How to Show Up at Your Best, with Jen Quammen

0:06Hey, it's Dave from Coaching for Leaders. Today I'm bringing you a quick chat about managing your energy during a big change. I sat down recently with one of our recent Academy graduates, Jen Quammen, to talk about how she got intentional about handling energy well. Here's our chat. I'm talking today with Jen Quammen. Jen is a licensed veterinarian, coach, executive, speaker, and volunteer leader. She is currently serving as the president of the American Veterinary Medical Association and is a recent graduate of the Coaching for Leaders Academy. Jen, what a pleasure to talk to you here on the podcast.

0:44Thanks, Dave. It's so great to connect with you again, and hopefully the audience will find some valuable tidbits out of our conversation here today. I know folks will, and maybe we should start just by saying a little bit about you and who you are, and also a little bit about AVMA, because I know some people will be familiar with the association, but others won't. Perfect. So yes, so you've already shared with folks, I'm a veterinarian. I was brought to veterinary medicine in a slightly unconventional way. So I was originally a credentialed veterinary technician before and during veterinary school, which is sort of equivalent to our nurses.

1:21And I have had the opportunity to sort of experience vet med in a lot of different ways. And in my real world of working world, I do relief veterinary work, which means that I'm sort of stepping into different hospitals and caring for the veterinary medicine. patients when I'm needed. And so I rarely have the same hospital, the same team that I'm working with day in and day out. And I work remotely with a technology startup that's based in Texas. And so I could be literally in a veterinary clinic somewhere in pick a state, or I could be behind a computer screen and talking to software engineers in Texas or wherever they may happen to be on behalf of the veterinary world.

2:03And although I am doing those things as my work throughout this year, serving as president, that is taking a grand majority of my time. And we can talk about what that looks like if folks are interested. But our AVMA is about 163 year old organization. And we represent over 111 ,000 veterinarians in the US and some outside of the US as well. But within the U.S., we have about 70, I think we're at 74 or 76 percent of the market share of veterinarians in this country are members of that organization. And so I have the great opportunity and obligation over this next year to really be representing veterinary medicine domestically, internationally, on the very general media page.

2:47You know, if we're talking about general audience education, there's lots and lots of pieces that go into being the president. and there are a ton of people who help me on the AVMA staff and volunteer side so that I get to make us all look good. And you were very kind recently to invite me to spend a few hours with you at the annual convention in Anaheim and walking around with you. I am now convinced you know every veterinarian in the United States personally, because it was quite an experience. I do. Yeah, it's quite funny. I was like, I think I said to you, we should probably go somewhere where I can't be spotted because if I'm spotted, we're never going to actually get our discussion done.

3:26And so it still took us 20 minutes or so to escape one room and find a place to be able to go have a conversation. So it's an interesting challenge and it's great. I mean, it's wonderful to have so many people being so positive and along with me on this ride. But if you need to get from location A to B, sometimes I need an extractor. Yeah. And I think this, I mentioned that because that is the reality for a lot of leaders in some capacity of like a lot of times we are getting pulled into the time, the resource, the relationships, because a lot of folks in our community have power or position in some way.

4:02And I think that kind of leads in a bit to our conversation today too. But before we even go there, how did you come across the podcast originally? Do you recall? I actually don't recall initially when I started listening. I've been listening for years, and I, over the years, have collected a number of podcasts that I listen to on the regular. And as I shared with you, I travel a good bit for my, you know, sort of regular work. And I think of podcasts a little bit as my own little university. And so if I have a windshield time when I'm driving or if I have some of that uninterrupted plane time, I am definitely the person that puts the AirPods or the headphones on and kind of tries to zone in.

4:42And so I think what has drawn me back to the podcast over time is that it didn't just feel like this trick of like, oh, here's the quick tip for how you make all leadership work, right? Peek behind the curtain, if you will. I think there is a connection and there are so many teams and people who have spoken about they needed to learn something. They're continuing to learn. And although these were mostly and almost probably exclusively folks outside of my industry, they shared something that I always found a little nugget to take away, whether that be psychological safety or helping teams to flourish in a recent episode.

