 What is up everybody? This is Chris from the Rewired Soul where we talk about the problem, but focus on the solution. And I am so excited. I am so excited today. I am bringing to you another guest. And today my guest is Dr. Alex Avery. His channel is right there. It's called Our Pets Health. So Dr. Alex Avery, he's actually a vet. And I met him, I came across his channel and I absolutely love what he's doing. So I will provide links to his channel at the end. But anyways, I was talking to him and we were trying to figure out a way that we could collaborate. And he came up with this topic about imposter syndrome. And he'll dive a little bit more about that into a second. But when he came up with it, he talked to me. I'm like, yes, absolutely. Like this is something that I know that when my depression kicks in is something that I've struggled with in my career working at a drug and alcohol rehab, even making these YouTube videos. And some of you out there who struggle with depression you might be able to relate to this. And Dr. Alex has some great tips for how he gets out of this imposter syndrome bunk. So I'll quit rambling now and I will pass it along to Dr. Alex Avery. Hi, so I'm Dr. Alex. And I have a YouTube channel here called Our Pets Health where my aim is to help pet owners and their cats and dogs to live a healthier, happier life. And I'd really like to thank Chris for inviting me onto the Rewired Soul to talk to you guys today about something called imposter syndrome. But before we get into that, I need to tell you a little bit about my background and why I want to talk about that to you today. So I graduated as a vet from university in 2006 and initially kind of went out very confident, very comfortable to be trying new things to be getting stuck in and just taking all of the opportunities that came along to me. When you're a new graduate you start off every decision that you make, every surgical procedure that you do. It's the first time that you've done these things without supervision. And so you quickly can become quite comfortable with just trying new things. The problem can come as you learn more and as you get more experience, you potentially become more aware of where the gaps in your knowledge are. So I think it's something we're all guilty of when we're really young is, you think you know everything. But as you age, you start to realize, there's a lot about this that I don't know or I thought I had this understood but now the more that I read into it, the more that I find out about it, actually rather than getting answers, I'm throwing up more questions. And for me, this led to certainly a case of imposter syndrome, although at the time when this first started it's not something that I was aware was a syndrome or what it was. So what is imposter syndrome? Well, it's a condition where people are there unable to kind of internalize their success and they feel kind of a fraud. They feel like maybe they're conning people into thinking they're more successful than they are. And there's, I wouldn't say a constant fear of being found out, although that may be the case for some people but there's a fear of being found out and the real you being exposed if you like. So you might have achieved a lot of success. You might have really clear things that have been achieved and that you've done and that you're responsible for. You might have delivered amazing results on a project. You might have helped a client unbelievably. You know, in my case, you might have obviously saved an animal's life but what can happen is that you pass off that success as maybe as luck. You know, this time I was lucky few, thank goodness or you pass it off as actually, you know, other people maybe contributed much more than me. And so, you know, they're the real, the real, should be the real benefactors of any praise and any evidence of success was down to them rather than yourself. And so this imposter syndrome, it can take a lot of different forms. So you might end up just overworking just putting in the hour after hour after hour, just really overachieving being an absolute perfectionist just because of the sheer fear of being found out and being called an imposter. You might undermine your own achievements. You know, oh, that was nothing. Oh, you know, anyone could have done it. You might not recognize the achievements for what they actually are. You might recognize it as an achievement but you might think, you know, it actually wasn't too much, anyone could have done it. Or you might recognize it as an achievement and always be crediting other people in the team rather than taking that praise yourself. And behind this to a greater or lesser degree, there may be just a constant fear of failure that if something goes wrong, then that's when everyone will realize just what you are and just what you're capable of or what you're not capable of. So it's clear from this that imposter syndrome, it can develop anxiety, you can develop stress and it can lead to depression. So it's something that is potentially very serious and can lead to a further degradation in mental health. So, you know, I'm not sure I experienced all of those things personally and you know, I've only got my own experience to gauge how badly it has affected me. I'd certainly say it's something that it never kind of crippled me. I do remember just kind of starting jobs though and being absolutely petrified. And I think a lot of that was due to questioning my own ability even though I had a very clear experience base behind me. With the realization that there was something like this going on has led me to several different strategies to try and mitigate this effect and to try and I wouldn't say eliminate it because it's potentially, well, I wouldn't say it's always in the back of my mind but it's something that, you know, that I'm aware could come back. And so a few of the strategies that I used to help myself was I always keep letters that clients have given me and it's always good to read back to those to remind yourself, you know, what you have done, remind yourself what your