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Self Care in ABA · ABA Business Leaders

• speaker-0: reflection piece for me at least, especially as a young clinician, was almost mandatory. It was a must. Being able to sit with myself after a session, what's one thing that I could reflect on in my actions that I just had that I could do better for next time? And I would keep doing that and keep doing that. I'd run things through my BCBAs as well as I was going through it. speaker-1: Welcome to ABA Business Leaders brought to you by 3PiSq, where we discuss topics on how to create and grow an ethical and sustainable ABA practice. speaker-2: Whether you're starting, scaling, or thinking about selling your business, we're here to share insights, stories, and strategies to help you on the journey. speaker-1: we owned a successful ABA practice for over 10 years. speaker-2: And now we help other ABA business owners do the same without all the chaos. speaker-1: Stick around, you're in the right place. speaker-2: Hello everyone. Welcome to ABA Business Leaders podcast brought to you by 3pi Squared. I'm April. And we have today with us Joshua Levine. Welcome. speaker-1: I'm Steven. speaker-0: ⁓ Thank you. Great to be here. speaker-2: Yeah, so Josh is a co-founder and CEO of Momentum, who empowers clinicians to own and lead their own ABA companies while improving therapy outcomes for children with autism. He has founded and advised multiple clinician-led organizations and serves as an advocate for ethical patient-first growth in behavioral health. And Josh and I were just having a conversation about glasses, and I like, I, I, I was able to read that without my glasses, but it was very hard. But welcome, Josh. Thank you so much for joining us. speaker-0: Hey, thank you. speaker-2: So today we're going to, we've had the privilege actually of ⁓ having multiple conversations now with Josh as we've gotten to know each other and how can we help each other and support each other in this field and how can we support you guys who are listening. And so we've had a lot of really amazing conversations and it has boiled down to like the repeating pattern. talking about humans, right? That we're all humans and we're in a human field and we really have to, we're looking at all of the ins and outs of behavior, but we can't forget the compassion piece behind it and how to grow ourselves included, right? And so, I don't know, I thought we could start there. Who knows where this conversation is going to land. It could land anywhere. So we're just here to, like I like to say, to, you know, start the conversation, talk about the things that maybe you don't get talked about as much. And, and then we hope that you guys listening will take these conversations into your own circles and take and bring it into ⁓ join us on social media. And we'd love to hear what you have to say. Also, we have a podcast hotline. So that will be in the show notes. So you can look at the show notes ⁓ and wherever you're listening or watching. And if you have any questions or any specific, ⁓ you know, topics that you want us to bring here, we would love to hear from you. So without further ado, let's get this ⁓ conversation started. I kind of have like a little thought question for us ⁓ to get us going as if we need any help with that. ⁓ but, ⁓ like, what do we think? Okay. So do we feel that, ⁓ self reflection and self care, are important to our field or are they kind of like an extra or so are they an extra or are they a prerequisite? speaker-0: Yeah. It's so funny, because like you mentioned, April, of all the conversations that you, Steven, and I have had the past two times, I ended up looking at my calendar and seeing that, you know, like self-care was the topic for today. And I, like, the two tracks for me that I've been doing for more than 20 years is like ABA therapy and self-care, like focusing on myself and self-help. So I was like, how did that, like, come out of all of those conversations. And I'm so happy that you picked that topic. And the reflection piece for me, least, especially as a young clinician, was almost mandatory. It was a must. Being able to sit with myself after a session, with my little three ring, I a little binder that I had. I tell people that I work with now and mentors, it's like, write down one thing from that session that I saw the kiddo do that I did that I could do better. What's one thing that I could reflect on in my actions that I just had that I could do better for next time? And I would keep doing that and keep doing that. I'd run things through my BCBAs as well as I was going through it. So I would say that it's almost like a necessity to do something like, at least for me, I found that to be a big, big help. I know April, you're a clinician. Did you do anything similar to that or what are your thoughts on the reflection piece? speaker-2: So, not so much. love that. I really love that, especially as a young clinic, like a young ⁓ person in the field that you had that intention there. ⁓ I do find myself to be a very reflective, ⁓ intentional person today who really focuses on gratitude. That's what carries me through the day to day, but that's a new skill for me. It's a relatively new school. I'm going to say five years, like in the last five years