Feb. 20, 2020
The Paradox of being exceptional: Vet Vault Quickie with Dr. Oliver Liyou.
Today we're digging deep into the Vault to bring you this slightly alternative view from Dr Oliver Liou. We can get very focused on being high achievers and all round awesomeness, but is that always good for us? In this Vet Vault quickie Oliver talks about the flip side of being exceptional, and how to deal with the fallout of becoming 'too good' at your job.
Hello bit bold, listeners.Welcome to another vet V quickie, I'll bite sized episodes made from our favorite segments from the podcast, David digging deep into the Vault.We bring you this.Slightly alternative view from dr.Oliver Li, you can get very focused on being high, Achievers and all-round awesomeness.
0:18
But is that always good for us in this vid for tricky?All of it, talks about the flip side of being exceptionally and how to deal with the Fallout of becoming too good at your job.I'm going to jump a little bit to something that that came up in our first conversations all over you, ask you for things you wanted to talk about and you gave me a statement that that fascinates me.0:44
I'd love to, I'd love to hear what you what you're talking about.The quote, was you'd like to talk about the Paradox of getting better at what you do.And the ad that mediocracy can be cooler than exceptional.Mmm.Please expand on that.Yeah.Well, something I guess this little Epiphany came to me, when I decided that I couldn't keep doing mixed practice after sort of ten years, I realized that, you know, I had a really good climb, tell him following that.1:16
The problem with that is that they all wanted high-level work ups and treatments for their animals, but they didn't wanted me to treat them.And not take them to Brisbane to a referral center or something because I think you know, you're better than once.You really are a guess or something.1:32
So yeah just members of having to read more and more on every in everything from a budgie to account to a horse horse neighing but it was more The Wider I said yeah I'll have a go in that the more stress comes on me to get there.The outcome there are after and I think that can be said for any professional job that we do that.1:53
You know, once we're going well and we've got a smile on their face and we're kicking goals, we then become looked upon by others as Some to go and save this, I'll probably have the answers, you know?So whether that be a client coming to your colleague, coming to you or your kids coming to you, the more you coping, the more people are going to come to you to ask for help.2:12
And when it's Veterinary, hope, you know, it's it's it's more, I guess more serious.And that.So yeah, I just sort of found that the wider I opened the door.The more people would come in and, you know, that's which it mean, and when I went to my own business, I thought, well if I say I'm going to do emergency is, I'll be working.2:30
Seven because, you know, you just say well yeah, I can do that.I can can do that.I can help with that.Yeah, on the simple and it's very simple stuff, I guess.But unless you learn to say no, with a smile and sort of set some boundaries, you're going to keep, especially if you keep getting results when people come to you with their problems or their request, if you keep helping them, then they'll tell a friend and I'll come to you and that are, but I guess you can keep putting your prices up.2:56
But how do you put your price up for a colleague who's reading your about a difficult case?Are you Ki did want to spend more time with you on that?You know you say yeah it's learning to say no I'm learning to but that's something something that's a little bit foreign to the helping and caring sort of nature that a lot of people who want to do best time for they.3:16
They do it because I want to help people so it's it's not something that we're enabling born with.Yeah.Get what you're saying with regards to being capable capable capability is something that we're all striving to be capable at things.And when you build and become I'm more capable you intuitively then want to take more on or feel like you can take more on so there's no piling more shit on.3:37
You start to become more capable and you pile more on.Yeah, it's like it's like the that they can refer to what is referred to as a strong suit.So it's it's kind of like, your superpower, right?But it's also your Kryptonite at the same time where your biggest strength becomes a weakness because you just eventually it's the thing that actually breaks you down.3:58
So yeah, well, um, Doing more things in a certain amount of time.And so you're juggling more balls and then you know, you've sort of worked hard to get.Then you have the expectations and standards you set for yourself.So when you start dropping balls, it hurts more than if you didn't have those expectations or, you know, levels of success that you were looking for.4:18
And, and it's the same thing, you stopped doing the basic fundamentals.And that's why you make the mistakes.You think, you know, you haven't got time to do the basics anymore than you drop a few balls, you make some Takes you kill the odd animal because you didn't do something fundamental and that.4:35