achievements are. You know, keeping letters, grateful letters from clients. It's really good at boosting kind of self-confidence and just reminding yourselves of, you know, sometimes there are only small successes but reminding yourself of the difference that I've made to pets' lives and to their owners' lives. I did go through a stage of reviewing cases it's quite a long time after, kind of I'd seen the patient just to see, you know, what had happened had they had to come back, had something major happened that needed remedying after, I'd maybe seen them and dismissed them. And that, again, gives or gave me a great confidence that, you know, note, the vast majority of my patients they're improving or they're developing as I would expect them to. And so there's nothing to be found out about if you like. Communicating with colleagues is a big one. So mental health in the veterinary profession it's a really big issue at the moment. So I think for a long time it used to be maybe ignored. It was a bit of a taboo subject. And I guess in a lot of areas mental health is a taboo subject but something you might not be aware of is the veterinary profession has a suicide rate of four times higher than the general population. It's higher than doctors, it's higher than dentists. You know, so mental health is a real issue burnout. It's a real concern and a real threat to a lot of vets and compassion fatigue. There's lots of, you know, there's lots of different issues and I think the profession as a whole has become much better at addressing these issues and putting in place different strategies and different initiatives to try and help improve the mental health of a profession as a whole. So having that discussion kind of going on around you even if you're not directly participating in it I think it helps make you more aware of your own mental health. And so something else that I've tried to do is kind of from looking into this and from coming across imposter syndrome it's helped kind of puts a name to a condition and it's helped me be aware that actually, you know, this is something that is actually quite normal. So up to 70% of the population will at one time suffer from this. So the chances are it's something that if you don't suffer from it or haven't that you may very well in the future. So just being aware myself that has made a big difference. So knowing that these feelings can be explained maybe accepting them, accepting that they're there and then helping me kind of dismiss them from my thoughts. And I think as I've grown older and been in the job longer just accepting as well that no one can be perfect that mistakes will happen. We're only human and I think being kind to yourself and forgiving yourself and then going back to your past successes can just help get over those feelings of being a fraud or the fear of being found out. Okay, so a big thanks to Chris for inviting me onto the Rewired Soul. You know, it's been a really interesting opportunity for me to take not something that I would normally talk about on my channel. Obviously, if you have a pet, if you have a dog or a cat and you want to learn about how to help them have a healthier, happier life and optimize their health then join me on my channel, Our Pets Health. But until next time, take care. All right, so first and foremost, thank you so much, Dr. Alice for coming over and doing such an awesome video. Like when we were talking about collaborating and like he sent me this video idea, I'm like, dude, why didn't I think about that? Because this is such a real topic. Like for example, like I mentioned when I work in my drug and alcohol rehab like some of you have heard about relapse rates and things like that. And this is when it really starts to eat me up and I'm like, am I even good at my job? Am I even helping these people? Why am I doing this? When I'm making these videos on YouTube I'm like, am I even making a difference? Do people even care about their mental health? Am I giving them good advice? Am I giving them good tips and things like that? But what I loved about what Dr. Alex did he gave some solutions and these are very, very good solutions. Like when you guys leave comments, right? Like it's like what Dr. Alex said your guys comments and giving me feedback and saying, hey, this helped me out or I can relate to that. Thank you so much. Like that helps me get out of that imposter syndrome, right? Same thing when my clients send me emails or call me or tell me how well they're doing that helps me out a ton. But you know, some of you out there you might be able to relate to this at your job or even parents out there. I know a lot of parents out there we get that kind of imposter syndrome and like am I even really good at this thing? What am I doing and all this other stuff? So make sure that you take some of those tips that Dr. Alex gave us, all right? But anyways, anyways, anyways, please go make sure if you are a pet owner or you just like pets, right? Like go check out Dr. Alex's channel, Our Pets Health. I stumbled across his channel and I'm like, dude, why do you not have like a million subscribers? Like the guy is very smart. He's great at what he does. He has some great topics. I own a little cat named Maya. So I check out his videos, they're very helpful. And make sure you stay tuned because he's gonna do another video very soon and I think all you pet owners out there are gonna enjoy. All right, but if you're somebody who struggles with imposter syndrome, make sure you leave a comment down below. I wanna kinda hear what your experience is about it. And yeah, let's have a conversation, okay? But anyways, as always, if you liked this video please give it a thumbs up. And if you are new here, make sure you click that little round subscribe button. I'm always making videos to help you out with your mental health. And right there, there is a link to Dr. Alex's channel, Our Pets Health. Make sure you go over there, hit that subscribe button, check out all of his awesome videos, okay? But as always, thank you so much for watching and I'll see you next time.