Meet our father of the year- Dr. Quincy Hawley.
For many professionals, their private lives tend to be very different from what clients are accustomed to. The optimistic outlook many convey at work vanishes immediately when they switch to family life. Things are quite different with Dr. Quincy Hawley who by far enjoys a higher level of happiness than most of us out there. All this thanks to the full support of his wife and family.
Many only know Dr. Hawley as one of the coolest veterinarians on social media, he is also the President of the North Carolina Association of Minority Veterinarians and a member of the North Carolina State CVM Admissions Committee.
To his two daughters and wife, Dr. Kershaw-Hawley, he is also a true embodiment of a caring father and loving husband. His wife also happens to be a veterinarian and wellbeing enthusiast (Tuskegee University CVM 2013). Together with their 7 dogs, 5 chickens, and an evil blue-crowned conure named, Jack (aka Satan lol), they make a complete family where happiness thrives.
Dr. Hawley’s desire of creating a good environment to thrive not only applies at home with his family but also extends to the veterinary profession. Through Get MotiVETed, a company he co-founded with veterinary technician and mindful living expert, Renee Machel, he is looking forward to making poor veterinary wellbeing a thing of the past. That means helping the community learn healthy coping mechanisms to take on challenges such as burnout and compassion fatigue.
By increasing the practice of mindful awareness and fostering personal development among veterinarians, Get MotiVETed aims to curb the poor wellbeing challenge. As we age, the importance of wellness and wellbeing become evident since a positive and resilient mindset, proper nutrition, and regular exercise keep a variety of ailments at bay.
The essence of personal wellbeing can never be ignored as it plays an important role in the choices one makes to thrive in their personal space. You will find it easy in striking a balance to all that life has to offer when having a customized personal wellbeing plan, which consists of having practical and effective tools, strategies, and resources. Through this action, you are not only going to succeed in life but also grow into the greatest version of yourself. This is exactly what Dr. Hawley aims to achieve through Get MotiVETed. With the backing of a wellbeing community that prioritizes and values wellbeing, you will cement your drive to attain whatever goals you lay down for yourself.
We caught up with this super dad to learn more:
How it feels working for such an amazing organization (Get MotiVETed)
It’s hard to put in words. Being able to support the wellbeing of veterinary professionals makes me feel like I’m making an impact on the entire world. I always wanted to help people through helping animals, and now, it seems that I’m helping animals through helping people. It’s pretty fascinating. More importantly, I know that there is so much potential in this profession that can only be expressed when the wellbeing of every single person in the profession becomes the rule and not the exception. Currently, there are lots of veterinary professionals who are unfulfilled and resentful. It’s my life’s purpose to change that. Furthermore, having experienced burnout myself, I can truly appreciate the value of what we’re setting out to do through Get MotiVETed and Get MotiVETed University School of Wellbeing for Veterinary Professionals - our online platform.
Three qualities that got me where I am today
Being overly positive - I try to see even the ‘worst’ of people and situations in a positive light. I have to emphasize the word “try” because sometimes I fail at being positive. For example, when a person abuses his power by putting his knee in a harmless man’s neck and prevents him from breathing and basically murders the man in broad daylight. Times like that are hard, but I pretty much stay consistent in trying to see the good in all.
Being a dreamer - I believe that all good things are possible and mostly all around us if we know where and how to look at things. Life is relative. It is all perspective!
So if you want to live your dreams, then it is certainly possible. That’s been my experience.
Knowing the value of ‘the grind’ and its limitations. Dreaming is good, but taking massive action towards your dreams is waaaayyyy better than just dreaming. I call massive action ‘the grind’. As far as limitations of the grind, I just have to be careful not to burn myself out!
