b'YOUR GUIDE TO THE 2017 AAEP CONVENTION SPONSORED BY3.Dont compare yourselves to others. Work-life balance is an individual is-sue. Think about your hopes, dreams, and circumstances, and go from there.4. Dont look for a fixed daily routine. Marsh said we tend to judge our perfor-mance daily and get discouraged. He reflects on his performance at months end, checking that hes given sufficient attention to his intellectual, physical, emotional, and spiritual well-being.5. Start small. It isnt about the grand changes, he said. Theres a real dan-ger there, because people replace one Finding Balance Amid gestures and the one-off dramatic overly singular focus (e.g., work), with 6.Other people find change confronting, too. They want you to be as stressed the Day-to-Day Rigors another (normally, its fitness). 7.Realize that work-life balance is not an intellectual problem that can be solved. It has to be solved in real life, of Vet Practice as they are, he said. COURTESY AAEP and real life is messy and relentless, he said. Change the things you can, not STEPHANIE L. CHURCH The Back Story the things you know you cant. Like most authors and speakers on a igel Marsh cant stand the phrasesubject, Marsh learned his principles theYoung Veterinarians Seeking Balancework-life balance. Yet the cel- hard wayexperience. His career back- Marsh noted that a key to ensuring the ebrated TED talk alum is knownground is not in equine veterinary medi- future wellness of the equine veterinary for helping people worldwide understandcine but, rather, advertising. After earlyprofession is attracting young vets. Ex-how to move toward that often-elusivecareer success, a major promotion, and aperienced vets need to model balance to goal in their own careers and lives.transcontinental move with his family, ayounger members of the profession. How Its dangerously misleading, he saidglobal merger ended up closing his firm.leaders behave matters, he said. Theyll of the phrase. It suggests there are onlyIt was at this point that he realized hislook at the lives you actually have and say, two parts of human existenceit sug- life had been totally dominated by work,Is that what I fancy?gests theyre in opposition; if you do moreat the expense of everything else. Most young equine vets put work-life of one, you have to do less of the other.The event was a catalyst for change.balance at a premium, and other areas It implies that work is somehow a badMarsh decided to alter his life entirely,of vet practice can beckon with better thing. It suggests we have to spend equalputting his family at the center. Since thenhours. We have to enable people to live amounts of time on each. I violently dis- hes tested every version of a workingeasier lives, he said. If this is to change, agree with all five of those notions. lifestyle, describing them in his memoirs.the older generation have to want the Marsh, whos based in Sydney, Aus- He offered seven principles hes learnedyounger generation to have an easier life.tralia, prefers to call it finding a way offrom his own experience and his readers. He emphasized that it would take a col-living a life that you find meaningful.1.Do not turn to technology to help. Every- laborative effort for vets to reach balance In a profession notorious for itsone is working an extra 1.2 hours/dayand to help sustain the profession. members always being on, if not onwith smartphones, he said, amount- He quoted a friend:We are enriched call, finding a balance can be difficult, asing to three weeks a year. Until youveby what we can do, even more by what evidenced by the nearly 2,000 veterinar- sorted out the fundamentals of balance,we choose not to do. The secret of being ians soaking in Marshs every word. Mytechnology makes it worse. human is learning how to enjoy ourintention, he said,is to try to make a2. Pause and reflect. Sit with any gap oflimitations. If we could do everything, we genuine human connection with as manyfree time, and decide if youre goingwouldnt need other people.Needing of you as I can, so I can then reframe theto get serious about change. But youother people isnt bad(it) is good. I issue, so those of you who are strugglingmust be ready for reflection, and manythink you need each other. Theres always with it can take immediate steps to putpeople only do the proper reflectionhope, and theres always help.permanent and progressive improvementwhen one of the Big 4 forces them to:Read this article in its entirety atinto the balance in your lives. death, divorce, disease, or job loss. TheHorse.com/40042. hA8 TheHorse.com/AAEP2017 AAEP Wrap-Up THE HORSEMarch 2018'