What if “failure” was just expectations being uncomfortably rewritten by reality?
In this conversation with Neal Sivula we discuss the experience of failing forward—what it actually looks and feels like when you’re a practitioner, a clinic owner, and a person who cares. How to navigate the employee who doesn’t show up the way you hoped, the power outage, or the appointment someone forgets. And the uncomfortable moment when you have to hold a boundary, especially when you’d rather not be the hammer.
Neal has found a few steady anchors: the micro-business reality of “one day at a time,” and the quietly radical skill of addition by subtraction. Sometimes the way forward isn’t adding another technique. It’s stopping something. Simplifying. Doing more with lessing.
There’s also the importance of tenderness . Neal works with older animals and the humans who love them, he leans on the practice of accompaniment—staying present when things are hard, not avoiding the difficult moments, but instead inhabiting them. It makes a difference.
Listen into this conversation for how failure teaches, and what it asks of us when we’re the ones doing the learning.
We try to meet clients where they are. We give them plenty of open ended questions, and if there are multiple family members present with the pet (patient), we allow everyone to give their thoughts on the patient’s history and how they are doing.
Neal Sivula, DVM
I earned my DVM from Ohio State University in 1988. Afterwards, I completed an internship and residency in large animal internal medicine as well as a PhD at the University of Minnesota College of Veterinary Medicine.
After eight years in general practice, I founded Dancing Paws Animal Wellness Center in Northeast Ohio in 2001, limiting my practice to acupuncture, chiropractic, and herbal medicine.
Outside of my clinical practice, I am a Professor, Podcast Host, and Webinar Manager for the College of Integrative Veterinary Therapies, an online continuing education provider for holistic veterinarians, veterinary nurses, and the public. I have also served as the President of the American Academy of Veterinary Acupuncture and the American Holistic Veterinary Medical Association.
Outside of practice, I earned a MDiv in Buddhist Ministry and am an Ordained Zen Buddhist Priest. I teach Zen students individually and as a faculty member at Buddha Dharma University.
Visit Neal at his clinic website, or on Instagram.
In this conversation we mentioned the book Dropping Ashes on the Buddha.
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