Easiest career decision I made:
There are two easy career decisions that I have made. The first was choosing the veterinary profession. While it contributed to my darkest moments in life where I literally thought it would be better to be dead than alive, I’ve learned to see advantages in disadvantages and opportunity in the chaos of it all. I see that the ugliness I experienced has led me to who I am today, and I love me some Quincy, and it feels good to truly love yourself - ‘flaws’ mistakes and all! I have the vet profession to thank for that. Veterinary professionals have such an important role in society in so many different ways. There seems to be an infinite number of possibilities in the veterinary profession, and I appreciate that. Furthermore, I don’t think there would be a Get MotiVETed had I picked a different profession, and Get MotiVETed is my heart! It’s how I live my purpose!
The second best career decision was ‘choosing’ a really busy practice with a good mentor and other young veterinarians and an amazing team of support staff. While I was in it, I thought it sucked majorly! However, I didn’t have a wellbeing toolbox or a wellbeing army as I like to call it. Or more accurately, I had a toolbox that consisted of daily alcohol, smoking, Archer, video games, and eating everything in sight! Therefore, I never saw the advantages in the disadvantages. I never saw the growth opportunities. I had no idea about mindfulness, meditation, and personal development as healthy coping mechanisms, ya know? Having those at my disposal now, I feel ok wherever I go no matter how hard the circumstance or condition I’m faced with. Furthermore, by starting out at a really busy practice, everything after that experience has seemed like a piece of cake. I feel prepared. So when I see vets in tough environments, I don’t wish it was easier for them, I wish that they had the toolbox that would help them shift their perspective, see the lessons to be learned, and thrive in their current life situation.
How I made my first dollar:
I think it was from either playing tennis or working in the yard for my dad. My dad used to pay me every time I would hit an ace in a tennis match. He would give me $5, $10, and eventually $20/ace as I got older. I eventually started hitting a lot of aces, and then he just mysteriously stopped paying me for them! I guess it paid off for him as I went on to play tennis at NC A&T State University on a full ride tennis scholarship lol, which means he didn’t have to pay for my college! I was also my dad’s cheap labor at an early age. We would cut lawns, paint houses, and stuff like that. I hated it lol! It ‘made me a better person’ I guess! I’m grateful for it.
Books that left a lasting impression on me:
The Science of Being Great by Wallace Wattles has definitely been the biggest book influence in my life. Many of the perspectives that I’ve adopted that have helped me to thrive in vet med and life, are perspectives I adopted from that book. One such perspective is that “there are no bad or evil people in the world, just perfectly good people who are off of the track”. Another is “The world is perfect, but not yet complete”. *I explain those in great detail in our RACE-Approved 4-Hr CE course on Get MotiVETed University*. That book is literally $6, and it was so profound that I’ve read it over 100 times since discovering it 4 years ago.
The second book is The Power of Now by Echart Tolle. I just discovered this one a month or so before COVID-19 really popped off. It has helped me realize that life can never be good in the past or the future, which is where most people live, wouldn’t you agree? Rather, it can only be good ‘now’. Your memory of the past can be good, and your prediction of the future can be good, but you can only experience life moment by moment, which is always “now” when you’re actually experiencing it. More practically, it really focuses on strategies for experiencing a deep sense of inner peace, and I’ll say it again: I think inner peace is what all humans are seeking deep down inside.
How I clear my head after a stressful day
Reflection, deep gratitude, and sometimes music (I have my go to songs - sometimes I ‘turn up’ to my favorite hip-hop artist, and other times I mellow out to a zen track). As cheesy as it sounds, if I find myself in a stressful day, I will do this endless list of gratitude that really gets me in a state of joy. LIke most people, I sometimes have those really tough days. For example, about 7 months ago, I was on my way to the vet clinic, and I got a call from my cousin that the doctors had given my grandmother 72 hours to live. She was in kidney failure, and they were going to take her off of dialysis. As you can imagine that started the day off pretty rough. Then, I proceeded to have a fairly normal day at work by allowing myself to feel my feelings about my grandmother. I tried not to let it bother me as I didn’t want it to distract me from my clients and patients. When I got home that evening, my wife informed me that a technician I had worked with - who was also one of my good friends - had passed away that day from a bout with cancer. That one really hurt. Sometimes, life’s going to throat punch you. And on days like that, I lean on reflection, deep gratitude (a gratitude for all things: the good and the bad), and strategically thought out music. I do my best to look at the worst parts of a stressful day and try to find ways to be grateful for the really crappy parts. I then brainstorm ways to make it better the next time around (if possible). I also brainstorm ways to be better prepared for the next crappy day that presents itself. The result of this process is that ‘bad days’ really kind of fall away. Your worst days kind of become your best days. It’s how you create the ‘Heaven on Earth’ that you hear about in religious texts. That’s extremely powerful.