and really even more just in the last year or two that I've been able to really focus on controlling what I can control. And it's what energy I put out into the world and how I like can lean into gratitude and really looking at, okay, what's my intention? How do I want to show up? Did I show up in that way and how can I do it? differently next time. Yeah. All about not, not getting caught in the shame spiral of how can I do better? Right? I mean, we do get caught in the shame spiral sometimes, but more of like, okay, this happened. How can I, how can I do this differently? What can I do to show up? What can I do to, and then most recently, what can I do to support myself first to help me support others? ⁓ So yeah, that's what about you. speaker-1: I speaker-2: I know you're a non-clinician, you probably have now so much more, you have more FaceTime with clinicians than any of us here with all the conversations that you have. And so I'm sure you're taking a lot of that with you, huh? speaker-1: Yeah, mean, like, you know, my story was like, as an engineer, right, like, it's all here, right, this thing, this body is just a vehicle to transport the brain to where it needs to go to fix things. And that was kind of my life for 35 years. And then I realized that there was feelings and sensation in my body. And so really getting into mindfulness and that was very helpful for me. There was a lot of ⁓ like self, ⁓ negative self-talk and things like that, right? And moving away from that was a little scary for me because I thought that that was the only way to motivate myself. So going into that less shame and I still get things done has been very helpful. speaker-0: Yeah, you both mentioned kind of that shame piece if I heard correctly. And it's almost like one perspective to try on that I've always done is like, ⁓ this is a learning opportunity for me, right? It's kind of like, rather than blaming myself or feeling bad about it, which happens to me sometimes too. And it's like, if I want to sit in that negative emotion or that bad emotion for lack of better terms, it's like, I want to feel bad right now. Okay. I want to sit with that. And then at what point do I want to kind of bring myself up to the next emotion, the next emotion and maybe feel the more satisfaction, feel happiness. ⁓ speaker-2: It's like the whole name entertainment, When you can recognize that and you can sit with it and you can acknowledge it, then you can also allow it to move through, right? And decide how you want to act on it. speaker-1: I think for me it was mostly ego driven, Like I, cause I would give that space to anybody else, right? Like any, ⁓ man, you made a mistake that, but let's, you know, now that we know that this can happen, let's figure out how we can prevent this. But for me, it was like, come on. Like, and so was like, for some reason I wasn't allowed to make a mistake, but everybody else was. And so getting in, letting that go, right. ⁓ it was really hard because it was all ego. was all selfishness and, it's just really icky. Right. And who wants to, ⁓ who wants to, navigate that when you can just ignore and yell and. speaker-0: Mm-hmm. I'm so glad you mentioned that too, Steven. Yeah, the male ego is a beast. It is a bitch and it's like nothing else. So to be able for a male, especially to kind of acknowledge that, shed light on it is such a big deal. And it's like we can't work with what we can't see inside of ourselves, right? And so that kind of self acknowledgement to get to move. the ego almost is such a big thing. Good on you, man. It's such a process. And for males especially, to move from that thought state to that feeling state, to that heart state is also a process for us. I think we mentioned this before in a conversation, where it's like, we typically grow up as male kids of like, don't worry about your emotion. You gotta like... buckle through that and not to have those real sensorial experiences inside of ourselves. So yeah, it's, it's cool to kind of move into that. ⁓ so yeah, cool. speaker-2: Yeah, so we ⁓ I coach a lot of ABA business owners who mainly knew into having a business or maybe within that first or fighting themselves like in that like year two to three when things like I really get really spicy and you're you're kind of stuck in that like 90 hour work week and you're not sure how to like start Delegating and anyway, so it really working through overwhelm right and it was kind of the the target here, right? We're like really looking at the overwhelm and that's what that's the word used a lot when people come in. I'm so overwhelmed. I'm like so burnt out, right? And, you know, in my conversations with a lot of BCBAs and then also we have our support group now and these conversations, I'm so excited to have a space for these conversations to happen. ⁓ But the shame, the guilt, the perfectionism, And so at the moment, like I mainly talk with women, guys, like I'm open for everyone. But I think that is like to like the difference sometimes is like the perfectionism and it shows up a lot in women. Right. But I know it's there for for all people. But and it's the I should know it all. And and the dang it, I worked really hard. to get this BCBA, to get these letters after my name, I took that test. I passed on the second time. I know