BBT Ep. 22: Dr. Azza Diasti-Kennedy

In this episode we sat down with Dr. Azza of Pet Harmony, an upcoming telehealth app connecting pets and pet-parents with veterinarians.

Listen on Spotify: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/better-billing-today/episodes/Ep--22-Dr--Azza-Diasti-Kennedy-e2bvn77

Watch on YouTube: https://bit.ly/40Gjkq3

Transcript:   

 Welcome to this episode of the Better Billing Today podcast. I'm your host, Adam Whelchel from Spark Billing Services. On this show, we're talking to owners and operators of small clinics and practices, helping them improve the patient financial experience, optimize their business, and improve their cashflow.

A few days ago, I interviewed Dr. Aza, a veterinarian from Cairo, Egypt, who came to the U. S. to get education and an opportunity. I can't wait for you to hear her story and how she not only overcame all of the obstacles being a minority, a single mother, new in town and new in the discipline of taking care of animals professionally as a veterinarian, but I also can't wait for you to hear how she's transforming this industry and it will never be the same. And here's our interview with Dr. Aza.

Dr. Aza, very nice to meet you.

Very nice meeting you too, Adam.

Yeah, I loved what Chris was saying that you have a pretty great background and sounds like you're on a journey and you're going through different stages of your business. And on this show, we've, we're talking to owners and operators of clinics, practices, and a lot of times small business just in general, because billing and customer relationship management doesn't have any boundaries.

It's going to pervade every Industry. And it just applies itself differently for different medical practices. So for your business, you're, you specialize in animal healthcare. But I would imagine that a lot of small business owners and many of our audience that there's like stages that you've taken your practice, not just your business, but yourself where maybe you started on the journey of, I'm a technician, I deliver services.

And then this transition to business owner. And this is what I'm so fascinated about. This is what I'm trying to dig out of if my guests and find out more about that journey, because our business happens to provide tools to a lot of our audience that helps them become that business owner and leverage systems and processes and vendors and partnerships. While we don't do medical billing for animal health, I would just love to hear more about your journey as a student and then a technician and then seeing Opportunities just pop in front of you and sounds like you've just taken advantage of them and you've just jumped on those opportunities.

And what's, can you start at the beginning?

Absolutely.

Thank you so much for having me on today. I really appreciate it. Yeah. So basically my journey goes back to where I was born. I was born in Egypt in a small town. And my father had a farm that had all type of animals, large animals, small animals, dogs, cats all types of creatures.

In childhood, I was just working with animals, loving them, taking care of them. I think I remember I was like a little kid, like six, seven, even five. We had donkeys and horses and, all that stuff. And we also had vets that came to the farm to take care of our animals as well; whether the large animals or the dogs and cats.

And this is where my love and passion for pets were what was born in my childhood. And actually in high school, I decided that this is what I'm going to have to pursue. Because that's what I love. That's what I've always seen. And I always wanted to rescue them and help them and be there for them.

And I also, back then, I saw how hard it was distance wise 'cause we were like in a in a far village that was two hours away from the city. So access to veterinary care then was almost impossible. Like the vet will come let's say once a month; so not when the pet was sick. So we had to come up with a home remedies and ways.

To honestly help the pets and take care of 'em until the vet can have transportation ways to come or call us on on a phone or something. It was just like really hard to communicate and help the pets. That's back then. And so in my head I was like, there is any way, a better way to actually have access to pet care 24 seven, not even 24 seven, like maybe a couple of days a week instead of once a month, so that thought was in my head since childhood because I saw a lot of animals suffered being sick and ended up dying and I couldn't help them or got sick and ended up doing well, but just the suffering that I saw really was painful for me to see. And this is where really my passion for trying to find a better solution to help pets was born.

And then I went on to high school, and I got admitted to Cairo University for vet school, and I got a scholarship, a full ride; I was very lucky. I then graduated from Cairo University, and then came to the, migrated to the U. S. and started the journey of doing my, national board exams, it has a different name now. And then I finished my clinical training at Cornell University and then graduated in 2001 from the clinical program and came back to Florida.