5:24Those are things that I keep coming back to. And so I don't want to just keep listening. I want to practice those. And so this was an opportunity for me in terms of the Academy to say, here's the tidbits that I've learned through your podcast and others that I now want to really try to put into action, if that makes sense. It does. And you listened for a number of years and then you decided at some point to reach out and apply for the Academy. What did you hope to gain from it? The Academy for me, I think what I really knew was that I was going to be in a very different and much more visible role, at least over these first these few years.

6:02Right. So I essentially have a year as our president elect, a year as president and a year as our immediate past. And so in all of those roles, I'm serving on our board of directors, you know, we're on the front of our journal, you know, our pictures are up and our bios are up on the AVMA's website. And so there's a lot of visibility there. And at many points, and especially early in my career, I thought about sort of success and leadership as like, you're bringing this energy, you're bringing this momentum. I have a bias towards catalyzing and moving, right? And I think those things still matter, but I really knew that I needed something different going into this presidency.

6:42I didn't need to be the louder person. I certainly did not need to become any quote unquote busier, although I prefer the phrase richly scheduled. I wanted to be more intentional. I wanted to stay grounded when there's very complicated conversations happening and create the space where people could feel heard. And so rather than just thinking, oh, I'll figure it out when I got there, I really looked at the timeline for the academy, talked to a few other friends and said, you know, if I make this investment now, I will be done with the academy just before I kick off into the president role. The timing feels good.

7:18And if I don't do it now, I'm not going to do it for a couple of years because I'm not going to have the time during my presidential year. So I think the stars sort of aligned and the people I spoke to were like, yep, this sounds like the thing. And so off you go. And in chatting with you, you gave me this opportunity. And I think I gained a lot from it. And I hope the folks that were in the Academy cohort with me did as well. But yeah, so that's sort of how I, my path to sort of getting here and what that looked like for me, specifically related to this role with the association. We definitely learned a lot from you, which we'll get to, I'm sure, here in a moment.

7:53And I think about one of the reasons that people find this podcast and then also end up finding the Academy often is being at an inflection point. And you were at a big one, right? Taking on recently being elected into the president-elect role and then taking on this role now. That's a big inflection point. And one of the things that we do, as you know, when we start is get really clear on what does success look like for each of us as leaders over the next two to three years and to write a vision and then get really clear on a couple of key focus areas. And when you went through that process, what did you decide to zero in on that you thought would help you the most at this inflection point?

8:35There were several that we worked on. And I think I was the individual in the academy and maybe others have had this experience where that first commitment felt almost kind of easy in a way. Like I picked something and we were really keen on picking something kind of small bites. And I was getting a lot of success from it. And then that middle one, I really stumbled. And then this final one, I was like, okay, I finally got to sort of the, I don't know, the Goldilocks, the kind of happy medium of what I needed. And so my ultimate focus that I really feel I gained the most from and will continue to gain the most on is thinking about how I'm showing up as a leader and how I'm communicating.

9:15And selfishly, that is about how I'm maintaining myself, right? Through this role as president, I may be traveling anywhere from 250 to 280 days, time zones, international, U.S., and I need to be available at nearly the drop of a hat to also do media interviews. And so it is possible that someone could call me up and say, hey, I need you to be on with XYZ interviewer in an hour. And so how can I maintain myself, show up as me, because it's important to me that I'm still Jen, right? And how do I do that without just letting all of the pieces that are coming at me? Because there are a ton of folks that want to talk to me now and want to interact with me now, whether they did a year ago.

10:03And I need to be conscientious and really intentional about that. And so for me, it's still thinking about how do I manage my energy? How do I get the sleep I need? How do I get the right food? How do I get some recovery time? And how do I make those transitions among those responsibilities? So that really energy management was what I honed in on, and I will continue to sharpen that saw. Hopefully, I'll continue to get it better throughout this next year and beyond. When you honed in on it and put that front and center, what is it that you found that worked and was helpful to you on being able to find that place where it's a little bit more balanced given the context of all the travel?

10:47Yeah, I think and I suspect many of your listeners understand this, right? It's a little strange. I still feel like I'm sort of early career, maybe I'm mid career now to realize that, yes, I'm still having individual contributor components. but even more than that, I need to think about how do I offload things to other people? How do I ask them to help me? How do I ask for what I need? That is something I really needed to be much more conscientious about and will continue to do. And so no longer, I think for me on the whole, is it, hey, Jen's got the right answer. Do what Jen is doing. I think it is, how does Jen help to clear the path again, make the right conditions for others to really flourish?