everything now and why isn't this coming together and why isn't this easy? And I'm a great BCBA. I've been doing this for a few years now and ⁓ I really want to make this company work and it's to what expense? Yeah. Right. that and then hints like the burnout fate, like everyone like that's such a such a buzzword. hate to call it that. But burnout. Right. And really looking at what is burnout? How do we get here? You know, how do we how do we leave this? And so that's when you're like, we mentioned shame. That's something that has been coming out like shame and guilt. And, you know, a lot of business owners having a hard time, like taking care of themselves first. Like there was even a conversation, I think we aired it on one of our podcasts a couple of weeks ago ⁓ of like a business owner saying they were they felt too guilty to leave work to go have a coffee with a friend, ⁓ a colleague, probably work adjacent, right? And and ⁓ and leave their staff, you know. behind because they felt too guilty. so, you know, we like you said, we had these conversations and this kind of kept popping up. And so I don't know, like, let's talk about like that. Like, where do we think that comes from? Or how can we? I don't know. Let's let's chat. speaker-0: If I had any of my admin staff, BCBAs, come to me, my CEO Ariel or my CEO Jason, or different companies, if they came to me and said, hey, I'm feeling guilty about something, I'd ask, where's that guilt coming from for you? What is it for you that you're experiencing right now? And that is where the conversation would go. There's a million different reasons why we may. put guilt on ourself and it can probably go all the way back to our childhood even if we really got into it. Typically don't go that far with my admin stuff. Exactly, yeah. But you know, unpacking things together I think is such a joyous experience, honestly. I have so much fun with my admin stuff. And RBT's too, we've had this. But there's this piece that you mentioned April at the very beginning of speaker-2: That's for them and their therapist, speaker-0: being human and having the human experience regardless. I'm a BCBA PhD. been doing this for 20 plus years and hi, I'm human and I make mistakes and that's okay. You know, like I have a great support team. I have people that can help and being okay with that, being okay with my like not perfectness is, is all right. And to what extent do I allow that? inside of myself to occur or am I pushing up against it? And then I think perhaps that's where the guilt comes in. pushing up against in some way what's occurring in this very moment. maybe because I have these four letters after my name or whatever it is, but I think it ultimately comes down to some type of resistance inside of myself of not allowing. just to be what is. speaker-1: Hey April, remember that time we forgot to do benefit checks and that client switched insurance companies? speaker-2: Yes, we lost like $20,000. That was brutal. I don't want to talk. speaker-1: Honestly, that was one of the most frustrating parts of running a practice. Just trying to keep up with benefit checks, co-pays, prior authorizations. It was a full-time job. speaker-2: And if you miss even one detail, can cost you thousands. speaker-1: What if I told you that somebody can handle all of that for you? Run benefit checks, track eligibility, manage prior authorizations, so you could confidently bill and stop wasting your time in pay speaker-2: I would say please sign me up now and where were you 10 years ago? Yes. speaker-1: That's exactly what Silma does. Their platform automates your entire upfront insurance workflow. A benefits check done in under 30 seconds. TryCare Prior Off under three minutes. That's hours of admin work saved every single week. speaker-2: Sona is already working in 48 states, supporting over 50,000 patients and they're rated number one for prior OSS on G2. If you're ready to stop chasing paperwork and get time back to focus on your staff and clients, go to sonahealth.com or click the link in our show notes. speaker-1: Be sure to mention 3Pi to get an extended free pilot and special pricing just for our listeners. There's probably also some issues around business owners and being complete control freaks. speaker-2: wonder what the data is on that, right? speaker-1: Because like there are a lot, you know, lot of people talk to their spouse. I don't lust anybody else to do this. Right. And so, and then you, you finally allow someone else to take on some of these responsibilities and they make those mistakes. And then you're like, aha, I told you, right. Nobody else can do this. speaker-2: Yeah, so I did this whole thing on delegation and we had a group of, I don't know, I don't remember how many, a group of people were talking about delegation and we're working on like, okay, what's, what are the steps? Let's break this down, right? And the most common thing was like, I don't have time to delegate. So of course then we're looking at like processes and okay, let's like, do you even know, like, do you know what's expected of yourself like for this particular? So then we like break it down into the science of like, speaker-0: you speaker-2: Okay, let's go to step one and break this down right and to like what it even looks like but that