I moved to Florida where I got my first job and started working in Tampa, Florida, and also started working, I had two jobs, one in Lakeland, as a matter of fact and one in Tampa and at the time, also, I had two kids. So between doing my clinical years and raising my two kids as a single mom as well too and I'm going to get into that about also how difficult for women the traditional vet care is today for women like me with families and struggling to make it as well in that profession.

So basically I started working in vet clinics, but I ended up buying the small clinic that I was working at and it became my first veterinary business. And it was really a little bit struggling, but I turned it around to become a very successful business. And we moved on to build a state of the art facility as well, and called it Lakeside Animal Hospital; that was my second practice. And in 2018, I was acquired by a private equity firm. They've been amazing and I'm still continue to have relationship with them.

And when I was acquired, I, worked for for them for two years and I've decided that the traditional way of doing business and my struggle while I was working as a single mom and a business owner, the struggles was still there. And then also when I got acquired, I don't think the struggles was resolved. Even with all the money that a private equity brought it didn't change much as far as technology work life balance how can we empower women? How to break ceiling for women's leadership positions and empower them that was not there.

So I thought, I'm sure there is a better way that we can advance the traditional way of veterinary medicine. So I've decided to pursue an MBA. I applied to several schools and I got lucky to get admitted to MIT. And the reason why I really wanted to get to MIT specifically, because I thought that the veterinary medicine was lacking a lot of we needed technology to enhance how we are working today and I thought maybe integrating advanced technology, AI, machine learning at home monitoring tools, it just can be transformative to the pet care landscape.

And it makes a, of course, more proactive, data driven, personalized, and enhances the quality of life for pets and offer convenience and peace of mind for pet owners. And I thought for me, and in order for me to do that, I really need to go to a school that understands all this data stuff and technology, and there's no better school than MIT to do that.

So I got lucky. And I got in and I spent the best two years of my life. learning, how can I integrate technology and how can I bring tools to advance our traditional veterinary medicine and how the clinics are set up? And I'm talking about my two clinics that I had. It was like really old school business running and all that stuff.

And so that's how the general story, and this is what inspired me to build my my Pet Harmony app. Which is actually the idea came even before Covid. I got in 2019 just before Covid hit. I even presented the idea and my pitch deck every class at my MBA class at MIT, everybody's looking at me, it's what are you saying? What do you mean? Why do you think? I would definitely go to the vet. I would not do like on the phone visit. There's no way. And I was like, no, there is a way. So I think a few months later COVID came and everybody was so interested and start listening to my presentation and my pitch deck and all that stuff.

And this where Pet Harmony was born. Thank you. After I graduated in 2000 2021, I started working trying to find, development company and all that stuff. So I started building 2022 and it's now becoming a really beautiful app to hopefully do all the things, all the dreams that I always dreamed to have to advance the pet care.

And the landscape of back here, but also make it so convenient and accessible and affordable for pet owners. So basically what we do is yeah and I can go a little bit, I can go on and on that, but I will pause here. So if you have any more questions,

That is such a fascinating story!

There's so much in there that I just had question after question pop up, but I was like, I couldn't interrupt you. It was too good. I want to go back to your story about you came to the U S you you came back, you came down to Florida and you launched your first practice.

You first started as an employee of another practice and then you bought your first business. Did you go into that practice with a specific plan with, I know what, I feel like I know what's wrong and why this practice isn't thriving and I feel like I have a good idea of what it would take to turn that around.

Did you, were you surprised that it was wrong, were you wrong? And if you were, like what was the thing that you felt was the biggest contributor to turning that practice around?

That's such a great question, honestly. Of course, when I got out of school, I was like, it was like a big, that was a big huge undertaking, it was a huge deal for me, be as a mom and busy and taking the business and I go there, I was like, to be honest every Successful vet clinics was next to me.

