{"id":4832,"date":"2016-07-17T22:02:41","date_gmt":"2016-07-17T12:02:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/veterinarycareers.com.au\/dev\/?p=4832"},"modified":"2018-10-30T16:54:28","modified_gmt":"2018-10-30T05:54:28","slug":"unreal-veterinary-careers-an-interview-with-dr-natasha-wilks-of-high-performance-vets","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/veterinarycareers.com.au\/dev\/unreal-veterinary-careers-an-interview-with-dr-natasha-wilks-of-high-performance-vets\/","title":{"rendered":"Unreal veterinary careers! &#8230; an interview with Dr Natasha Wilks of High Performance Vets"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Dr Emma Davis speaking with Dr Natasha Wilks\u00a0<em>BVSc DipCoaching<\/em> of <a href=\"http:\/\/www.highperformancevets.com\/\" target=\"_blank\">High Performance Vets<\/a>\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Intro:\u00a0<\/strong><em>What has inspired us to create\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/veterinarycareers.com.au\/dev\/\" target=\"_blank\">veterinarycareers.com.au<\/a>\u00a0are the amazing people that we get to meet and learn about their career paths, and today I am speaking to a great veterinary entrepreneur in Dr Natasha Wilks.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n<p><strong>Dr M:<\/strong> <em>Welcome Natasha and thanks for your time today:<\/em><\/p>\n<p><strong>Natasha:<\/strong> <span style=\"color: #800080;\">Hi Emma, thanks for interviewing me today.\u00a0 Perception is interesting isn&#8217;t it, as I&#8217;ve never seen myself as an entrepreneur (I will have to now!).\u00a0 I am so privileged to be able to help veterinarians in\u00a0achieving their career goals and thrive personally.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><strong>Dr M:<\/strong> <em>Natasha I have been following part of your career via your business High Performance Vets on social media for a couple of years now and I love the information that you put out there as I am always learning something\u00a0about myself! <strong>May I ask what are you working on at the moment?\u00a0<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<p><strong>Natasha:<\/strong> <span style=\"color: #800080;\">I have a few projects that I&#8217;m currently working on.\u00a0 I am speaking at 3 conferences in the next 4 months that I have to prepare months in advance for.\u00a0 So I am researching and writing the session notes for them.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #800080;\">I have an international contract where I am training a whole team on-site in October.\u00a0 I am spending the next 2 months training and coaching their veterinarians so they will already have results by the time I arrive.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #800080;\">My newest course, Income Accelerator, which started in mid July, is an 8 week online course working with veterinarians to increase their income. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #800080;\">I also have my wonderful private coaching clients who are so great to work with.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><strong>Dr M: <em>You seem to be really involved in the profession and your career \u2013 what drives you?<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Natasha:<\/strong> <span style=\"color: #800080;\">Unfortunately, I&#8217;ve had a number of people close to me pass away suddenly.\u00a0 It helped me focus on what really is important in life.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #800080;\">You never know what may happen so it&#8217;s important to live a great life now, whatever &#8216;great&#8217; is for you.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #800080;\">I see so much frustration, disillusionment and sadness in our profession. \u00a0Veterinarians are incredible.\u00a0 We are determined, resourceful, passionate and incredibly hard workers.\u00a0 However, sometimes that is to our detriment.\u00a0 The one thing we neglect to do is look after ourselves.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #800080;\">I can&#8217;t stand by and watch suffering.\u00a0 That is why I do what I do.\u00a0 All my trainings are designed around what I have learned and know from my many years in practice and training so that life and practice becomes easier.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #800080;\">The veterinary profession is changing and veterinarians need to start anticipating the changes and prepare now to have a competitive edge.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #800080;\">Lastly, I&#8217;m very driven by my family.\u00a0 I want to be there with my kids as they grow up, give them as many opportunities as I can and most importantly, teach them life skills.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><strong>Dr M: <em>What have been the major transitions in your career path?\u00a0<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Natasha:<\/strong> <span style=\"color: #800080;\">I wanted to be a large animal vet but I had to stay within large cities so my husband could be employed in his profession.\u00a0 After working in the UK, I came back to Australia\u00a0for a position that didn&#8217;t work out for me. I will be forever grateful as it pushed me into doing my coach\u00a0training (I&#8217;m not a natural risk taker). It was then I realised, that this is what I was meant to do as it tapped into my natural strengths.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #800080;\">Having children was a major transition for me.\u00a0 All ambition went out the window and I was surprised to find I just wanted to be a mum.