but that's and maybe that's part of it, right? But but there's this whole I don't have time to delegate Like no one's gonna do it as good as me that phrase popped up so many times No one's gonna do it as good as me and I hear that and I'm like, ⁓ curious speaker-1: You know what I mean? Like it mostly is true, right? Like someone that you pay $20 an hour to is not going to care as much as you do about your business, right? They go home at end of the night. And so there is a lot of truth to this, right? Especially around billing, around, ⁓ did we get that intake in? Did we submit that authorization? Right? Like, so you will go ahead and you'll do it immediately. where your admin person may do it tomorrow. while that's ⁓ the thing, So when you're scaling this and you have more than one BCBA, you're gonna have to allow for some kind of time frame on these things. And I think that's really hard for people to let go. speaker-2: Yeah, that's something that we work on is like breaking the breaking the process down, putting a process in place. What is it that you want to see? What kind of timeframe do you want this to be in? And then also, like, ⁓ is it OK if someone does it differently? Does the actual process itself make sense? You know, matter if it's done exactly the same? And sometimes it does. Or is it just the outcome? Right. And so can we allow for others to have a little bit of independence and freedom with it? speaker-1: I think it all comes down to trust and like if you're having difficulty trusting others, it's probably The baby this a therapy This is like it probably is you right? You probably don't trust your own systems or yourself, right? And so now you know, we need to look inward and if you have no self-awareness Which look for the vast majority of my life. I had zero self-awareness So I'm there with you speaker-2: We go back to our. speaker-1: But if you have no self-awareness, it makes it very difficult to even consider what area of this is tied to myself, right? Where is my ego getting involved? What is my trust issue? Right? And they may be very legitimate, but if you're wanting this to be, ⁓ you know, your entire life all the time where you're missing your family, your, having to do this on the weekends, every weekend, can't take a vacation, then continue doing that, right? But if you're wanting this to be like maybe just a 50 hour a week job, we're gonna have to allow for people to take on some responsibility. speaker-0: Yeah, and maybe there are some owners who relish in working 90 hour weeks. Totally. I don't know. The ones that I have heard from who will say, hey, I'm doing all the billing and I'm doing all the scheduling and I'm doing, a clinician and I'm doing the hiring and the outreach and the marketing. they sound a bit burnt out and they will say to me, but I'm burnt out. I'm wearing all these hats, but I'm burnt out. And it does seem like number one, lack of skills to delegate. ⁓ And then also that trust piece is such a big deal. First and foremost, it's at the core of any type of business relationship or any relationship for that matter. that I make my business partners that I partner with, like the trust is just implicit. Like we just have that solid foundation, whether it's Sunshine ABA, Aloha ABA, Momentum, like all my business partners, like we just have that core foundation. And from there we grow together. And what's cool too is that as let's say a business owner, I would want to choose people that know more than me that maybe have a different skill set. It's not hard for me to do. Like I found people that know a lot more than me in different areas and I want to learn from them and I want them to join. But you also bring up a good point is like, what's the MO? What's going to keep them really driving into what we're what we're doing. And for me, that answer so far has been equity. You know, it's like taking a real like giving out away real stakes in the company and I want you to be a real part of this organization. Plus, I don't have like hundreds of thousands of dollars to like, just hire somebody left and right, you know, so but I think that at least in my experience so far, you know, since 2021, that kind of camaraderie has has like, it's a feeling of growing together and I really like that a lot and trust really is that that foundational piece overall. speaker-2: I really like that. Tell me a little bit more about what that looks like, that giving out equity, because I love the whole, like. The whole growing together, because, know, there you have your people out there who looking for jobs and they're going to run like hell from any startup opportunity. And then you have those people who are going to be like, I could I could see be getting in the ground floor of a startup and getting my foot in the door and being part of this business growing. But I know with some of our previous conversations, we had talked about that and I really that I think was like a new idea for me. So I'd love to hear more about it about the equity. speaker-0: It was a, I remember the first time I went through the process, met with, was looking for a COO of Sunshine ABA, which I started in 2021. And I remember meeting with lots of different BCBAs, I with Ariel Lufkin, we hit it off. We went to coffee shops every week and we had conversations over two months and they were not clinical conversations. They were deeper alignment conversations, who we are as people and then we've kind of touched on this too in our previous conversations like and then the clinical part do we align clinically as well the answers were always yes until you know and then she had you know I would give an example right she had she had wanted to to move on she was working at who was it hope bridge or something like or or behavior beginnings or something I forgot the name of the company but anyway she was working there for some time and she was ready for like the next stage of her career and she was interested, That you're right. speaker-2: Yeah, I went to scratch my foot for those of who aren't watching. I went to scratch my foot, like banged my head on my microphone. Sorry about that. speaker-0: No, good. And so she was interested in becoming a business owner and I said, cool, let's talk equity because we're going to own this company together. for me, as long as it wasn't over 50%, I was cool. And she just came up with a number and I was like, sweet. There really wasn't a lot of negotiating or back and forth. It was just like, I want to work with you. well, how are you gonna feel good about coming into this dynamic? Because I wanna make sure that you feel good too. And it's gonna be a business partnership. And then along the way, we've just done that together. And then we draft out roles and responsibilities. We pick it all apart and there's like, what am I doing? How am gonna hand that off to her? And eventually over, I think it was like a year and a half, I asked her to become CEO and I'm extremely appreciative and thankful that she said yes. Bob's your uncle. like she's running the company. And then same thing with Jason, Julie out and Aloha ABA, same kind of process. was just that hitting it off and again, the trust is just implicit, but that's what the kind of the, you know, being very transparent, this is what the conversations look like. It was very much like, I want to feel good about this situation, of course, but I want you to feel good about this too. And if this is something that you're interested in, let's work together on it. And we're to learn a lot together and just acknowledge that. And we found that to be a pretty cool recipe for growing a company. And slowly but surely it's happening. It's really fun to be part of. It's quite a roller coaster, of course. But yeah, that's where the equity conversations came in and how that kind of worked out for us. And as you probably are aware and listeners are aware too, it's different for everybody. Maybe the same in some ways, maybe different in many ways, but it's where it came in. speaker-2: Yeah, I mean, those are things that we talk often about, know, values of align, you know, value alignment. And so, ⁓ you know, we've had conversations about how to include these conversations in your hiring process. And for those even who are who looking for employment, how to how for you to lead that within the the intake or the the process in the beginning to see if, you know, from the best that you can tell, I mean, you know, we can't like go on, I mean, I guess we could, but you know, go on multiple coffee dates with a prospective tech before we hire them to make sure we're really jiving, right? But the whole idea is if you can build that, that community within your company, and it really does start somewhere, right? You can't just like expect your, your staff. to, okay, here are our values. Okay, go, go, you know, change the culture. Like it starts ⁓ definitely ⁓ with, with the, with the owners and the leader, the, the leadership team. And then that trust builds within that. ⁓ And then I love what you said about, ⁓ we talked about our roles and responsibilities. And, and, and that also wasn't just a quick overnight conversation, right? That was a lot of work of who does what. and how do you do it and what's okay. And I think these are some of the conversations that sometimes I get a little confused on because I'm like, hmm, like, this is our science. These are things we're really good at when we're working with our learners. But unless, unless you've had an enriched, you know, education and like OPM and things like that, right, you might be a little bit more aware of how to shift this ⁓ to like running a business. But those are some of the pieces that I think sometimes we have a hard time generalizing or maybe we just have like our two buckets and we forget that we can merge them sometimes, you know, the clinical and the business. speaker-0: Yeah, I'm so glad you mentioned values too. That was conversation over months of crafting those out. then, you know, it's not as if they just kind of sit idle on shelf for, at least from our perspective, it's really to what degree do I use those values to make business decisions? Otherwise, it's just a lot of fodder for my website. And so consistently we've shown our staff how we use those values in our business sisters. And we've had to make some tough, especially in Florida, we've had to make some tough decisions ⁓ with things that are going on. But we're always very as transparent as we possibly can be. And we let the staff know these are the, our values and how we're using them. And from what we've