11:35And although I might be the person that visibly is out there on behalf of our association, none of this is happening without the subject matter experts that help prep me for the media, for all of our volunteers that are helping to create these policies. And so although I might be the one people are seeing, I am not the only one by any stretch. And I want to make sure others feel acknowledged, feel welcomed into the conversation. And I will continue to practice on that, but that's what I'm hoping to do because I'm representing a very diverse audience. We have folks that are early career, late career, practicing in research, working on horses only, working on wildlife only, you name it.

12:20Vet Med runs a pretty wide gamut. And so I needed to be hoping that I could open up those other individuals to what opportunities might exist for them as well. As you zeroed in, especially on that energy management piece, I mean, from everything you just described, and when I think of what I know of veterinary medicine, it is a very broad discipline. Yes. I mean, the kinds of things, the kinds of animals that are supported. I mean, it's really so broad. and your visibility in your role. When you zeroed in on the energy management piece of it and just like taking care of yourself and did that as part of your commitment, what happened?

13:01What worked for you? I think I finally, once I got the sort of, that's the thought, that's the place I'm getting to. And I did that, of course, with the help from the folks in my cohort. That gave me a little bit of like a relax. I almost could like take a sigh, take a breath and be like, okay, now I'm ready to institute this beat. And that might sound a little bit simple, but it is really just not this anxiety and this workup of what is it going to be? I've sort of set on it, whether it's the perfect decision or not, that's not for today's gen to decide, but it is something that I could say, oh, this is really valuable to me.

13:39It will be valuable to our association by proxy. And I think it's a really positive way to show up for others within my community and beyond. And so I am a person that people will see. And so I'm setting an example, and I want to be as conscientious about that as I can. I'm not perfect. None of us are. I don't want to show perfection. I think that's pathological in my profession. And I do want to still do a good job, if that makes sense. And you mentioned there's a breadth of what's happening in vet med. I might go one day from working on a tooth on a cat to potentially removing something from a dog's stomach or maybe meeting with somebody who's working on Panda.

14:23There are just the breadth and knowledge of people in vet med that I really love. I mean, there's so much cool stuff about what we do. And I think people don't always naturally understand that veterinarians are involved in honeybees. honeybees. Honeybees are a food producing animal. And so veterinarians are a part of that conversation, which I suspect not everybody thinks of honeybees as a herd. Whereas I think of them as a herd animal, which is wild. It is. It is really wild. And I mean, it is such a diverse, there's so many different kinds of things happening. And in your case, of course, in the media and being very much like in addition to all those typical things that someone with your training would do, like being in the media.

15:05And I think that it's fascinating to me. I can't remember if we specifically talked about this, but how often in our academy cohorts, we'll have one or more people who will set a commitment, one of their first commitments of saying something like, I'm going to be working on my sleep. And at first glance, one might think, huh, in a leadership development program, we're talking about sleep. But the reality is, and you said this better than I'm going to say it, is you have to take care of yourself first, not because you're being selfish, but because if you take care of yourself first and you handle the sleep and rest and the energy management you're doing, that you're then able to fulfill the role, the obligation you have to so many other that you support for all of us in our organizations.

16:00And if you don't take care of yourself first, you're going to struggle. And a lot of times we don't think about that as like sleep and exercise and eating well, but oftentimes like at least one of the commitments comes down to that because it is so critical. Yep. And it's the, for me, it's the sort of 80, 20 rule. Again, perfection is not attainable, but if I can do a pretty good job 80 % of the time, then I feel like that's going to cover the 20 % that I maybe am doing something, eating, drinking something that maybe wouldn't be the perfect choice if my doctor recommended. And I will add that in a caregiving industry, we are empaths.

16:35We want to give, give, give by nature. And this is something that we, I think, have an obligation to our patients, quite honestly, that if we're not taking care of ourselves, we're not going to do as good of a job taking care of others. And I would expand that into this leadership position for me as well. And there's an element of calibration in this for all of us. And I'm thinking about what you also said earlier of the commitments that we take on in the academy. We usually do three, and we take them one at a time in 60-day increments. And you mentioned the first one, great, flew through. And then the second one was like, ugh, right?

