Speaker 3
I had a a meeting very early on when I started down this path of purpose and vision and values.
I had a meeting at the whole clinic.
We thrashed it out, and that was a really great, pretty small group.
And we were talking about culture and what we wanted out of the workplace culture.
And the junior nurse who'd only been with us six months, I said to her, OK, what's culture?
And she said it's the buzz when you walk through the door into a business, which is just brilliant, you know, and you can tell.
And the as soon as the receptionist eyeballs you, looks at you and smiles, it creates an impression.
It wires your brain for a positive outcome.
If they can't be bothered looking up from their keyboard and then eventually look up, drag their eyes away and say yes, well, that creates another impression.
We wire other people's brains the whole time, consciously and unconsciously.
Speaker 1
Which is a challenge for a business owner is to to know this and then manage a team of people, to be that self aware all the time and be aware of how they're influencing each other and the clients and selecting and coaching.
How does a business leader do that?
Or a practice owner or a team leader or something.
Speaker 3
Their own example comes first.
They set the atmosphere.
You know, I'd be the first to admit I had down days at the clinic as an owner and it just filtered through the clinic.
It was just so repeatable.
I always developed a habit of going around the whole first moment I got in the clinic.
I'd walk around and say hi to everyone and at the end of the day I'd say thank you to everyone every time.
And that's sort of got me in the mood of what I was trying to establish anyway.
Speaker 1
And sometimes that's a decision, right?
I, I'm aware of that.
If I even now just as an employee when I go to work and I'm, I don't feel like something's happened at home or I'm tired or all those things, just when I park in the car outside, I'll stop and reset and go, OK, bring the positive energy for my own benefit.
But I'm I'm aware that I'm kind of stink up the whole place if I go in there with that attitude.
Speaker 3
Exactly.
Yeah.
So the third strategy for creating a champion who is to be aware that positive mindsets and this gets back to your reversion and spin and hype can be short lived and we easily revert back to hard wired negative thinking, beliefs and emotions.
I'm sure all of your audience have been to seminars with a lot of hype going on and spin and positive thinking and they go back to their practices full of enthusiasm only to find that they sum back into old habits or are dragged back to old habits by others.
And so this is a continued work that is always 2 steps forward, one step back, and sometimes it's three steps back followed by 4 steps forward.
But as long as you're making progress, that's OK.
We're not expecting to be St.
Hugh or Saint Broad.
It's just a a continual evolving process of improvement in being this person that I call the champion you that we work at continually improve learning and improving ourselves so we better enjoy our lives than others can enjoy.
Speaker 2
Ourselves as well, too.
Imagine Your Future: Building the Champion You Want to Be
And does that feed into key 3?
Speaker 2
#3 create an ideal future.
How do we do that?
Einstein said.
Logic gets you from A to B.
Our imagination can get you anywhere.
And it's with our imagination that we create an ideal future for ourselves and of ourselves.
So if we let go of the past and we focus on the positive, we've got to focus on the what is the future?
How do we design that with our imagination?
By what rules?
There are no rules.
What you can do is limited by your imagination, which is the staggering thought in itself.
But that frees us from the scripts of our past.
All the things that people said to you can, cannot do, because who said you can't?
So with our imagination, we can write our own scripts to do what we want to do, which is sitting here talking to you is exactly what I wanted to do 12 years ago because I wanted to take what I'd learn further and help people.
Speaker 1
And it's, it's something that we hear all the time.
What you know, there's all the memes that you can think of about this, what you, you know, visualize your future and you can be it.
And yet the sceptics, we go, yes, but I'm too stupid, I'm too shy, I'm too XYZ.
Yeah, I'm sure that's right, but not for me.
I think it's a it's a common response.
How how do you get over that?
Like how do you actually believe it so that you do something about it?
Speaker 2
You go from dreams which are wishing, to building a vision, which is a plan, and then taking the steps to make that vision true.
If it just stays as a dream, well then yeah, the little brain circuit there will stay as a tiny little couple of neurons nagging at you as to what might or might not be, the more we can build up that and I use the word avatar of the person we want to be.
How would so use a personal example?
How would I sound feeling calm?
How would I look feeling calm?
How would I feel feeling calmer than that anxious person I described, using my imagination to create an avatar of the person I wanted to be.
So we use our imagination and here we are wiring our brain for something new, creating a person that we would desire to be, be it a better father or mother or veterinarian or interviewer or an interviewee.
Speaker 1
Or team leader.
Or anything team leader.
Or think of practical examples.
Speaker 2
Yeah, I've got to give a talk this afternoon.
I woke up this morning sweating about it, so believe me.
Speaker 1
Yeah, and, and it's interesting because for me, that's my example of of how this stuff does work, because I and people laugh when I say it, but I don't like what I used to be petrified of public speaking.
Speaker 2
Me too.
Speaker 1
Like most of us, right.