heard and what we see too, it's grown a really positive and that's been fun to see. should say some reflection that I've had recently, we had our monthly meeting ⁓ and our family liaison, it was her first time attending one of those meetings and she said, she saw the staff, we do it online and she said to Ariel and I, she was just like, wow, there was just so many commendations going on and it wasn't. what's the term, like toxic positivity? I that's kind of going around. She was just like, they were really genuine. And that was really cool to hear that kind of reflection, because not only were we in that, but we also are very much like, and shit can go down. Crazy things happen in our field. ⁓ Life happens, and we're here for that. one of the, we see one of the benefits of working for a clinician-owned, clinician-operated company is that everyone in your admin Or you have people in your admin who are BCBAs who have been doing direct support. And so they know and have experiences of what you may be going through. And you have that kind of perspective you can lean into because I mean, you may have this experience yourselves. I've had this in relationships where it's like my partner doesn't. fully understand the kind of pressures that may go into the day to day working with the minute to minute, hour to hour that goes into working with folks in our field. So having that extra perspective may help. ⁓ Yeah. speaker-2: Yeah, absolutely. 100%. Yeah, we talk a lot about values alignment and how to like, how is that just a poster on the wall? you know, and coaching businesses, okay, how do you put this within your processes and your procedures? Like, how do you embed these things? What do they look like? You know? But I do, I want to like go back to a previous conversation that we were having about burnout. And I just wanted to ask your opinion, Josh, because this is a conversation I've had with multiple clinicians and business owners in the field. But what do you think about burnout as far as, it possible that, ⁓ I'll just say my observation. I've observed in a lot of situations, situations where I've then been curious about, are we just using this as like a badge of honor? Is this like the thing to have is burnout, right? Is this just, are we wearing our burnout as a badge of honor? Is this just what we do? Is this part of our culture? speaker-0: Burnout happens. Burnout happens. That's my first thought with it, And maybe I'm losing something along the way that I'm so focused on some type of outcome, I'm not enjoying the ride. speaker-2: It does speaker-0: And if I keep at that pace of not enjoying the ride or struggling through or pushing up against all these decisions that I'm making, eventually I put my hands up, I'm like, peace, I'm going into real estate. Because hopefully that's gonna, and why? Well, hopefully that's gonna make me feel better, right? But. I have that perspective, but I wasn't in the moment in all of these decisions that I've made along the way, asking myself, how am I feeling about this? Am I enjoying this or not? Because if I'm not enjoying it, what am I doing? In my career, when I came back from my PhD training back to the States, I think it was like 2013, The field looked a lot different than it did when I left for graduate school in 2004. Insurance had taken over, cetera, et cetera. So I was going company to company because there was crazy stuff going on in different companies that I was with. And my dad and my brother were just like, Josh, you're going company to company, what's going on? And I said, you wouldn't believe the kind of shit that I'm seeing at these companies and I'm not enjoying this and I'm just gonna move on and move on and move on until And people have told us for a whole life and folks that are listening to you may have heard this as well from your family or your friends. You just gotta start your own company. You just gotta take that leap and do it. But yeah, ultimately it's like, am I enjoying the process or not? Am I enjoying the ride or not? If I'm not, what do I wanna change? If I don't change and I just keep making these decisions that possibly don't feel so great, eventually it's gonna lead to burnout. I'm gonna say, well, maybe I'm gonna find that pleasure over here in real estate or something else. That's my thought on it, yeah. speaker-2: Yeah, yeah. Thanks for sharing. ⁓ And it's going to look different for everybody too, right? Like some people may enjoy doing work at night, right? And some people may enjoy having weekends off and some people may enjoy working. Like it's what, does that look like for you? And I think that goes back to that self reflection piece and it goes back to, you know, the values. Like what do you want your life to look like? What's important to you? And is what you're doing with your work life, whether you're in even in the ABA field or not. This could be for anybody out there in any field doing anything, right? Like is this, does this match like what you, what your vision is for yourself and what you want your life to look like? speaker-1: Yeah, I think it comes back to that self-awareness piece because I know that like I had this four-year limit, right? With where I could last with a company for four years. And that was it. Like it didn't matter. Right. And then it