VET EMPOWERED
Leaders in personal development and coaching.
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ABOUT US
Learn more about the team at Vet Empowered
ABOUT US
Vet Empowered was founded in 2020, as a collaboration between Katie Ford and Claire Grigson - both experienced vets and coaches. They have run multiple, highly successful waves of group coaching, and are excited to continue to impact the veterinary profession in a positive way. Since then, Vet Empowered has grown, now also providing CPD, workshops, events and collaborating with companies to provide support to their teams.
"We truly believe that everyone should have the chance to reconnect with themselves and understand what is truly important to them as individuals, treating themselves with compassion as they raise their self-awareness. The gift of coaching and holding space to consider this can be pivotal both inside and outside of work. We work with people beyond their job titles, and feel privileged that our veterinary experience adds in a relatable, mentorship aspect to our work too. Although we have worked with a wide range of professionals, we find that the majority of our clients are early career professionals; a fantastic time to go through this experience."
Katie Ford & Claire Grigson
Vet Empowered Founders
Both founders of Vet Empowered have experienced the lifechanging effects of coaching, and still continue to work with their own coaches and mentors.
Dr. Katie Ford
BVSc CertAVP(SAM) PGCert MSc MRCVS MCMA
Vet Empowered Founder
Human
Veterinary Surgeon
Certified Coach, Keynote Speaker, Mentor & Creator.
MSc Emotional Wellbeing Therapy
RCVS Inspiration Award Winner 2023
Trauma Informed & Somatic Coach
Buteyko Breathwork Instructor (Pending)
"My name is Katie, I live in beautiful Saddleworth just outside Manchester. I'm a happy space-nerd, obsessed with Gary Vaynerchuk and I love racoons. Getting outside walking makes my heart glow, as does spending time with my partner and our two ridiculously fluffy cats. I love the gym, learning mountain biking, fitness and have done the odd mud run. I'm obsessed with gratitude, its anecdotal and more scientifically proven effects. I come up with new and ambitious plans regularly, and I am fascinated with human potential.
I'm passionate about empowering myself and others in compassionate ways; I trained as a coach in multiple modalities, as well as completing a Masters in Emotional Wellbeing. I've also been mentored and still am, by one of Bob Proctor's top mindset coaches in the world, who I'm lucky to call a good friend. I'm also a vet, who works in small animal practice and has an advanced certificate in internal medicine, I've been lucky to be doing this for twelve years now.
Eight years ago, this would have been a very different introduction. I would have started with "my name is Katie, and I'm a vet." All of my worth was on my job title; this was a double-edged sword. The profession is amazing, but I left all my hobbies behind. I became overworked (on my own terms), feeling like a fraud for any achievement and constantly chasing happiness. I put myself under more stress than clients, colleagues or patients ever did; I chased perfection constantly, staying longer and longer to disaster prevent. My brain looked for things that went wrong, and tortured me, however minuscule they appeared externally. It was mentally and physically unsustainable. I had achievements galore, everything external that I could want... but internally, I was in a civil war. I felt like one person went and achieved all this stuff externally, and then internally, I felt like a worthless fraud.
The good news was that through lots of methods, help from many sources, harnessing my thoughts, understanding my emotions, and recognising my personal value...life totally transformed. I've since started multiple businesses of my own, grown a social media following of over 16,000 (you'll find me as @katiefordvet). You'll also find me speaking on many stages from London Vet Show to Anything Is Possible alongside the High Performance Podcast team, plus a myriad of podcasts. In 2020, I published a book called "To an amazing vet", with versions for vet nurses and receptionists available too. I was honoured to be the recipient of the RCVS Inspiration Award in 2023.
I feel lucky every day to know the content that I post, hence I constantly try to share what I have learned, and why I trained in these methods myself. I love to help people to reconnect with themselves, the real them, and that's not always who we think that we are. I've coaches everyone from student vets and nurses, right to CEOs and diploma holders.
If you're reading this, you're valuable, and unique and we'd love to help you see that too.
Claire and I have loved writing the Vet Empowered story to date, and we can't wait to see where we go this year too..."
Claire Grigson
BVM&S MRCVS ACCP (Advanced Cert in Coaching Practice)
Vet Empowered Founder
Human
Veterinary Surgeon
Self-Love and Relationship Coach
Meditation teacher
Tiktok Content Creator
Trauma Informed & Somatic Coach
"My name’s Claire, and I live in Edinburgh with my wee dog Cabbage, who is crazy and cute in equal measures! I love connecting with new people, dancing in my kitchen to old school Ibiza tunes, yoga, meditation, reading and having long hot baths whenever I can. I enjoy being out in nature with Cabbage, listening to podcasts, coffee, cake and catch ups with my friends, and appreciating the little things in life.
I have been qualified as a small animal vet for almost 14 years, and I still thoroughly enjoy working with my clients and patients. However, I fully understand the potential for work to become an area of stress, and I believe that mindset is a powerful tool for maximising
enjoyment and fulfillment in this area of your life. You deserve to have a healthy work-life balance, and part of this is learning to value yourself and your free time as much as your job role. There are many techniques that I use daily to help me to stay grounded, present and focused, even on the busiest of shifts.
I trained to become a certified and accredited life coach after being part of a life coaching group programme, and the experience completely helped to transform my mindset and the relationship that I had with myself. Prior to this I had gone through divorce, and I was completely disconnected from who I was and what I wanted from life. I suppressed my emotions, filled my life with distractions and hoped that it would all just ‘get better by itself’. From the outside I was confident, capable, high achiever, but on the inside my self esteem was at rock bottom, as I placed all my self worth on other peoples validation and approval. Work became a coping strategy as it allowed me to ‘put on a mask’ and not deal with what was going on behind closed doors, but without doing the inner work I became stuck in a loop of unhelpful behaviours that just further chipped away at my self esteem. After hitting my lowest point after losing two dear friends, I realised that something needed to change, and I sought support from a counsellor as well as investing in my personal development to help me move forwards in a more positive way.
I have learned a lot through my personal challenges, and I am passionate about supporting others to make positive sustainable change in their life, by improving the relationship they have with themselves, and to learn to listen and trust their authentic self over their inner critic. I fully believe in the power of coaching, having experienced it myself and also experienced the transformations in those that I work with. I am so excited to be delivering this incredible programme with Katie, and to be part of our delegates transformational journey."
Meet the Team
We LOVE our incredible team at Vet Empowered, find out a little more below...
To provide high quality, empowering personal development content and support to professionals in animal-related industries. We strive to remind every individual that we come in contact with of their inherent value, and leave them with an impression of increase. We create a community of supportive, likehearted professionals where they can connect and support each other.
We are proud to do things a bit differently here.
OUR CORE VALUES
Kindness | Fun | Authenticity Collaboration | Gratitude | Compassion