Advice for my younger self:
About 6 months ago, I was sitting on the balcony of a beachfront hotel in Morehead City, NC. There were lots of seagulls and pelicans taking to the sky on that beautiful, sunny morning. I noticed a pelican hundreds of yards away diving into the ocean. I imagine it was trying to catch fish to eat or something, and I wondered if it had actually caught anything. It was in that moment that I had a realization that I’ll never forget. The realization was this: Whether or not the pelican caught a fish or not and whether or not it was even trying to catch fish at all was none of my business really. I can sit and wonder what it was doing all day long, but it doesn’t - or shouldn’t - matter to the pelican. The pelican was doing its thing regardless of what was going through my mind, and the only way the pelican could truly fail is if it didn’t dive to catch the fish for fear of what I (the spectator on the balcony) would think about it if it failed to catch a fish. There have been SO MANY times in my life where I have failed to act and failed to do something I wanted or even needed to do in life because I was afraid of what others would think of me if I failed. After that day, I decided ‘no more’. I have dreams that I need to pursue and a purpose-driven life to live. I have a story to share and lessons to teach, and I’m not going to allow my fear of the opinions of others stop me from doing my thing. So my advice to my younger self is to simply give no thought to what other people think of you for being your authentic self. You can never truly know what others are thinking anyway, so there’s no point in engaging in imaginary thoughts. When I’m on my deathbed, I assume that I’ll only be disappointed if I lived a subpar life guided by other people’s thoughts and opinions on what I should or should not be doing with my life.
Change I would like to see in the world and how we can get there:
In 2016, I mapped out what my absolute best life would look like. I focused all of my attention on those things, while concurrently learning tools and strategies that helped me enjoy even the toughest that life can throw at me. Mapping out what I thought my ideal life or dream life would look like turned out to be extremely powerful. The things that I wrote down have mostly come into fruition, or I’m still working towards them now. All vets do this as a prevet students, but we forget to do this after we graduate from vet school as we move on in life. I’d like to see everyone in the world spend quality time on discovering what they think their best life would be like. I’d like to see them using idealization and visualization and then ‘working’ like crazy to get that. Too many of us are just trying to get through tomorrow with unhealthy coping behaviors. I used to be one of those people just dragging through life. As some wise carpenter once said on a mountain or something, “As you believe, so shall it be done unto you.” I believe that if vet professionals and people in general believe they can live a life of their dreams and complete happiness then they can. If they believe that they can live a life free of burnout then they can. Action is involved, but it’s still pretty simple. I know people will find joy in the journey, aka “The Now”.
Why finding a purpose in life is important:
Without purpose, you don’t know why you’re here on Earth. Your purpose is your why. Purpose is what will pull you through much of the difficulties of life and vet med. Knowing that you have a ‘divine’ job to do. I know that’s a little esoteric, but it is what it is. Life will always be a combination of things that feel ‘good’ and things that feel ‘bad’. That will never change. However, having a purpose is one of the best tools for making the bad moments seem a little less bad and the good moments feel even better. That said, what’s your purpose, and how is it helping you?
My mission in life:
My mission is simple: to provide veterinary professionals and members of the general public with the best tools, strategies, resources, and content that will help them discover personal development and mindfulness so that they can live lives of their dreams aka fulfilling lives both at home and at work. I have spent tens of thousands of dollars and countless hours learning and practicing the things that I am teaching. I believe there are some shortcuts, and my mission is to help people shorten the time frame and the investment required to discover, pursue, and achieve their dreams.
Check out Get MotiVETed’s University courses here:
