Finding Mastery with Dr. Michael Gervais - Lessons From A Life Of Purpose and Compassion | CNN Hero Of The Year, Dr. Kwane Stewart aka "The Street Vet"

Episode Date: December 20, 2023

Today’s podcast is a really special one, as we have on CNN’s 2023 Hero of the Year, Dr. Kwane Stewart, a.k.a. “The Street Vet.” Kwane is a veterinarian who provides free veterinary care for the animals society often forgets—the pets of people living without homes.In this heartfelt conversation, Kwane demonstrates the courage it takes to explore the messy edges of emotion, and he opens up about how honoring his feelings propelled him to take life-changing actions. Kwane’s story isn’t just about animal care; it's a profound narrative on finding purpose, losing sight of it, then finding it again… on a sidewalk outside a Seven-Eleven.His current endeavor, as co-founder of Project Street Vet, is capturing hearts and minds around the world. This initiative provides free veterinary care to pets of the unhoused. In essence, he’s creating a movement of care and compassion. In this episode, Kwane walks us through his transformative journey, sharing moving stories of hope, sacrifice, and the human-animal bond. Our conversation also touches on the heavy emotional toll of working in animal shelters, and how Kwane navigated his own mental health challenges. His journey is a testament to the resilience found in living a life of purpose.You don’t have to be an animal lover to find Dr. Kwane Stewart's story a compelling exploration of compassion, resilience, and the impact one person can make.You’re invited to learn more about Project Street Vet._________________Subscribe to our Youtube Channel for more powerful conversations at the intersection of high performance, leadership, and meaning: https://www.youtube.com/c/FindingMasteryGet exclusive discounts and support our amazing sponsors! Go to: https://findingmastery.com/sponsors/Subscribe to the Finding Mastery newsletter for weekly high performance insights: https://www.findingmastery.com/newsletter Download Dr. Mike's Morning Mindset Routine! https://www.findingmastery.com/morningmindsetFollow us on Instagram, LinkedIn, and X.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Finding Mastery is brought to you by Remarkable. In a world that's full of distractions, focused thinking is becoming a rare skill and a massive competitive advantage. That's why I've been using the Remarkable Paper Pro, a digital notebook designed to help you think clearly and work deliberately. It's not another device filled with notifications or apps.

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compassionate, intelligent veterinarian, why that? Because I realized if my job as a care provider is to find pets that need care, I should find the neediest pets. I should find the ones that aren't going to get seen, whose pet parents don't have the resources to be seen. Welcome back, or welcome to the Finding Mastery podcast. I'm your host, Dr. Michael Gervais, by trade and training, a high-performance psychologist. Today we have a pretty special episode.

Personally, I'm an animal lover. Our dog Morris is often sitting here in the Finding Mastery studio. And whether or not you're obsessed with your pets, I think this episode is going to move you. Today's conversation is with Dr. Quan Stewart, a veterinarian with an unlikely story that's captured the hearts of many, leading him to being named CNN's 2023 Hero of the Year. While he's been grinding for over two decades

as a veterinarian, it's his current endeavor as the co-founder of Project Street Vet that's capturing the hearts and minds around the world. His initiative provides free veterinary care to pets of the unhoused. In essence, he's creating a movement of care and compassion. This is a great conversation for the holiday season. I mean, this is the time for giving and caring. Kwan gives, Kwan cares. He's dedicated his life toward it and he works from the inside out. He shares his own mental health challenges and his journey is a testament to the resilience found in living a life with

purpose. Kwan's story is a compelling expression of compassion and the profound impact that just one person can make. So with that, let's jump right into this week's conversation with Dr. Kwan Stewart. Kwan, this is so thrilling for me to be with you. The way you've navigated your life is really inspiring to me. And so I'd love for us to zoom in in a moment. And there was a moment where you decided that you were gonna set up a table and you were gonna offer free advice or guidance

for anybody that wanted to have their dog examined or their pet examined. This kind of the moment where the street mission started for you. Can you walk me into what led to that moment and the thinking and the things that were lining up in your life where you said, this is what I'm going to do? Yeah, I'll jump in right in the middle of the fire and, and share this. I was at a point just prior to that day when I had contemplated just quitting being a veterinarian altogether. A lot of people don't know this. I don't, I don't usually speak about it, um, that often. It was a painful time, but,

uh, I, uh, you know, if you know what it takes to become a veterinarian, the, the sacrifice, the time commitment, the money, the student loan debt, everything that goes in, I mean, it's a lifelong commitment. It started when I was seven. I said, I want to be a vet at seven years old. I want to be a vet. It was after watching the black stallion. I came out with my mom.

I was holding her hand. I looked up and I, you know, during the movie I was crying, I was laughing. And I just remember looking up and saying, I didn't know what, what a veterinarian was. I said, I want to be an animal doctor when I grow up. And there was something about watching that majestic black horse, that boy, and that moment the horse was injured. And I just, there was a part of me that said, I want to be able to, to fix animals one day. And, and so, yeah, you know, getting straight A's and grades and sticking to it when your friends are out partying, you're under a lamp reading your textbooks. Is that grade school or high school? Starting early, yeah.

So you made that – you had that idea early and then it was real for you. It wasn't like this magical idea that one day I want to be. Like you really know, work started then really did. And coming from my mom and my dad and my dad was a NFL football player for time. My mom's an academic and, and so they're, they're driven themselves. And I said, if this is something you want, then you need to lock it now. And it starts now. So yeah, I remember having that, that's intense for a seven-year-old. Well, it is. And, you know, it wasn't like every day they're going to hound me. But just, you know, just know that the journey begins now, if that's really what you want to be.

And I really took that in. How long did your dad play for? It was a few years. He was out due to injury, but he started here with L.A. He was a Ram. I was born in L.A. Oh, you were? Okay. Yeah. We were only here a year or two and went back to our native home, Albuquerque.

That's where my parents met and that's where they got their start. But he was drafted to the Rams. We were out here for just long enough for me to be born. He was off actually playing a game when I was being born, which gave my mom total freedom to make up my name. Is that how that happened? Yeah, that's how that happened. No way.