17:12And then the third one was like, okay, I feel like I'm getting my stride. And in a way, that's a bit intentional. And I do often invite people to start with something simple first, because as you go through the process of figuring out how you respond to trying to do something different and shift your behavior and shift and influence behavior of people around you, you start to learn more and you do get better at calibrating. And as a result of that, then you get traction faster. Yeah, I love it. And we do, in my world, we practice, right? So in vet med, it's not like I'm going to come in ever and say, I have every single answer and every single solution.

17:49Because by the way, those patients in front of me, they have their own ideas as well. And we have the slightly more complicated side on the vet side. Apologies to all of our human practitioners out there. But I have to deal with the animal and the human at the end of that leash or halter or whatever that looks like. If you're in a zoo, it might be a keeper, right? We have to keep all of those pieces sort of moving in alignment. And that is sometimes more challenging than one would think. You know, I often ask people what they've changed their minds on on the podcast. As you reflect on the last year, the shifts you've made, being intentional about energy management, what, if anything, have you changed your mind on?

18:30I do love this question from you. And every time I listen, I always think, gosh, how would I answer? And I think I probably changed my mind about every 25 minutes. But I think what I've specifically changed my mind about through the academy is what leadership is quote unquote supposed to look like, right? Earlier on, I might've thought that there's a point where you know enough to feel like you are the expert in the room. And I would say that relief medicine cured me of that and made me humble pretty quick. Being involved in situations where I get really complicated questions from members of the association that is not my wheelhouse and I don't have the specialty for, that also humbles you pretty quickly.

19:07And so thinking about leadership not as where you are getting to, right, or where you are ultimately arriving at, but it's about maintaining and remaining teachable, coachable, right? Like I think that is the thing. I think I could teach almost anyone to do surgically and medically what I do, but it's all those are the little variables that come up and how you take in that new information because it's changing on a dime and how you avoid making decisions in a rash fashion if you don't have to. And so for me, I think it's really about staying and remaining teachable. And that is a different perspective than what I would have, the younger Jen would have said, this is what leadership looks like.

19:51And if folks want to check out what's happening in Jen's world, I have a pretty, I think, fairly active, I don't know, fairly active stuff on socials, would you say? Oh, I'm so glad you mentioned this because I wanted this to come up in the conversation. If you're looking for following someone for some inspiration who does LinkedIn really well, and what I mean by really well is both shows up genuinely and authentically, but also represents themselves and their organization well. Jen's LinkedIn is amazing. She just is so intentional about sharing what's going on, what she's struggling with. But also, you have a way of doing this in such a professional and relatable way that I hope folks do follow you.

20:33And I'm going to put a link to your LinkedIn here in the notes as well. Yeah, I appreciate that. LinkedIn is a fascinating platform to have conversations on. And I have them in other social spaces as well. But your audience and you obviously work really a lot in LinkedIn. And so it's been fun to kind of play with things a little bit there. And yeah, I want to just share the journey with folks. And so I'd always love some feedback and love to know what's on folks' minds as well. Well, thanks so much for sharing your journey with us. I so appreciate it. Yeah, thank you.

21:24very visible role. That's why when we start working together in the academy, I invite all our leaders to get clear on what a two - to three-year vision looks like for sustainability in their role and in their work. And then we zero down very quickly to what that means in practice. And often one of those three focus areas that members select is focused on leading oneself first. Doing that intentionally is especially important at inflection points. Maybe it's taking on a big new leadership role or preparing for an upcoming transition into one, as Jen has been, or it's taking on a new team or initiative.

22:03And sometimes it's after getting some feedback about something that just isn't working anymore. It's doable to make that shift yourself, but it's so much easier and more successful with support. The Coaching for Leaders Academy provides structured group coaching, led personally by me to help leaders thrive at key inflection points. The Academy is now open for applications. And if you're at an inflection point now, I'm inviting you to apply and join in with us. Go to coachingforleaders.com slash academy to do so. Applications are open as of now, but only until the end of the day on Friday, September 11th.

22:43So be sure to visit before that. On the Academy page, you'll be able to hear more from graduates, see the five steps of how the Academy works, and dig in on all the frequently asked questions on how things come together. The Academy helps leaders thrive at key inflection points. So go over to coachingforleaders.com slash academy for more. And remember, applications will be open only until the end of the day, Friday, September 11th. Thanks as always for listening in and watch for the next regular episode coming this Monday.