And I remember the first time I, because of the broadcaster, people said, oh, will you come speak to the students or will you do this or do that?
And I actually said it to my wife yesterday before coming to this, the first couple of things I did when I had to be on stage was dread for a week before and before I left home yesterday, I said, just weird.
I'm not, I'm excited, I'm not really nervous 5 minutes before you go on stage.
Of course there's butterflies and there's stuff that happens.
But it that dread disappears and I feel it is that it's rewiring to go, you know, I'm going to go up on stage and.
Speaker 2
I.
Speaker 1
Don't I don't die, No, even though I don't nail it.
But it's, you know, it's I don't die.
Nobody throws a Rotten Tomatoes at my face.
Speaker 2
No, Yeah, absolutely true.
Speaker 1
I'm trying to think of what was practical examples for vets like what could revisualize?
Is it?
Speaker 2
Sure, give you one doing surgery.
You know, you're doing spays and castrations all the time for your small animal, but it'll be an important surgery and you'll be sweating on it.
And so I visualized in my last few years as a vet doing this work and applying it, I visualized the perfect surgery and mapped it out in my brain and even the perfect cut.
So I started with a perfect end result.
And then, yeah, sure, you're going to hit a bleeder, but you're better.
You're in a better mental frame of mind to do it, mapping it out as a visualised experience.
Speaker 1
Versus the person going in thinking, oh she's out, but don't stuff this out.
Speaker 3
Exactly.
Yeah, that's positive spin, but it's it's a bit more than that.
Yeah.
The science behind this is that it's easy to create new wiring and it's happening all the time.
You know, you learn a new fact and you've created a new brain cell network that enables you to retain that fact.
And we know that of course, brain cell networks now we know that they fade with time too, but this is critical in the establishment of what we've been talking about previously.
So how do we create new brains to land what we do with our imagination?
And then that leads on from that.
How do we create this champion you?
What do I look like?
You know, how do I know I'm on the right path?
And so the first strategy in this using our imagination is create an avatar in your mind's eye for the person you want to be and living the life you want to live.
And in some ways, this is also touches on personal and professional vision where we want to go to and you need personal space and time to do this.
It's a process of reflection.
You know, who do I want to be as a vet or a professional?
Who do I want to be as a person and as a son or daughter, father, husband, partner, friend?
What do I want to do with my life as well?
So unless you create that vision, you're spinning around in tight circles because you don't have anything to aim for.
And the avatar gives you an aiming point.
It takes, OK, we're going to create this champion you.
How do we do that with our imagination?
How do we do that to create an idea in our mind's eye, in our imagination of the person we want to be?
So in your case, from what you described this morning, you want to be a more patient and not revert to anger when things are really the shit's hitting the fan.
Now, something going to mean that you're going to be the perfect St.
Hugh, but more patient and less angry.
That's the avatar in your mind's eye, and use all your senses to make your avatar as real as possible in the moment.
How do we look to ourselves?
How do we look to others in those moments of anger?
Or sometimes you look pretty bloody stupid to others.
How do you feel?
What is the patient you feel like?
Or what does the courageous Rod Irwin feel like?
What sort of sensations come back to us when those emotions flood as consciousness?
How do we sound to ourselves and how do we sound to others?
Speaker 1
So this is in visualizing the the avatar, the person who I'd like to be.
I like that strategy.
I'm pretty sure it's was in Atomic Habits, the book Atomic Habits on how do we develop the habits to do the things we want to do reliably and repeatedly.
And one of the things is, is exactly what you said.
Instead of saying I'm going to run three times a week, me you, but is recurrent.
Now I'm going to start running three times a week because I want to get fitter, which can be hard to when it comes to the day supposed to run, then you've got to decide, well, do I would rather want to watch a bit of TV or go for my run.
And he says it's it's exactly that.
It's deciding I am a runner, I'm a person who runs so that when it comes to those decisions of which way do I go?
You go, I'm the sort of person who decides to go for a run instead of watching TV.
It is that avatar, not you, but it's going to go for a run.
It's like I'm the sort of person who doesn't do X or repeatedly does this.
And you start believing that that's the sort of person I am.
And then these decisions and exactly as you say, neural pathways become ingrained in who you are.
I, I, I find that it definitely does help.
Just that shift of no, I'm not that sort of person.
Speaker 3
Yes, and we can add to that by thinking also into the future, how will I feel once I've gone for the run?
I'll feel more relaxed and job well done and a little bit fitter, but also developing this avatar of how will it feel when I've been running for six months or a year?
How will I look to myself and to others?
Same for the gym.
You know, strength, flexibility, endurance.
Speaker 2
All those good things.
Speaker 1
I'm the sort of person who is not afraid of difficult conversations.
That's the biggest 1 something you know, with a client about money or about my boss about something or a team member who's not performing.
It's very easy to to tick it out of those things.
But when you go actually I've decided I'm the sort of person who does that better go do it.