That is so good. And I'll share another little secret before I finish the story. My legal first name is Shannon. I don't often tell that either. My full name is Shannon Kwan Stewart. There you go. And the agreement was before my dad left for his game is they were going to name me Kwame. They had settled on. So essentially my name with an M, K-W-A-M-E. And he was off doing his thing. And my mom had this moment saying, you know, you're not around. I'm going to do what I want to do. So she changed my name from Kwame to Kwan with a crazy spelling that everyone mispronounces still to this day. What do you get mostly? Kwani, Quain. Yeah. I need to just drop

the E and be done with it. And I told her, I said, it's been a lifetime of misery trying to have this nails on a chalkboard with this name and then she she loved the name shannon so she's you know i'm just put shannon so that's how my birth certificate reads i don't again not many people know that so thanks for leaving dad by the way and mom for what you did to me but um i uh yeah after you know all the years become a veterinarian and, you know, 200 and some thousand dollars in debt about, uh, eight years into it, I was working as a shelter veterinarian and shelter work at a municipality is, is gruesome. I didn't know that I wanted to get into help into help and shorten the euthanasia rates,

decrease euthanasia rates, increase adoption rates. These are things that are lost on a young vet. I left Colorado State upon graduating in 1997. I packed up my old Mustang. I drove straight to San Diego. I wanted to be by the beach. And for the first few years of working, I could smell the ocean air. And, you know, my clients had bottomless bank accounts, whatever you suggested they would do. That's a great feeling as a practitioner, right? Your dog needs X, Y, Z, blood work, this procedure, and just do it, doc, just do it. I went from that to working in a shelter in Central Valley california during the recession started in 07 okay and people are dropping off boxes of cats um during the spring

cat season right 10 12 there's a cat season there's a cat cats breed during the spring okay when the day started to get longer uh their breeding season kicks in. And that's immaterial actually to what I think that is central is that you got into this profession because you're an empath, because you, you, you have a deep connection to animals and here you are at a shelter. And I think you're going to pay off this bit of the story, which this is a brutal experience for you. It was. Yeah. I, you know, two years into, I just thought I can't do this anymore. I didn't get into the profession to euthanize animals. And how many are we talking about? Like per day, per week, per month? Um, during the, the, the worst part of the season, uh, the spring we're talking cats and dogs by 10 a.m you know 60 70 animals a day what yeah yeah so mornings

my staff and i are are destroying ending the lives of 50 plus animals every morning i mean i thought you're gonna say like five yeah which would be a lot in my mind, like five a day. And my goodness. Okay. So are you a, um, do you work from the heart or do you work from the head? I think I probably lead with my heart. I think a lot of veterinarians do. You mentioned the word empath. I think, um, I just think there's a part of us that can sense when another living creature is in pain and there's a part of us that wants to fix it or do something about it. And I do feel like I, I walk around with that probably on my sleeve and I lead, uh, and live daily like it. So is that unique between you and animals or do you have that same capability with humans?

I sense it with people too. You do? Yeah. Yeah. So is your mom that way? Is your dad that way? Or is this something? I, yeah, that's a great question.

I would probably say if I got it from one of my parents, it's probably my mother. She's always been a big animal lover and gets emotional when she sees something in pain. She does. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Do you have an early experience around being connected other than watching a movie? Like you, one that you, you had a connection to animals, whether you watched your mom, like some people I'll tell you where I'm going with this is that, um, early experiences begin to shape our framework. And if you see a parent jump up on a stool screaming, oh my God, there's a rat in here,

there's a rat in here, there's a, oh my God, there's a rat, kill it. That that would be a way to shape your response to rodents, to animals, you know, to life. And I'm not saying that that's a wrong thing. It's a thing that happens often. And, but if you have a parent in your life that saw a rat and says, oh, it's stressed out, like let's build a little maze to help it find its way out the front door. And maybe, you know, it's a different relationship. I want to have that second one, by the way. I just want to be really clear.

Yeah. You know, my wife and I are completely different. You know, she's like, you know, if there's a spider or something in there, she's like, kill it. I'm like, no, it's living. And she's like, I don't care. It's in my place. And you don't know, it could be a brown recluse. I go, it's not, let's just kind of get, you know, so

this is the thing in our family. But, um, so do you have an early experience in? Yeah, I do. It happened right around the time I saw the movie. And in fact, they probably happened within a couple of months of each other, but there was this injured, uh, golden retriever and he was running through our neighborhood. He or she was running through our neighborhood and it looked, I'm guessing now looking back with the sort of the expertise I have now that she probably got in a fight of some kind and her ear was ripped, was hanging. So if you sort of like you peeled the skin off a dog's ear and you saw the glistening sort of red, she was running through the neighborhood with that and scared. And I remember coming home from school and just telling my mom to stop the car so I could go chase her down and get her help. And she ran from me. We went home.

She ran. The dog did. She ran away from me. Yeah. Maybe my mom was inclined to, but because we'd come back and I just wouldn't, I got back in the car and I was visibly upset. I said, I didn't want to find that dog. We got home. So you had a little bit of a spirit at a young age, right? Like you got out of the car, you went for it, right? Okay. Yeah, there was something that was pulling me to help that dog.

And then I went out later that evening and I went back the next day. And the next day I saw her one more time, but I would go to bed for those two or three nights upset. And my mom would have to comfort me. And yeah, I just. Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. What just happened? Well, I'm thinking back to that moment.

It's still, you know, it's still emotional. I think, you know, and I think how badly I just want to save that dog you know even today so so when i think about wait wait let's not go further this is like you this is this is your genius right here right everything else that we're going to talk about is coming from this place which is not necessarily that dog and that experience, but the way you feel about animals and helping. Yeah. So what, what, what, what is happening in your body? Even right now? I, uh, I just reflect on that moment still. And even though I've thought about it a hundred times since I I'm taken back to that, that day. And is, is there a narrative that you say to yourself when you're feeling, cause you're using your imagination, you just transported yourself

back to that experience. And is there any language around it for you or any way you're describing it in my own head? Yeah. Uh, no, I. I almost see the event third person. Instead of looking through my own eyes as a kid back then, I see this little boy that jumped out of the car and was sitting in his bed late at night wanting to find the dog. And that was 40 some years ago and it still bothers me. Okay. Quick pause here to share some of the sponsors of this conversation. Finding Mastery is brought to you by LinkedIn Sales Solutions. In any high-performing environment that I've been part of, from elite teams to executive boardrooms, one thing holds true.