\u00a0 Once\u00a0my youngest starting school I could think again and I was ready to move from motherhood to being more focussed on my coaching practice.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #800080;\">In 2015, I was invited to be a committee member of the AVA Practice Management group.\u00a0 I&#8217;m really enjoying being involved.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #800080;\">My recent transition has been recognising I can&#8217;t do it all at once. \u00a0I am very aware of not over committing myself and taking down time for myself.\u00a0 My workload\u00a0has to be sustainable as I&#8217;m no good to anyone if I burn myself out.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><strong>Dr M: <em>What goals are you working towards?\u00a0<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft\" src=\"https:\/\/veterinarycareers.com.au\/dev\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/07\/Nat-Wilks-2.jpg\" alt=\"Nat Wilks (2)\" width=\"150\" height=\"202\" \/><br \/>\nNatasha<\/strong>: <span style=\"color: #800080;\">I have a health and fitness goal as I have been carrying way too much weight for too long!\u00a0 All the recent conferences haven&#8217;t helped either!<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #800080;\">I have a number of programs I want to finish creating over the next 12 &#8211; 18 months so in the future I can focus on helping veterinarians worldwide.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #800080;\">Everyone must have an income goal and on the 30th of June, I hit mine so I have set another one that is a bit terrifying.\u00a0 I&#8217;m not sure how to achieve it yet, but I&#8217;ve learned that if I set the goal and\u00a0take action, I&#8217;ll get there.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #800080;\">I want to do more training in neuroscience and positive psychology. Our brain is fascinating and I am interested in the effect mindset and the workplace has on an individuals performance and wellbeing.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #800080;\">We are planning a family trip to Cape York in 2017 which I am very excited about. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><strong>Dr M: <em>What advice would you provide a younger you?\u00a0<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Natasha:<\/strong> <span style=\"color: #800080;\">You don&#8217;t have to know it all.\u00a0 You can ask for help.\u00a0 Believe in yourself.\u00a0 Write down every win, no matter how small, and look at them in the tough times.\u00a0 Negotiate your salary.\u00a0 Stop discounting.\u00a0 Keep learning and growing and if you find you aren&#8217;t anymore, find new opportunities or a new practice.\u00a0 It does get easier. Go for those jobs that you want but don&#8217;t think you are good\u00a0enough for.\u00a0 It&#8217;s not failure, it&#8217;s a learning opportunity.\u00a0 Get training on communication. Trust your intuition, it&#8217;s usually right. Start using good face creams now!<\/span><\/p>\n<p><strong>Dr M: <em>Where can people find you to get in touch?<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Natasha: <a href=\"http:\/\/www.highperformancevets.com\/\" target=\"_blank\">www.HighPerformanceVets.com<\/a>, \u00a0<a href=\"mailto:info@highperformancevets.com\" target=\"_blank\">info@highperformancevets.com<\/a>\u00a0\u00a0<a href=\"tel:%2B61%20%280%29434%20836%20178\">+61 (0)434 836 178<\/a><\/p>\n<p><strong>Dr M: <em>Thanks for your\u00a0time\u00a0today Natasha<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Dr Emma Davis speaking with Dr Natasha Wilks\u00a0BVSc DipCoaching of High Performance Vets\u00a0 Intro:\u00a0What has inspired us to create\u00a0veterinarycareers.com.au\u00a0are the amazing people that we get to meet and learn about their career paths, and today I am speaking to a great veterinary entrepreneur in Dr Natasha Wilks.\u00a0 Dr M: Welcome Natasha and thanks for your [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":4833,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2025],"tags":[634,142,636,637,635],"class_list":["post-4832","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-career-profile","tag-career-coach","tag-dr-m","tag-dr-natasha-wilks","tag-high-performance-vets","tag-veterinary-career-interviews"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/veterinarycareers.com.au\/dev\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4832","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/veterinarycareers.com.au\/dev\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/veterinarycareers.com.au\/dev\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/veterinarycareers.com.au\/dev\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/veterinarycareers.com.au\/dev\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4832"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/veterinarycareers.com.au\/dev\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4832\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4842,"href":"https:\/\/veterinarycareers.com.au\/dev\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4832\/revisions\/4842"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/veterinarycareers.com.au\/dev\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4833"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/veterinarycareers.com.au\/dev\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4832"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/veterinarycareers.com.au\/dev\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4832"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/veterinarycareers.com.au\/dev\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4832"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}