They're amazing, very established great guys. I hate to say, white men, like everybody knows them. They hang out with them, that their kids go with, the same school and all that. And here I come someone, young who is A heavy accent and, and then I, I stay in a clinic next to those amazing, incredible big guys that I was like, of course, they're not going to come to me.

They're not going to knock on my door. And a problem too, that the little shack in the plaza, we're just like, I was talking to my friend about it yesterday. As a matter of fact, I met one of the, my own my, the owners that used to come and he used to feel sorry for me because all the doors were so broken.

And she would send her husband to fix all the broken doors and make it look pretty. I would hire people to paint. So I started okay, I think that my competitive advantage here is I just have to give it all to be nice and to love pets and do what it takes and be there for them during business hours after hours on the weekend.

That's the only, cause I definitely care for them. Caring about them, caring about their paths, that's what's going to give me a competitive advantage. And I, that's what I believe in, and that's what I love to do, right? So I did what I loved, is cared about them, but also cared about their life and their personal life as well.

And it doesn't seem like caring is a huge item on your P & L, it's not like a huge expense that you have to budget for and that you have to figure out if it's going to work caring enough about the patient always works.

I cannot agree more. And it worked back then when I cared about the pets and I can see when they're sick, but I even.

The touch the attention, even when you care about your friends in school, you care about your family, you care about your children at home. It's just it's a sure way to really win people over. But not just only that, it just gives you a peace of mind. You go home and you can sleep.

You can feel like you've done something great and giving and caring is giving, right? And that's the only thing I had. I had to have no money. I had no power. I am I have my accent. I have I'm a foreigner. I have really nothing on me, but to really I was like, okay, I'm just gonna do what I feel good and what I know what to do and be polite, be giving, take care of those pets, make sure that if I do something, I'm going to do 200%. And that's what I did. And that's how I won my client over, to be honest with you. It just started growing and growing from almost nothing to really became substantial growth, which is I was.

I was really surprised because I didn't even think of money. I thought i'm just gonna do my job And I didn't even think of the whole business thing like the outcome or any of that and that's how I started I didn't get nice gadget. I didn't have a beautiful building I didn't have I was so poor to get a big sign outside I didn't have the social life that all my other, you know how You didn't have social media, but you have the networking life and the social.

Yeah, there, there weren't the country club memberships that just gave you guaranteed clients, right?

Never had that. Never did that. I didn't even know what country clubs means, and I was like, I learned that later when I became one now, but I was like, Oh, okay.

Yeah. And it's such a different story than the person who says, I went to my investment advisor and we took out, a million dollars and I brought my CPA in and we did some financial planning.

And then I brought my marketing guy and business, starting a new business, starting a new practice is sometimes it's that grit, that caring, that hustle and that desire to do your best because you love what you do. And there is no business plan that can really write that out for you.

And I think there's a, many of our listeners are on that same trajectory, but here's what you did that I really want to understand. You did something that was so you, like you had your plan, your way of building your practice, and then you duplicated yourself. And that's such a hard thing to do when you feel like your identity is built into that practice.

How do you, as a provider and a business owner look through that lens because many people who have such a desire to serve and have that caring factor don't always make that transition to duplication. So how did you expand and what was the process for you? Was it easy? Was it hard?

It was honestly I had a mindset that's going to be the only way to do it is to expand because expansion meaning that you're Providing access of care to other pets and pet owners. That's what expansion meant. You're not just serving your country club people. You're giving access. Providing better pricing.

Accessibility. Affordability was a pricing that comes. Convenience. Being there for them, whether you go to Publix and it's Hey do you know you saw the pet was still not doing? No. What should I do? It's I would stay in there. My kid, my kids were like sitting on the cart, shopping cart.

And it's no, we're going to have to make sure she's doing okay. And, and like simple things like that, that really what builds relationship and builds business. And I had no other option, but to do this. And you don't think about money. Money is not the ultimate goal. Money comes when you're doing what you love and when you give and care about people.