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So if you're trying to hit your daily protein goals with something seamless, I'd love for you to go check them out. Get a free variety pack, a $25 value and 10% off for life when you head to davidprotein.com slash finding mastery. That's David, D-A-V-I-D, protein, P-R-O-T-E-I-N.com slash finding mastery. And now back to the conversation. that helplessness is, um, some people just stuff it, you know, like if, when we're really honest, um, there are times more often than we'd like to admit to ourselves and others where we don't know how to access a sense felt of power, knowing what to do and how to get it done

and feeling like you, you have the ability or the right or the tools to make a difference. And what you're bringing me into right now is what an overwhelming feeling it is to be in touch with that sense. And you didn't stuff it down, though. I guess I didn't. I decided to act on it, maybe. It only took me a lifetime to gain the gain the tools to, to do more about it. courage. I'm also watching you try to hold it back. So I'm wondering the courage is I feel something. Fuck it. Right. Like I'm stepping into this messy edge. I might fall into a thousand pieces. I don't know. But, but like, you're like, no, I'm, I'm in the emotion right now. How did

you do that? How did I step into the messy edge and just let the emotions be honest? Are we talking just now or just now? Yeah. Well, like I said, I, I think I am by nature just a little more emotional and it, it, it's probably taken a little training or time to rein that in, in the right moments. Because going back to my shelter days, there was 50 plus animals were euthanizing. I, a lot of it was done. If you can imagine this by very young girls who are wanting to one day get in

to my profession, potentially they're the ones actually sticking the needle in and injecting the solution and watching the light sort of fall out of the pet's eyes. And I would have to be their support system and explain to them, well, I'm explaining to myself some days, why this is a very sad reality and necessity. That if we don't do this, the shelter becomes overrun. Then we have a disease outbreak. Then we're euthanizing more. When we're not taking in animals, and this is a very, what they would call a high kill shelter. We just, we have a huge census, 500, 600 pets on premises every single day. It's an entire county of animals that I'm managing.

So when strays are running and biting or the risk of rabies, there's all these things you have to account for. And so, yes, to manage this system, euthanasia is a very, very terrible ingredient. But I got there and I said, I'm going to fix this. We're going to find a way to fix this together. But it didn't happen overnight. And in the meantime, way to fix this together. But it didn't happen overnight. And in the meantime, I'm doing this daily. And so going back to your original question, that moment, I, I just thought about quitting. And it was on this day that I was going into 7-Eleven to get my

coffee, the 7-Eleven that I frequent. And I walked in and to my left, I saw this unhoused gentleman with his dog a man that I'd seen before and walked right by before regrettably and on this day I I stopped and noticed his dog had a really bad skin condition how many years as a vet were you at this point how many years in as a licensed I was 11 12 years in 12 years in okay so you're you're hitting that sweet spot where you're able to take um all of your frames of reference your science your experiences and kind of spot things quickly it's all coming together yeah you're really in in there's a sweet zone somewhere around 15 000 hours 20 000 hours know, it's not the 10,000 hour rule, but like you're in a sweet zone right now, right? Okay, so highly emotional, highly intelligent,

big work ethic, gone through some real shit, you know, with the mission that you're on, and then you have a moment, right? And so you're walking into 7-Eleven and even the way you said is like, I hadn't noticed this gentleman before, or you noticed, but you didn't stop. I didn't stop. But you saw his dog. I saw his dog. I saw his dog and I saw his dog had a problem. And I decided to stop. Now I should tell you just probably five minutes prior to that,

I was sitting in my car, staring at the window, contemplating how to write my letter of resignation to the shelter. And I don't know if it was that moment or the just convergence of other things, but I see this guy, his dog. And instead of walking back to my car, I step over and I say, I see your dog has a skin issue, a pretty bad skin issue. And he says, yes. And he looks exasperated. And I said, it looks like fleas. It just looks like a really chronic flea condition. And people should know for any pet owner out there, if your dog has fleas long enough and bad enough, it destroys the skin. The skin, the skin on this dog looked like a burn victim. The hair on the rear where fleas usually reside, the hair was completely gone. It was red and bumpy and infected.

The dog was miserable. The man was miserable. They were probably sharing the same problem to some degree, sleeping together. And I just said, it looks like a really bad flea problem. I said, you know what? If you're here tomorrow, I'll be back with something that should take care of the problem. I returned as promised. And it was $3 out of my pocket, $3 out of the shelter's pocket, a little Robin Hood. I don't know that I've admitted that one either. And five more minutes of my time. And I saw the same dog 10 days later and the dog was transformed. The hair was coming back.

She was wagging her tail. And it happened again. The guy sitting in the same spot looking up at me with tears in his eyes just said, thank you for not ignoring me. And I just, I just, I just, that was my moment. I just said, I'm going to, I'm going to get back to doing more of this and I'm going to do it on my terms. I'm going to do it for passion. I'm not going to do it for pay. I have my job, yes, but I. I got in front of city council. We got the funding. We cut our euthanasia rate in half. We doubled our adoption rate. And then at the five-year mark, I said, I'm going to move on to something else. Oh my God. Okay. Congrats. Massive lives saved. And I want to go back to that moment when you locked eyes with him and you just felt it right now again. And in that moment, when you said, I'm doing more of this, what is the, this?

I'm going to go out and find people like him with pets and deliver care, free care. Why, why that. Why that? Of all the things that you could do as a highly skilled, compassionate, intelligent veterinarian, why that? Because I realized if my job as a care provider is to find pets that need care, I should find the neediest pets.

Oh, there you go. I should find the ones that aren't going to get seen whose pet parents don't have the resources to be seen. Is this something that happened in your life that you weren't seen? How do you mean? Well, I think we're trying to sort out some shit, you know, from early trauma, from early life experiences. We all have different stuff we go through. I've had experiences in my life that looking back now, it was the trauma of a slight little conversation, a slight little statement that spun me into this narrative that, oh, I have to prove that I'm smart. Oh, I have to prove that I can do something extraordinary to be seen. That's not healthy, but it drove me and kind of propelled me into the edges where many other people of my peers wouldn't go. They'd

rather just go drink a couple of beers. And I was fucking reading a research article to your point earlier. So did you have that experience at a young age that you weren't seeing? And this is not an assault in any way on your parents. Like I'm sure they were trying to figure out life to their best abilities. Same with mine. But was that a narrative that led to this extraordinary path that you're on and the extraordinary man that you are? Possibly. Well, I come from a black father and a white mother, you know, at the time of the seventies, I was born in 1970. You didn't see a lot of biracial kids

and I was different, different for that reason. But I was also this, uh, skinny buck tooth, different looking kid. And I got teased a lot, right? I was just, uh, so you got seen for the physicality, not the internal. Yeah. Right. So you, you were seen, but not in a way that felt meaningful by any ways. And what you were seen for for you were picked on or bullied on yeah yeah i was you know i was called ugly and zebra different and oreo and oh you know the kids kids are kids are kids are stupid half the time they say things and a lot of times i don't know what they're saying maybe they don't even mean what they're saying but you know when you're eight nine and ten you internalize a lot of that are you letting them off the hook right now?