Yeah, and I think it goes with specialist as well.You know, that it's really hard for a specialist because they're being called so many times a day by General Practitioners about.What do you do here?What do you do here and often?They're doing it for free.The advice and you know, takes time.And if they don't give the really thorough answer, you know, there's going to be frowned upon.4:54
If they forgot to, they are committed to say something really essential and fundamental and gave that wrong.Balancing on guys, if you're trading an animal, yeah, you might think why?But yes, Skip One skip pack and it's temperature or something and it can come back and buy chips.5:10
Yeah, yeah, I'd love to see what you're saying.What's the solution?How do you, how do you prevent them?How to prevent the Paradox?All right.Putting the boundaries up saying, you know, it's learning to say no with a smile.You know, that, you know, not feeling guilty about saying, no feeling guilty about.5:27
And for me the big one was when I went out on Mon in practice, there was everyone just thought I was going to do emergencies and I just said, no, can't do it.I'm going to be busy doing elective stuff.And as it turned out, you know, it's light out from the get-go, just doing an elective stuff.So, if I had it done emergencies as well, I would have done a far worse trouble because I would have been running around.5:46
Like, you know, crazy, you are Supply.And, you know, just not really helping anyone especially myself.So I think it's yeah, just to trap for high Achievers in general that, you know, you wanted to help you.Into the abyss you think you can just keep going.6:02
And yeah, I think just people have to be careful at that and I see it all the time in these young vets who come through our training Workshop.So just push themselves to the Limit and and then they fall in a big Heap and say, how did that happen?You think that's coming for five years?6:17
You know like, yeah, absolutely.Can I build on that Oliver?So there's something that I've come across recently and I thought it was awesome.Actually, you mean to say that word, I thought it was great.And it's that average is awesome.And, and This.6:35
The generation coming through myself, included.You know?We were told when it's once we got into vet school that were the cream of the crop, we were like, the upper echelon of achievers at the University.So acknowledge ourselves.6:50
And I don't have no issues with itself acknowledgement.I think it's incredibly important in terms of building resilience and so forth.But, but what happens is, you start to feel this kind of feeling that you're exceptional, right?New instead of there Exceptionalism, you're quite there but then what happens is you start to put pressure on yourself exactly what you were saying there.7:13
So now, it comes back to the circle and comes back now, to actually being okay with being average.And it's absolutely a fallacy to think that were exceptional because there are people out there who are so much better at all.The things that we're not good at, right?7:29
We might be exceptional in one particular thing but you might be completely shit at something else.Yeah.Right.So to think that we're exceptional as a whole, I think it's an absolute floor because what happens then is when we don't do something good or we do fail at something, we have this unrealistic expectation of a cells being exceptional because of who we are and what we've achieved in and so forth at University and we work and so forth.7:53
It's an average.Average is awesome.Yeah, everything's pretty mediocre.You want to be in the middle of the pack.You don't want to be the top.You don't want to be last.Well, even if you think of the top, Probably the top of a small little little Pinnacle of people, right?But then you pop the worst at something else.8:10
Yeah, exactly.Yeah.And yeah, totally great.It's yeah, and you're only as good as your last job and there's always someone better than there's always someone worse off than you.So I just sort of think yeah keep it keep it real and embrace the bogus that's my learning from his mistakes.8:30
Hmm I really like that.Thank you for sharing that I'm trying to I'm trying to apply it to my old life or how I work and how I live in City.You're going.Yeah, I do the same.You've you think you have to be great at everything and maybe identify the things that you did.8:48
You are good at and then everything else.Let yourself off the hook a little bit.Yeah, yeah.I think you've got to enjoy taking the piss out of yourself.Basically you know like have a laugh and you know don't lose your sense of humor and just you know be shit at stuff and just laugh at.It's good to go and pee.9:04
Shoot at stuff.But when you make mistakes, right?And you learn from your space, that mistakes in the people who have done something, your people who are better at something than you, they're probably made a lot of mistakes getting there.So they you haven't done as had as many mistakes as they've had.Yeah.So I don't, my favorite sayings is success is due to good judgment, good judgments to to experience and experiences due to bad judgment.9:29
You know, so you're not going to get anywhere unless you keep failing.That's where you learned your best.