Things will happen at the end of the day. And I didn't really think, I was like, Oh my God, I'm going to be a multi million dollar practice. I'm going to be the breakthrough. That was not in my head. I just focused on the right thing. I did it every minute of the day by day, month by month; continued to be consistent.

If I get a call at 1 a. m. in the morning, because everybody got my cell phone, I responded to that call. If they needed me for a house call for euthanasia, because they wanted to have the kids available and they didn't want to disturb their pets, and want to make sure that the pet will go home, comfortably. I always had my house call back and whether during my lunch hour when I, or after the clinic hours or in the weekends. Always done that and you didn't think of multiplication or, metrics or any of that.

You weren't tracking, you weren't tracking the KPIs, you just know.

Not in the first practice for sure.

Yeah. This is fascinating. You've basically told me that if you didn't expand, you wouldn't be fulfilling your purpose and that caring was, if you really did care, you would have to expand because you were not able to serve enough people with as much love and care as you wanted to and you and your business is very unique where you're not just serving animals. You're serving a family.

I can just see, your way of operating is now a brand where people are like, this is you, this is Dr. Azza's, clinic. And this is the way we treat our families, not just our animals. And, there is a place for finance.

There is a place for business acumen. There's you being a business person, but still pushing with this innate passion. Did you have to ignore business policy and best practices or did you acknowledge that it's just part of the process and you just did what you had to do on the business side?

Where did you fit the business expertise, if you will, into the equation of expansion and caring?

That's awesome. Honestly, I'm so happy that we're having this conversation because basically when I thought about it is when you deliver whether human health care or pet health care you are not selective.

You're like, Oh, I'm just going to only help that guy that have the money or can pay me. And if the other pet or the other person is so sick, Oh, you can just go, I'm not going to open. So for me, accessibility access to pet care, I felt like everyone deserves it. In the beginning, like when my first practice, I made my prices, my hours accessible.

So it can, even if they cannot even access my prices. At the time I always had wellness plans, so I didn't forget about my business because I had to also have, rent to pay electric, my staff, my overhead, the operation cost, all that stuff. Of course, that was in mind but I made it more flexible that every pet owner can honestly afford it.

So I provided the tools to make it so much easier, like almost like 100 percent easier. So there's no one can be denied access to pet care.

Wow.

And that's how I really built my first practice, but also my second practice. But also that's how it brought me down. Like, how can I just not just provide access to pet care in Tampa, Florida?

How can I just do it nationwide? worldwide. How? Why not? Pet owners cannot have access to pay to pet care, affordable pet care. Why do they have to stress every time they go to the vet's office? All that stuff. You probably you picture this or you've seen this.

I've had quite a few animals.

That's packed waiting rooms and long waits for simple checkups. And then also stressed out pets; nobody likes it. Not us, not our third babies, right? And so it almost becomes like you're going to have to find a way. It takes weeks right now to even have to get an appointment with a veterinarian, right?

And then you go in for a simple problem. It ends up to be a very pricey appointment. It's becoming impossible to have access. And me alone with my vision with a clinic or two, it's not going to solve the problem. And it cannot just change everyone's mentality or private equity mentality; it's just like a different model. But I like, this is where also talking about me when I told you that like I've been a single mom with two children that is like they were, young, like two and five. I wish I had my Pet Harmony platform app back in the days.

I would have had more time for, I would have had more me time. I would have had more flexibility with my kids. I would have volunteered in their schools; I would have done a lot. For working women and working vets, more than 80%, probably more than 85 percent of the graduate class or the new and the student, or even in women, not just vet women, also technicians, like the nurses, our staff in vet clinics are women looking for flexibility, looking for work life balance like me and nobody providing that for us.

It's becoming a challenge for our field. And the leadership that's taken, it's always the men that taken the leadership. And then we're like workhorses every day in clinics to support all the expansions that they're opening clinics also to support the adoption rate because adoption rate has increased tremendously since after COVID, and then it becomes like a trend, like every pets brings so much joy and love and healing to our life. And also it teaches kids responsibility and emotional balance for our family.