No, not necessarily. I know there's probably a couple I like to punch out still if I could, but I'm going to let that go. So you don't work from anger. You don't have anger as part of your, your consistent. No, I would say I don't anymore. I would say there was a period of mine for, I did. And I actually, I would, I got a lot of fights in my college days and I've, I felt like once I wasn't the skinny, frail, funny looking kid anymore, but now I was the college athlete. And yeah, once, once I saw someone who thought they were just trying to act like, or remind me of that bully when I was 10, I'd probably get in their face. Let them know. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So great. This is awesome. I mean, you're really connecting

a lot for me. And my hope is that our community is listening to the courage it takes to be honest. And then when you work from that honest place, you can make some connections. And so life is not like this mystery of who I am and why I do the things I do. And it actually opens up the path of possibilities for the future. And so it's really important to do the work that you've done so that you have what feels like maybe a little bit wider path of possibilities as opposed to like i'm stuck doing this whatever this is and it's essentially what i want to get into with you is like how you went i know how now i know the emotional moment how you went from like this path that was unrewarding even though you spent i don't know 20 years investing in it right from school from early age to formal education to 10 to 15 years

of practice or wherever you were on that that that then you you once again make this radical pivot so you had this moment you it fired you back up in a way to do something with the shelter and you had great success there and then you said i want to do it on my own terms and then a handful of years later it led to exactly that it did yeah i i didn't script any of it but and i'll tell you like i'm not a a big believer in destiny although i'm maybe coming closer to that zone but zone. But if, if you took all the bad and the good that molded me so that I could wind up or end up where I am today, then it all had to happen that way. And otherwise I don't know if maybe I had a different childhood or I was more privileged or I was treated better. If I would have been as driven at some moments early

on angry, driven to be better and to rise above it. And, you know, sometimes this, you know, Kobe Bryant was driven by people telling him he's not going to score that many points. I need to go out and score that many points. So sometimes those things stick with you. And I think a lot of them stuck with me. I, I think the advantage I held is I was able to, to take it and harness it or use it in a way that was beneficial or, or positive and push me. I mean, you could go the other direction, right? Where some people turn to the bottle or they give up or they become violent or, you know, substance abuse. I guess guess how did you convert that how did you metabolize that that's a really i don't think i have an understanding of how um some people do

a and some people do b i don't have an understanding so maybe we can just use you in a n of one here you know like how did you do it and not go to drugs, drinking, whatever, whatever. I think my, my big advantage is I knew what I want to do at a very young age. It's a purpose. Yeah. Right. Exactly.

I felt like I had purpose and it's as hard as things would get occasionally. And I'm going to look, I'm not complaining about my life. There are people out there. My dad would say, if I catch you complaining, we're going to have to have another talk. There, there are so many more people in worse positions than I, I, what did dad teach you? He, he taught me hard work and humility and mom, mom to study and to be a success. And, but at the bottom of it all, my mom's a Buddhist is you, I want you to be happy. I don't want you to chase something. That's not going to make a success. But at the bottom of it all, my mom's a Buddhist. I want you to be happy.

I don't want you to chase something that's not going to make you happy. Okay. No one does it alone. And I want to share a couple of sponsors that are making this show possible. Finding Mastery is brought to you by Momentus. When it comes to high performance, whether you're leading a team, raising a family, pushing physical limits, or simply trying to be better today than you were yesterday. What you put in your body matters. And that's why I trust Momentus. From the moment I sat down with Jeff Byers, their co-founder and CEO, I could tell this was not your average supplement company. And I was immediately drawn to their mission, helping people achieve performance for life.

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and use the code findingmastery20 at checkout. Again, that's Felix Gray. You spell it F-E-L-I-X G-R-A-Y.com and use the code findingmastery20 at felixgray.com for 20 off and with that let's jump right back into this conversation what does she study you said she's an academic yeah she was she was in banking for a long time and uh she she retired at 65 and was sitting around for a while for a few years just enjoying her retirement and said, she has this thing. She thinks she's going to live to be 120. She's been saying it since I was a kid. I'm going to live to be 120. So I need to, I'm going to reinvent myself. And so at 68, she went to nursing school and, and she just got her five, six years of school, she got her RN. She became a psychiatric triage nurse.

She always loved psychology, studied it in college. And then it just wrapped up her doctorate. So she is whatever end game academic a nurse can become, she is now that at 73 and is going to open up her own psychiatric practice at 73. So this is rad. I draw a lot of motivation from my mom. Who's always been like that, who you can do what you want to do. And you know, you might have this career now, but you might want to do something later and that's okay. What do you hope you give your kids? If they were in one or two, three words, say, Oh, dad helped me with, uh, I, yeah, that's a good question. Dad modeled. Yeah. For me, dad was dad, you know, dad gave me a lot of confidence to, to be who I am. And how, how would you, how do you go about helping?

I don't know that I do it with intention every day and maybe I need to think about that more, but I do remind them that they're special and they're unique and they have their own set of talents. I believe everybody does and do not, because I was there for, you know, my period of time in childhood. And I think every kid goes through it. The thing about the seventies was bullying was like an art form, right? Bullying now we're like, we're anti-bully or an anti-bully society. But back then it was like, just deal with it. Right. You come home crying. Boys, toughen up, harden up. Yeah, exactly. Thick skin and get with it. And, you know, I think there's parts of that that benefited me and there's parts that didn't.

But, you know, the world will try and knock you down. It does. And you're going to hear it at school and you're going to hear it from coworkers. And now you're going to hear it on social media. It's just noise. I tell my daughter and my sons, it's just noise. You know, listen to the people who support you and love you. If you're going to take advice or instruction or guidance or the words are going to soak in from someone that's yapping in the background, take it from someone who cares about you because everybody else, they don't know. I'm going to take that clip and play it right back to my family as well.

I might have to too, because I just rolled off my tongue. Yeah, right. I mean, but, but you've metabolized it. I think you've earned the right to say that because you've faced down the noise. You let the noise get in. Yeah. Right. And then you've wrestled with that dragon

for a long time. And then you've come to clarity, like it's noise and it doesn't have to get in. And in the, one of my good friends, Nate Hopgood Chittick, he played in the league in the NFL for a handful of years, won a Super Bowl. He's no longer with us, CTE. And I miss him.