It does help.
That's really does help.
Speaker 3
Huge.
I had this fear of conflict and I interfered with the clinic and the way it run ran.
I saw myself as proactively solving conflict and the reward that would come from that.
And being a conflict solver was part of the avatar.
And then lastly with the third, this is how it works.
Your avatar guides your future actions towards an amazing future, to the ideal that we've just designed in our moment of self reflection.
We've designed that.
So the avatar guides you and in guiding you, you will be laying down new neurons, new connections, more enduring connections that anchor you to the ideal avatar that you've created.
So it's the more you have that ideal future and the avatar of where you want to be, the easier it is for you to model to the be the person that he wants to be.
It guides your actions and your actions govern how you get there.
If you don't have that ideal future, you're spinning in tight little circles, getting nowhere.
I'm wondering why life is Blanche.
Beyond Individuals: Cultivating Team Purpose and Shared Value
I really like that.
That makes it all very practical.
I'm quite curious.
So you're at this conference talking to teams, right?
Yes, because a lot of this sounds like inside individual work.
I'm going to fix my issues.
How does it translate to teams?
Like I'm, I'm curious your team when you are making this shift for yourself.
If I had to interview one of them who was there in Rod pre and Rod post, what would they say to me?
And how is Rod different?
And how did it affect the rest of the team?
Like how do we turn this into a team thing?
Speaker 2
Sure.
Well, the teams are all individuals and the only way we can do it is one person at a time.
That that sounds trite.
Obviously the leader influences all those people, but each one of those people is a person in their own right with their own behaviours and beliefs and attitudes and emotions.
So the leaders have a very important role, but you still have to bring other people to create an environment for change.
So yeah, one person a time.
Speaker 1
One of the big challenges I hear from team leaders and practice owners, and that is they have a lot of passion and they want to bring positive stuff, so stuff like this to the team.
But they often complain about a lack of engagement, of saying, well, you know, I'm shouting from the mountaintop and nobody's listening.
How did you make this positive change throughout the team and how do you roll it out another team?
Speaker 2
It's a really great question.
I think that we go into our jobs full of enthusiasm and it just isn't enough to carry us.
And what does the vet when we were training, what does that stand for, for improving the health and well-being of animals?
What is your purpose and meaning?
And you really have to.
This was the hardest question I had to solve.
What is the meaning and the purpose of what I do?
What sustains me and my team and those that's, you know, was quite a hard question to answer.
It's the mission.
What's our mission on Earth or in this team?
What are we here for?
It's not just to heal animals, that's part of it, but it's also to help others.
And so it's quite complex.
Speaker 1
What was that?
Yours?
I'm curious, when you sat with this question, what came out for you?
What was your mission?
Speaker 2
It took me a long while and I think I know, and I've said this early days to my team and I expect people will not necessarily see this in the light in which I mean it.
My mission is to provide massive amounts of amazing value to other people.
And when you do that, everything else falls into place because you forget about yourself and I say other people and through them the animals that they love and care for as well.
Because if you're doing that, you're providing value to the animal's own value to the people.
The day flies, you're not thinking about the clock.
And that can be holding the door open for someone or saying thank you to your nurse for whatever or.
Speaker 1
Stopping the cat from scratching.
Speaker 2
Your face or someone suggesting a a better way of doing things and gratitude is huge.
All of those things, 1000 little interactions during the day to create value for other people, most of which cost nothing.
It's not about the money.
In some ways, I think through creating value for other people, you make money for yourself.
Find Dr. Rod's Book and His Superpower
I think we have to wrap up, but I I do want to ask where can people find your stuff?
Speaker 3
Well, my Book Get Wide fixes can be ordered through bookstores, electronically or in hard print.
Speaker 2
Obviously I have a website so it's www.getwiredforsuccess.com.
Speaker 1
I want to wrap up with you didn't say superpower super something, would you I?
Speaker 2
Did say superpower?
Speaker 1
There was a superpower, so using your strengths or finding a strength and there's maximizing that.
I'm very curious, what's yours?
Speaker 2
I think they're sort of latent within us.
If I had a superpower, it's the ability to rack back the focus on huge subjects and glean a little bit of practicality from it.
My career as a vet, I intuitively understood neuroscience and then I saw the importance of that and try to bring that to the masses to make it easy to understand and easy to simplify and and to apply to our lives.
That would be mine.
So we all have that your superpowers, in part to make people feel comfortable.
Speaker 1
Thank you.
I'm very glad your son gave you that book for many reasons, but honestly for your own personal growth, but for the opportunity that it gave you to share the stuff.
Speaker 2
Delighted.
Speaker 1
Before you disappear, I wanted to tell you about my weekly newsletter.
I speak to so many interesting people and learn so many new things while making the clinical podcast, so I thought I'd grant a little summary each week of the stuff that.
Dr Rod Irwin