It's so important to have a pet in your life. Like it becomes part of our family. So being providing accessibility and easy pet healthcare, it should become a must. And that's how I look at it, to be honest.

You said a few things that that made me, take a step back and look at your business, but also just many of the clients that we've talked to on this show and our listeners, technology and finance and probably good location.

Those things; you need them, but if you do those things without care, without purpose, those things don't seem to matter as much. And I can, from your story, it sounds like you've made care the foundation and then you'll add business, excellence and you'll add technology.

Now you're going to add innovation and AI and, but without that first ingredient, it seems like you wouldn't get very far in any business. And I love that you just brought that forthright to the meeting. This was all about, passion and a purpose. In, in the face of that, when you're building your practice and you're finding your way in business were there any maybe advice that people gave you that you just had to either ignore or you actually tried it and it didn't work?

For me specifically, there's a few things. So my staff, but also the people outside of that, when I when I expanded I was like, are you crazy? Like you have two children, like you're running like insane.

You didn't have time to run the operation. And then at the same time, you bought a land and you're building this next door clinic because you were, you want to expand because that little clinic is not enough for you anymore. So you're expanding. So that was like, you're, there's no way you can handle this as a woman, which is seriously, that was, I was like, okay.

I just, I cannot listen to what I respect what people say and I can take it in consideration, but it doesn't mean that I will go by it. So of course , I was very determined, just know what my goal is and there's always a light at the end of the tunnel; to provide a better place for my clients.

It was horrible. Like the clinic smelled, it was like a little shack. The pets will start fighting cause I didn't have a separate room before the cats and the dogs. I was like, Oh my God, they're not going to continue to come here just because I'm nice. So I have to provide a nicer environment too.

And expand my clients as well, and that's what I did. So they said there's no way you're gonna get a loan for the property that you paid and I was able to get a loan and pay for their land, but also get a loan to pay for the building Which was not cheap, and I agree with them. That's just a big undertaking. It's a lot of financial responsibility and interest rate was just very expensive like them as well too. But, you learn how to, adapt and. And save money and all that stuff.

The second thing is when I did a lot of when people would come and say, Hey I saved this pet from the street and I cannot afford it, would you help me? And of course, my staff will go crazy, "you're so nice. You're so gullible. I cannot believe you're giving your service for free. I cannot believe this. This is horrible." And I was like, you know what, we'll all have to give on a daily basis, something, whether you go give to your charity or you feed a homeless or you take care of a stray pet.

This is my way of giving like every day, when somebody comes in need of something, that's actually the, it's easy because they come to me. So I don't even have to go look for actual charity outside. So this became part of my, Way of daily giving to people who were in need.

But guess what? Every time I did that with a client, they would send me 10 more and then they continued to come. When things got better or they got their job back, they always came and paid the regular prices and became my best clients. So I never was worried about that. So those are the two things that I thought I'm gullible, I'm naive, I'm this and I'm taking too much risk. I'm taking too much loans. How are you going to do this with having two children and all that stuff, but all worked out at the end of the day.

Because your intentions, if your intentions are well, and you give it 200 percent every day to try to do good in life, I think things will work out. And that comes to something called risk taking. So in order to do something well, you have to take risks.

Yeah, you can't grow in the comfort zone, right? If you're not afraid, if you're not on the edge and a little bit scared, maybe you're not doing enough and you know you're not reaching your potential.

So a hundred percent you have to keep pushing, and the comfort zone comes, like it gets comfortable. Then you push again. Then you push harder. Because that's the only way for us to even have an impact, right? And without that, how are we going to have impact and help others, right? And that's not what, it's a belief system and mindset.

Speaking of impact and belief and mindset, does that come naturally?

Or did you plug into either people, mentors, systems? How did you get the belief level high enough? to, see yourself through those expansions. Cause those expansion zones are not fun and they are isolating. They can be, they can, you can lose friends, support, you can get naysayers, you can get the haters, you can get the doubters and it's lonely out there.