And he had this, I put this in the book, but he has this process that he went through. Maybe this can help your kids. It's helped me, even as an adult, is that he had adults. Your dad will resonate with this, and maybe you would as well as a college athlete, is that amongst your peers, so you're out there with your friends, you're out there with teammates. Sometimes people are trying to take your job. Sometimes they're teammates in other ways, but you've got adults screaming at you. And these adults may be well-intended, maybe not. Sometimes coaches are not benevolent like we would hope, but they would say things that would get in. So he would put up

a screen in front of him. And he said, Mike, I had to add a survival because I'd have grown men like with all of this vitriol and passion and it was confusing and their their words are so violent and there's like spray coming from their mouth from the spit that in front of my friends that i had to put up a screen and that screen would only let this the instructional information in and anything else that was critical or biting or whatever it would just fall on the other side of the screen it would never make in. It's like the pores were too, were structured in a way that only the good stuff got in. And I love your point about if the people don't really know you and love you and they're demonstrating for a lifetime,

they're going to be in it with you. It's probably going to be maybe a little bit more noisy than, than, you know, mom and dad. And sometimes mom and dad is noisy too. Yeah. Well, I mean, sometimes, sometimes you hear noise from people closest to you as well, but at least they know you, at least they're coming from a place that has some Intel and some, some info about you. This is where I say yes. And then I add the end, which is sometimes our friends want us. I'm pulling us away from family right now for a moment. Sometimes our friends want us to be exactly who we are now, not who we could become because who we are now, they feel comfortable with us. Right. So if they make 50,000 a year and you make 47,000, that's actually quite

nice for them, for some of them. If they make 50,000 and you're on the path to make 150, there could be a slight little thing in there, right? There could be a little hitch in the relationship where it's like, maybe you don't want to take that. Don't you want to just hang a little more? I don't know about this management shit, that management thing. Isn't that overrated? Are you really going to tell people like what to do? Come on, man. We're better than that. Yeah. We've, we probably all had that conversation with a friend before, but you make a good point. Yeah. Yeah. I guess you have to decipher if that's noise or not then in that moment. Right. You have to decipher if that's noise or not. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So let's go back to you and the signal

signal to noise ratio. Okay. So we've got noise. We're getting to the signal now. If I were to ask you like with great clarity, did you get lucky on your purpose? No, I never, no, I never felt like luck was a part of the journey for me so much. Cause I didn't have that. I didn't have clarity at seven. I wanted to, at seven, I wanted to, um, I was on a farm growing up on a farm and I wanted to, the trash truck would come around once a week. And I thought it was the most amazing thing. It was, it was loud. It was violent. It was aggressive. And it was at this machinery.

I was like, I'm driving trash trucks like that you know like well that's clarity maybe it was clarity i had clarity but you know it didn't stick and my parents were probably like okay you know nothing against drivers of trash trucks like my guy on my street right now is awesome um but like i don't know know. I, I don't, I didn't know until I was late in my twenties and then I still didn't even really know. Um, so how did it happen for you that you knew at a young age? Like how did that? I guess if luck is involved at all, that, that was it. I just, I just knew, I just knew. And I, you know, for a while I wanted to be a firefighter.

You know, they come to your school and you have these little moments, right? But I just, I was connected to animals. Do you think that when you said, I want to be an animal doctor, is that what you said? That your mom and dad went, oh, we got a doctor. Yes. And they nodded their head and had an affirmation and they're four feet taller than you and they're your protectors that there was a moment where like, that's aspiration. We can get down with that. Versus driving the trash truck. Right. You know, or like, you know, whatever, you know, so I wonder how much that shaping gets into it. Cause I didn't have that moment that you had. And, um And I'm not, I don't think there's a right

and a wrong, but I wonder what some of those secondary elements, you know, go into it. Again, my mom always maintained the happiness first mantra. That's the first principle for her. Yes. That success is found in happiness. What does that mean? Not the other way around. What does that mean to you? Well, I mean, I could have chased this thing because of prestige or money and then found out this is very empty feeling.

And some people do that. Some parents drive their kids like that. I see. That's right. You see it more than ever. We have a doctor. We have a lawyer. Right.

Or you're going to be a doctor. And this is why you're going to be a doctor. You're going to have a great life. And you're not going to struggle like we do. And then a kid chases that down and realizes this is not my calling and I don't like this. And I'm sure that happens a lot. My mom always fostered, you know, that's great. You love animals.

I had an aptitude for science. This is great. All right, let's do it. If you want to read more science books, I'll get them. Science was easy? Yeah, science came easy to me. Yeah. Easier.

I had a learning disability. I was dyslexic. So that was a little bit of a challenge through college, but which one, uh, I just numbers, letters, letters, letters. Yeah. And, and slow processing when I would read. Yeah. Uh, so when information was coming quick at times and it was written versus verbal, verbal is different. I could process verbally, but when it was written, I had a hard time. So I had to work through some of that. How'd you work through that psychologically? Well, they gave me tools when I was finally diagnosed in undergrad. Oh, so you, you, you battled this for nine, 12 years? Yeah, for a long time. And you didn't know, I didn't know. I didn't know. I didn't recognize it. No, I didn't know. I was,

I mean, I was flipping letters and doing at times obvious things, but it was never really pointed out to me by my teachers. And it went much deeper than that. Are you an introvert? Do you keep to yourself? Yeah, I kind of do. You probably wouldn't know that at times when I'm in front of people or I'm doing media. So you're an introverted feeler or an introverted thinker?

A feeler. You're an introverted feeler. You'reverted thinker? A feeler. You're an introverted feeler. You're an extroverted thinker. Yeah. You show people your intelligence, your thinking. But inside, you process emotions more privately. I do. I don't like to share as much.

Well, how about crying two times in the last 45 minutes? Yeah, right. Yeah, thank you for that, by the way. Yeah, right. Here we go, right on the edge thank you for that, by the way. Yeah, right. Here we go, right on the edge. How did you not let the tears come out, though? You were right up in it. It was in your throat, behind your jaw, behind your eyes.

How did you stop the tears from coming? I don't know. I guess because I said I'm not going to do it right here in front of you. I'll do it later. Oh, is that how you do it? Yeah, I just tell myself I keep it together. Keep it together. Even though I, what I started out not keeping it together, but what does together mean? Well, look, I, I've trained myself. I had to do it so many times at the shelter. I mean, I, when I'm,

when I'm euthanizing an animal or I'm watching my team euthanize an animal, we all, we're all there because we want to be around animals. That's the funny thing is people sometimes think, oh, you work at a shelter, you're a death dealer. No, a lot of the people that do it, get into it is because they want to help animals. They're there cleaning up the poop and walking the dogs and petting them and opening the cages. And, you know, they just want to be close to animals. And so when you have to put one down, the whole room is sad and me included. And so who takes care of you?

How do you get taken care of? I care of yourself when because you mentioned earlier that you were there that you had to take care of the intern or the young vet that is having a traumatic moment. And in that case, at the shelter, you don't have an owner, right? The owners are not there. That's a different experience. So you're taking care of them and you're taking care of the animal. What is your process?

I'm talking them through it if it's difficult and explaining why it's necessary or why we need to do this. And let's keep that in mind because emotions will run from you. So you're using logic to take care of that and you. Right. And then in the aftermath, there's depending what the emotions are like, I, it may be another conversation, but meanwhile, I'm inside, I'm feeling my own thing. Right. And that's when I would usually retreat to my office. I would do this thing every once in a

while where if I had a bad morning and I didn't want it to show, you know, it's, I would do this thing every once in a while where if I had a bad morning and I didn't want it to show, you know, it's, I think there are moments it's nice for the staff you're leading for their leader to show emotion, to show that you're human, we're connected that way. And I would- Why'd you use the word nice? I think it's nice. To? Oh, it's nice to, I think it's, I think it's important to connect with people. It's a different word than nice.

Yeah. I don't know why I use nice. It's, it's, it needs to be seen. It's. It does, doesn't it? Yeah. Yeah. Like I'm watching you work from an honest place and I go, that's fucking courage because the world is saying, keep it together, that narrative that you had, right? And actually what I want is I wanna be, I wanna know that someone's safe, that they're honest, that they're giving me the real thing.

And I'm not, they're not playing a second game on me. And I'm trying to wonder what's the second game. And so when people are purpose-driven, they've got work ethic, they've got some intelligence there. They want to be part of something special they got a craftiness to figure shit out as we go because no this book has not been written mine hasn't like yours hasn't so we got to figure it out as we go we're writing

chapters as we go so like i just want to know we're in it yeah they well they want to know i'm in it too and yeah and uh i'm not robotic and because that actually will make them feel crazy yeah right it could yeah you're right no no i'm gonna be emphatic it does because they look at you as the hero and you got it all buttoned up and then they're fucking wanting to fall apart. They say, I should be more like that. When actually, there's this middle ground between not falling into a thousand pieces because we got something we need to do, but at the same time feeling all of it. And then we know this from a research standpoint that when you name an emotion, it actually

dissipates. So that's part of emotional intelligence is that first you have to feel it to name it. And then when you can name it, it's not cathartic. There's a process when you name it, it just kind of takes the energy, it deflates it. And so that's how we move through emotional experiences, just naming it. And if you only have like pissed off as an emotion label and sad you know like it's pretty muted that's not sophisticated yeah at all and so you've got range dude i would let them see that was human and i we still have a job to do and it's okay to feel but um it's you know like yeah again my mom's a buddhist and she'd say feel just feel it and let it move through you. You know, if you're sad or if you're happy, you're upset.

Yeah. Don't don't dismiss it or ignore it, but feel it and move through it. And I, you know, I guess I would try and do that with my staff. Now, me personally, in trying to to to keep it together for them and myself, my little thing was I would I would retreat at times and I would just go. I had this one cage in the very back corner of the shelter that was usually empty. And, uh, I would go and I'd close myself in it and I would just have my moment. You know, again, I, you talk about balance. There's a balance between me falling apart in front of them. That's right. Which would lead to probably, it would just be a domino effect and, and make it harder for all of us to move forward and do our job. And me saying,

as a general, I'm going to just step away for a second and process it, and then we're going to come back and get back to work. And now one final word from our sponsors. Finding Mastery is brought to you by Cozy Earth. Over the years, I've learned that recovery doesn't just happen when we sleep. It starts with how we transition and wind down. And that's why I've built intentional routines into the way that I close my day. And Cozy Earth has become a new part of that. Their bedding, it's incredibly soft, like next level soft.

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I'd love for you to check them out. Head to calderalab.com slash finding mastery and use the code finding mastery at checkout for 20% off your first order. That's calderalab, C-A-L-D-E-R-L-A-B.com slash finding mastery. Let's jump right back into the conversation. Do you lean on the side of anxiety or depression if you were to lean on one of those two anxiety anxiety so more of a worry about things going wrong yeah then like um a malaise or downtrodden like it's it doesn't work out yeah i'm usually pretty positive i always typically believe things

are going to bounce my way and and and you worry that it might not. At times. Yeah. Yeah. So it's more optimism with some anxiety versus optimism with, with depression. Yeah. Yeah. Those are actually trickier optimism, but when you're forward leaning, um, when you're at your best, you're more optimistic. And when you're kind of at a lower version of yourself, you're, you're more anxious. Is that, oh, you're looking at me sideways. No, I'm trying to think through how I, yeah, I, I, yeah, probably more anxious. Yeah. I'm trying to think through how my anxious moments, what is it that's driving it? And I think I, I strive towards perfection sometimes too hard or expect it in myself. That's it.

More than others. What is the mental health in general for veterinarians? Oh, that's, um, that is a big subject because it's not good. It doesn't sound like it. It sounds like there's a Petri dish here, um, with some real toxins in it. Yeah. We have the highest suicide rate of any care profession. And amongst the general public, we are three to four times more likely to take our life. Three to four? Times more than just the average person sitting in this room. Whoa. Yeah. Well, that's a big number. Yeah. It's very high. And I've lost colleagues. So last year in the US, we had 40 some thousand suicides.

I don't know the exact number, but it was better than 40,000 in the United States. And a large percentage of them would be veterinarians. A disproportionate number. Yes. Yes. Holy moly. And is that because, I mean, the intuitive thing is that highly empathetic, highly trained, high work ethic, you take these very emotional, empathetic people. And I'm not disparaging my human counterparts who go into human medicine,

but I do think there is a difference between people that are driven towards animal medicine. It's a really interesting difference, isn't it? I think so. Do you know colleagues that have committed suicide? Veterinary? Yeah. That must beinary? Yeah. That must be scary.

Yeah, yeah. Well, I've had a brush with it myself. Oh, you have? Mm-hmm. I'm gonna pause. Do you wanna talk about that? Like how you navigated that or? Yeah, I talk about it in the book.

So it's out there now, I can. How did you, like it's, i lost a family member to it it's close to my heart too it's scarier than shit there's a hopelessness around the whole thing um why didn't you kill yourself it probably the support of people i had around me yeah yeah and so they somehow communicated to you. They got me help. They got your going to slam the pills and walk into the water. It's pretty specific. Yeah. And you didn't. So doctors are detailed.

Yeah. Right. Oh my God. Morbid. Yeah. Why, why didn't you do it though? In that moment, I was torn and maybe there was a larger part that just was calling out for help or I was just in that moment I felt so hopeless and I had a plan on what I could do to end the mental pain. But I didn't want that.

That wasn't what I didn't want to end your life. Yeah, I didn't want to end my life. I want to end the suffering or the thoughts that were just on repeat cycle for the last week. God, I hope people hear that right now. That's exactly, that is exactly it. I don't want to end this. I just don't know how to keep going. Right. I've run out of tools and options. I just don't know how to do this. Yeah. Yeah. Fortunately I, I went the other direction. I had someone pull me out and I got help and here I am. I'm very grateful. I don't know what to say. I see it in the streets with the people I help. They don't, they don't have the support that I had. And we wonder why these people living on a corner in a tent, no possessions, maybe no friends, no family, they turn to drugs or they turn to alcohol. I could tell you in a hot second, if I was in their position,

that would probably be me too. Just some kind of coping mechanism, right? Here's a cool thing about the work I do. The pets that I treat on the streets who are owned by these individuals, that is our coping mechanism. The pets. Yes. Oh my God. That is our outlet. That is our safety net. And they, and again, I didn't know a lot of this before I started doing the work 10 years ago. I've, I've been on a very generous learning curve. The, the pets provide them with the purpose many days to get up.