So what systems or mentors or, you don't have to mention names, but, how did you get through those expansion zones?

Honestly, I have to agree with you. It can be, being a founder. Whether in a tech place or in a small business or a medium sized business, it can be very lonely place, very lonely, but I got my upbringing, I had a very ambitious mother, she would always like push me to be my best.

She's a bit of hard on me, of course, and hard on, we were six kids. "Okay, your way out of all this is, your way out of struggle is to work hard and don't listen to anything negative, just focus, any, and don't ever be a victim, whether you move to the U. S., you move back to Egypt, you move anywhere, you are not a victim, you're smart, you're strong, you're not missing anything."

So whether a man or a woman, there's no doubt like you have to believe in yourself and look at the light at the end of the tunnel and don't listen to a lot of noises. And that's what she really instilled in me was hard work and confidence and then work ethics was just, of course, there's no doubt.

And I think that helped my children as well. I did not worry about people telling me, Oh, I'm not going to come to you because your accent is from Egypt and I don't deal with those people or I'm good. And I had got a lot of that, but that did not stop me from helping others or being a good citizen and helping my community.

Those are like, this is my community. This is where I live. And I want to, I want to. Not just care about them, but also you want to have an impact on the community so they cannot listen to negative things like that.

Yeah, it's very important. So you've made this journey; you weren't born here, but you made, your life and your career here.

You were a single mother with children in your own business. You had to overcome the expansion from one location to another, getting funding, getting financing, getting support from your peers, getting clients and customers to trust you and keep coming back.

And despite all of those hurdles that you mentioned on the show already now that you've gone through these different expansion zones and you've, you've grown and you've gotten to the point where you can impact the whole entire world. This is such a unique, such a beautiful story.

You're not resting on the success that you've had. Sounds like you are going to keep going and break into the cloud with animal health care. So that must be a frightening experience; you're already mentioned you're a minority, you're a woman you were single for a while, like you've had all these things; Do those things get you ready for this one? Does this just feel like another? "Oh, this is just another thing I do" and are you scared to enter into this new space or do you have this? Have you learned enough that you just know what to do now?

I think that I felt that the problem in veterinary medicine hasn't been resolved yet with the traditional medicine and, for our pets to get an access to pet care, our clients or pet owners getting still stressed out and it's getting very expensive. You go in for a simple visit like I mentioned, it turns out to be $600 at urgent care or E.R., or thousands of dollars at night. So I feel like the stress is still there. There's no solution to accessibility and affordability, and that's my mantra. That's what I, that's my commitment and my mission is I wanna do it in a bigger scale.

How can I expand from Odessa, Florida with two practices to helping the pet care and have accessibility to pet care and affordability to pet care in the entire world, in the U. S. and global? And that's what I'm trying to do. I'm not trying to do anything different, I'm just trying to do what I did when I started in my two practices, but in a bigger scale through technology.

And that's how this is going to transform veterinary medicine. The evolution and the transformation are going to happen through technology. So technology can offer the things that I mentioned in the beginning. All this, the convenience for pet owners, the peace of mind, the accessibility, the affordability.

For vet clinics, it's continuity of care, increased retention rate. efficiency because those hard working vets flooded with appointments on calls, turning passion into a burnout. The women looking for flexibility and work-life balance; we're not getting that.

But a platform like this, like a telehealth or telemedicine that we can integrate to clinics that's gonna create a lot better different type of jobs for women. They can work two days or three days in a clinic, but the rest can be on online. The efficiency in vet clinics would be amazing because we will take care of all the simple stuff that can be handled online. That's not even that financially feasible, and focus on the in person stuff like surgeries stuff that really must be in person.

So we're not actually taking business away from that clinics. We are not competing with them; we're collaborating. We're helping them prosper and become more efficient.