I don't know how many people I've, I've heard from that say, I probably just would have overdosed last night, but I knew how to get up and feed them. I love that. And just, and I don't, I don't love that they want to overdose, but that clarity that I'm, it was a purpose. Like I need to show up for, you know, Rover. They had, they had something that had to get done. I mean, we all know that purpose is necessary to keep moving forward as humans and whether it's a child or a job or a pet or, you know, it could be any number of things, but when you have no purpose, you feel completely hopeless. Then what? Right. Then what? Then it's like, well, no one cares if I'm here or not. What's what, what difference does it make? And

there was a, there was a guy who had been addicted to, in his words, about every substance you can think of every illicit drug you could name for 12 years, been in and out of therapy, taking drugs to get them off drugs. It's a cycle he was caught up in. And if I were to ask you rhetorically, do you think someone who's been stuck on drugs and tried every method to get off them could go cold Turkey after rescuing a little dog from a dumpster? Is that possible? Yeah. I mean, I would say no. And I would have said no too, until I met him. His name was Walter and he pulled this little puppy Dinker. He named Dinker out of a dumpster, scavenging for food. Dinker the dumpster dog. Yes. Yes.

And he said that day forward, he knew he had to get up and take care of Dinker. And when I met Walter and Dinker, Dinker was now seven years old. So seven years they'd been together and Walter had been clean for seven years. That is the power that I witness. I feel,, in, on the streets. That's why I continue to do the work. It's what motivates me. It, what it, it has me waking up on days where maybe I'm complaining about my coffee, not being made right. And I slap myself and think I, I, I am so privileged. I have such a fortunate life. And they remind me of that all the time because I've met people on the streets who are happier, more gracious, more

courteous, more hopeful than people who have more money than they know what to do with. Again, as a veterinarian and you're taught to be a responsible pet parent and owner that you should have resources and time and space. Yeah. But I've walked out, I've reversed that because what I've, what I've seen in these people is that resources, money aside, they give everything else in spades. And as I've said before, a pet doesn't really need like an acre of land and nice furniture, and they don't care about any of that. They want you, they pine for you. When I, when I drive away, my dog Cora, she's peeling back the curtains when she hears a garage door, but she's running. They want to be around you. And these folks give themselves to

their pets every day, 24-7 a day. They're together. That's why that bond, you know, we talk about this human-animal bond. It's sort of become cliche. I don't see it stronger in any other pairing in the work I've ever done in 25 years than these people and their pets. They're together every day. They know each other's emotions and movements, and they rely on each other. And the love is deep, and it's real. every day they know each other's emotions and movements and they rely on each other and the

love is is deep and it's real I talked about how they support one another right the hope the purpose the love they you know I I need my I love my dog but I've just seen it experience it in a very different way with these people and it And it's pretty beautiful to see. They need each other. And these folks are very deserving of their pets. That's amazing. That is awesome. It sounds like you have a clear understanding that they are great.

So let me ask you, Mike. Morris, who's over here sitting, looking at us, really cute. Yes. Can you say for certain that if you'd been out of a home for six months living under a rainy tarp and you were dirty and you finally got offered your transitional housing, but they didn't allow Morris. Probably not going. All right. You'd say you wouldn't go. Probably not going. Turn down the warm shower and the bed. And I'll tell you. What a great framing of a question. Well, and I'll say this because I would probably reflex, give the same answer,

but until you're actually living on the streets and all you want is a warm shower and a nice bed to sleep on, can you really answer that question? No. And then as the second beat happens, because there's a little privilege in my response, right? Is that I would like to think that I would be scrappy enough to figure out, hey, can you hold Morse for like a week or a couple of days and I just get cleaned up and then I'm coming back. And I would mean it. But then the other part of me would say,

I don't know if like Quan is gonna be a good dad to my dog here. I don't, man, I can't do that. So like it, that's a bind now, this love that I have on a daily basis and this connection between Morris and me. And then like, I'm going to go get okay, get warm and fed and he's going to be cold and wet. I don't feel right either. So that, that's a, that's a,

that's a real bind that you've put me in right now. Like if he hadn't eaten in a day, would you pass up a meal? I came across a guy who hadn't eaten. He said, I haven't eaten about a day and a half. Can you spare something? I returned with a sandwich, like a sub sandwich. He had wrapped it and he gave the whole sandwich to his dog. And he said, well, he hasn't eaten either. And he eats before I eat. I don't know if I could do that. I don't know if I'd been hungry for a day and a half, my dog had to, I would just pass over the entire meal to my dog.

That is what I see in the streets. The loyalty is, you'd have to be out there with me to understand it. Are you helping people or dogs? I mean, it's both. Indirectly, obviously, I'm helping the person. Occasionally what we'll do is – there was a skateboarder whose wheels had – for the last month and a half, his skateboard wasn't working. The wheels came off. I went and bought him a new skateboard or someone needed a new just a new sleeping bag it was torn and ripped and it was

the rain was getting i got them a sleeping bag a lady made it into transitional housing after five years on the streets and we bought her a new bed to go in her apartment so we do what we can the charity is obviously committed to helping the pets, but there's a humanity, obviously, you can't ignore when you meet these people. I would love, you know, this is not something that can probably actually happen, but there are so many people with so much that are really struggling. I just wish they could hang out with you for a couple hours, be part of your work. Just come to the street yeah like i don't tell me about the the structure of the work that you're doing and how people can be involved but i was being even more um concrete saying just be around you and watch you work and hear you think and watch you feel and see how you

care and the honesty of like yeah my coffee's cold. So what? Like, that's, that, that's not what this is over here, you know? And like, I'm so glad you're here. Thank you. Yeah. I, you know, the biggest lesson for me, the coolest thing I would say is going back to my kids and what do I hope to leave them with? I'll take some of these stories and we'll be sitting around a dinner table. And instead of complaining about something, I get to share with them the most riveting event in the past 48 hours of my life and who I met and why this person is so special and how they have nothing. And yet they shook my hand and they hugged me and they said, I'm going to get off the street and I still have my life and I still have breath. And when I share those stories, they, you know, you know, they nod and they get it. And, and, and I get it. I get it more and more every time. I haven't seen it all or learned it all.

I can't claim that. But what I've been taught by these people and this experience is it's changed my life. I do find that when I get to recount people that are amazing that I get to meet and share those insights with others, kids, my son or my family or whomever, I'm better for the retelling of it. And tonight at my dinner table, I get to talk about you. Dr. Stewart, yeah, thank you for being here. Thank you for the way that you've shared how your life

um how you've designed your life and the purpose underneath of it the pain you've experienced the courage to be able to express it modern leadership looks just like you and um it is what the world is calling for and thank you for writing your book. Your story will be told in, I'm sure, many fashions moving forward, like your story. I know you didn't design this thing for your story to be told, but it must be. It must be told. And can you share any highlights

about what activities happened in your life that you never thought was even possible for you? Well, uh, yeah, I've been nominated to be a CNN hero of the year, which is sort of a big prestigious honor. And, uh, doesn't that make perfect sense though? After the last 45 minutes of this conversation, it makes perfect sense. Yeah. I, I don't know. There's still sort of pinch me moments. And, and, you know, the one thing I'll share with you quickly is I did the work secretly for seven years. I didn't tell anybody. Yeah. That's even better. That's what's up coming out of the shelter. Cause that's, that's purpose. That's not for flash. It's not for,

you know, public. It wasn't for anybody, but, really, and the people I was, the pets I was serving. I, you know, that moment after 7-Eleven, I had that clinic that you mentioned at the homeless food bank. And I thought, this is great. I can do more of this. And I can do this in my free time whenever I have time. And I did. I did it for seven years before I really told a soul.

Didn't tell my brother. I have one younger sibling who helped me establish the charity Project Street Vet. Didn't tell him. Didn't tell my brother. I have one younger sibling who helped me establish the charity Project Street Vet. Didn't tell him. Didn't tell my partner. Didn't tell my kids. It was a way for me to heal and it was mine and only mine. And I didn't want to be around a dinner table or a gathering and share what I do and then get judged myself. I didn't want someone to say, why are you helping those people? They don't even deserve to have pets. Why would you spend your time doing that? I didn't want to be discouraged. It wasn't, no, it was, I knew what I was doing was important. It was necessary. And I was going to do, I also didn't, I never

wanted to tell my mom intentionally because could you imagine telling your mom, Hey, I got this, this cool idea. I'm going to, I'm going to throw a bag of drugs over my shoulder and I'm going to walk some of the most dangerous, impoverished areas of LA and find pets and see what happens. She was like, hell no. You're not, you're not doing that. This is not the path. No, no, that's not safe. You're not doing it. So. I understand you might be happy son, but this is. So it benefited me by never, by never telling anybody.

And then the word got out and really because I financed it out of my own pocket for the seven years. So how can we help you? How can we support? Yeah, we're running donations. It's a, and you know, when it comes to animal causes, people are very generous in this country. We're a pet, pet loving nation.

Yeah. And I've, I've never taken any money for myself. I volunteer my time when I do the work, and will continue to. All my veterinarians who come on and do the work, and the nurses and technicians, we all volunteer our time. So we can stretch a dollar. I can take $100, and you can't imagine what I'd do for that. But we also get these animals into nearby hospitals for surgeries or procedures.

They need a tumor removed. They need their teeth cleaned. So that's part of what the funding goes for. Yeah, a lot of it goes. In medicine. Yeah, in the medications, obviously. So the biggest lift, the payroll part of it, we don't have that.

These are people who've reached out to me around the country, veterinarians who say, I want to do this in my neighborhood. So what does the structure look like? A vet will call you and say, I want to be part of Street Vet or Project Street vet, you know? And so you say, great. You know, are you any good? Or like, what do you, what's the criteria for them? Well, the criteria is a licensed veterinarian. So that the board does most of the work for me. If you're a licensed veterinarian, you have some experience. Meaning the board of veterinary medicine.

Right. I just licensed veterinarians in your state, in your area. And where do they go? Projectstreetvet.com? Projectstreetvet.org. .org. Okay. You can reach out and one of us will get back to you. The best part of my model is I'm not paying anybody.

These are people reaching out to me because they're passionate. They want to do it. And then what do they do? They walk the neighborhood with a bag of medicine like you talked about. And they find a person without a home, not homeless. Yeah, unhoused or someone experiencing homelessness. And you find that person that has a pet, and you say, hey, can I help?

It's that simple. And then they must look at you like, are you my angel? No, I've gotten strange looks, because it's like, oh, I'm dropping from the sky. And I'm walking down an alley and I'll turn and right behind a dumpster, there's someone sleeping with their dog. And, you know, sometimes it's like, whoa, what are you? And I just, you know, very sort of sincerely announce who I am. I'm Dr. Kwan Stewart.

I'm a veterinarian. I just walk the area looking for pets that have needs. And I give free medical care if you'd like it. And 99% of the time they nod their head. I don't, there's no more chit chat for the moment. I take out my stethoscope, I get to one knee and I get to work. And once they see I'm legit, then the door, this trust, very trusting door opens. And we just start talking like two people. I take a history, like I'm in my clinic and I've sat there for two hours and talk to people. I mean, once it it's, it's amazing how quickly we bond through their pets and the pet is getting care and they're like, Oh, he's had this problem

for two years. I can't believe you're here. And, and, uh, yeah, it's that simple. You are wonderfully built for this. Like this is this to feel that this is how you're spending your life and what a meaningful way to do it. And that you're creating a platform and not a platform, but a structure for others that have a similar passion to do it there's a system now and it's uh yeah they call me up i we get them sort of a tool basic kit with medications and i'll instruct them on how to do it do it safely find areas that you feel safe and start delivering care you can host clinics and i just give them a blueprint and they're often running we're in what was once a one-man band right here in skid row in la uh for 10 years with just me by myself has now grown to to LA, San Diego, up to San Francisco. We're in Atlanta, Orlando, DC. Come on, let's blanket. And we're just going to keep going.

So you're not international. That gets maybe a little bit trickier, but wouldn't that be fun? Because we've got a global audience. Oh, OK. Well, I get DMs and calls and emails from people around the world asking to bring the service to them. I that's the dream. Yeah. Okay. So I wish, uh, I wish, I wish we had a way to kind of track how strong our community is, but I'm bullish that folks listening are like,

yeah, I got it. I got a hundred bucks. I got a couple hundred thousand. I got something for you. So whatever that range might be. Thank you. Thank you, Mike. Thank you. I know this has been great.

Yeah. I appreciate it. Yeah. This is incredible. All right. Thank you so much for diving into another episode of Finding Mastery with us. Our team loves creating this podcast and sharing these conversations with you. We really appreciate you being part of this community.

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