Yeah, that sounds like it's going to be a win for the animal, the family, the technicians, the vets. And, again, going back to my question was like, this is not natively your strong suit. You didn't go to school for programming. You're coming from that, I have care, not just for animals, but I have care for technicians, I have care for, accessibility, affordability. And you've contained all of your passions into one project.

But where, this is a new space, again, this is dominated by people who look like me. And this is dominated from people with different backgrounds and different resources. And so how are you breaking into this and disrupting this industry? What is your angle?

How do you wake up every morning and just keep going through this?

When women see someone like me making it out there. And making sure that I am going after my belief, they will get inspired. It's just like setting a good example for all the women out there. It's becoming industry now.

And because of a lot of amazing women that came before me as well. So now it's diverse and getting to be diverse, but how can we provide the tools for them in the future?

So this is part of your example setting, like not, okay, you've you have animals, you have technicians, and now you've broadened the scope of care, not just to vets and to animals, but to women everywhere and anybody who is being told that maybe you can't be successful in something and it sounds like you've expanded this to just being, a brand of purpose.

It's empowering women everywhere. Like our vet nurses, they're just incredible. They have so much knowledge and so much potential, but it just went like always undermined. They would get paid like minimum wages. I had the same problem with family. A lot of them would be single moms or couldn't even meet their salary, couldn't even afford to even get a car.

It's very problematic and we need to empower them. We need to pay them well, we need to break the ceiling so they can get leadership positions. And that's my mission, not just the vets, because the vets can make a little bit better living for them. But my mission, it's also to help our vet nurses, our vet staff, our receptionist, our kennel technicians that takes care of our pets all day long; they're underserved and they're not appreciated. They are our gold mine in this business.

Without them, I cannot do surgery. Without them, I cannot hold the pet. Without them, I cannot open my door and practice. How can we pay them less? How can we treat them like a minimum wage workers, which is almost like that has to change.

And I'm after it and empowering women, not just in veterinary field, in every field, because women now, they become the provider in the family. And if they're not taking enough, then how are we gonna, unfortunately in veterinary medicine, there is still the the pay disparity, like men gets paid more than women, and that has to end.

It's getting a little better because there's awareness, but still there. So setting an example so I don't even have to be born in the U. S. to, to fight for all women, and I'm talking about women just in the U.S., but women in general.

Dr. Aza we've gone through so much of your history, your successes and now your new frontier, which is technology and breaking every mold that there is in that industry, not just for animal care and accessibility and affordability, but it sounds like you're breaking the mold for the technicians and even the business model for veterinarians to be successful if you have a remote city in the United States, you no longer are limited to just serving that zip code of clients.

You now can compliment your practice with a remote practice. So you're really transforming an entire industry. It's very exciting. And I can't wait to see what happens next for you.

Before we go, there's probably somebody listening who has an idea; They think they could make a difference either locally or, on a larger scale. But ,they're just not sure how to get started. They're not sure what, how to get out of that comfort zone, but you've done it so many times. So can you just give us one thing that you would tell that person listening, who is thinking about doing something to improve their business, improve their family, improve their life and improve their industry and their community?

Honestly what I would advise or say, find something you're passionate about, something that you're good at and focus on it. And continue with it and believe in it. Say that if you're passionate about something, it will never be a job or never be a business. And you're going to start making money because it's not about the top line or the bottom line.

It's about passion and people will believe in you more when you're passionate and when you're giving when you're good at something that you're going to get a lot of traction, you're going to get a lot of believers and that how we're going to get empowered. And that's my advice to every woman and man out there.

And work hard, and don't give up right away. Even if people tell you that you're not good at it or you just keep trying. The first time is not enough. You have to try 10 times, 20 times and you will get there.

That's awesome. Thank you so much, Dr. Aza. This has been probably one of my favorite episodes so far. I love connecting with people who are just living and, there was work other people might call it work, but it is living and it is exciting to watch and learn from others. And I can't wait to see what happens with Pet Harmony.

Thank you so much, Adam. It was a pleasure talking with you and sharing my story. Thank you so much.

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