was, I just couldn't handle it anymore. And I went from company to company because speaker-2: like you're all trans. speaker-1: You know, that's just what I did. I would learn as much as I could possibly learn and then I would move on. And I found that same thing with when I went into ABA, right? With that company, same thing. And then even with my own company, ⁓ it was like, man, I got to get out of here, right? And so this is me. This is my baggage that I'm bringing along with the ride. And so if you don't have that self-awareness, that some of this... you're just bringing the burnout with you, right? Like no matter what role you're going to find it. again, having that self-awareness and taking that step back and allowing for that vulnerability is really important, I think. if you don't, this is going to follow you forever. so there's just part of this is the incentives in this field. as I'm sure you're aware, Josh, is it's like, you know, the race to the bottom based on, hey, we have these low insurance rates that are constantly getting lower. And so, you know, if we provide less training, if we expect a tremendous amount of billable hours out of everybody, you know, if we don't pay for certain things, maybe we make people contractors, even though we know we shouldn't, we can be way more profitable. If I have a high turnover rate, I'm actually more profitable than I am if I have a low turnover rate because I have to worry about raises and providing that equity, right? Like things like that. So there are just a lot of incentives in this field. So if you're bringing that baggage along with it, you're gonna have a tough time no matter what you do, right? Does that make sense? speaker-0: Yeah. speaker-2: Yep, that's depressing. speaker-1: I'm just saying like, you have to know that that's you have right? You have to know that this is here and then you can make a decision on wait a second. I'm going to do this differently because if you do go in with the blinders on, Hey, those last 15 companies that I went to, they were all bad. And the BCBAs on there were on ethical and they didn't know what they were doing. And I know better. And if you go in with that and you don't understand what the environment is and where the incentives will take you, just easily, if you don't have those things in place, if you don't really understand your values, I think that you'll get trapped there. Because I've seen it too many times. speaker-0: And it is kind of like what you were saying, Steven, like what do we want to see for ourselves? You know, one of the questions is like that you can ask is like, is, you know, do I need to see somebody to believe it or can I believe it and see it? You know, which way does that go? And if we want to say to ourselves, believing is seeing, let's do that. We make a choice as to where we direct our consciousness, right? And that is a conscious choice. If we're just gonna kind of go willy nilly and just allow things that always happen to us, know, more power to you, but we could also make a choice and we can direct that focus into more positive things. And that itself, at least in my experience, there's less energy that goes into dread and fear. and angst and worry. And the less that I have that, the lighter I feel. The less strain and energy, I feel more energy when I lean into and focus on things that make me feel good. But it's a choice that we make. And so if I'm taking that, like you were mentioning that baggage from other companies, ⁓ am I wearing that like a satchel? Am I just carrying that around with me? Or have I dropped that bag off and been like, okay, peace, I'm gonna leave you behind and now I'm moving on to something else that I wanna feel into is a more exciting opportunity for me or not. And it's a choice, it's a choice. If I wanna linger on with what my previous companies did to me or previous people did to me, and I can, but how is that gonna serve me? especially in my next steps. And I think even that piece of reflection, at least in my experiences, has always, always helped. And sometimes it's harder than other times. Sometimes it cuts a little deeper and I gotta work through a certain process with myself to move forward, to be able to look at something and to not have an emotional charge is like that next step almost. And it's a big deal. I experienced it in my professional and personal life too. It's like when I get into discussion or an argument with my partner and we just had this happen where it's like, well, the situation happened, there's an emotional charge. Okay, like let's acknowledge it. And if we can talk about something without that emotional charge being there, that's cool too. But here's where we are, there's still a charge there. Okay, that's just kind of like where we're at and that acceptance piece of what it is. in the business world, could be something where we're carrying this baggage with us. It's like, okay, you wanna keep carrying that around? More power to you. Does that fit in with the ethos? And so when we hire, are we hearing like, for example, if I'm sitting with an applicant and they get, and I've had this happen, get on an interview and they're just like, my previous company this, that, the other. Just like, okay. I'll be cordial and ask questions and stuff like that. thank you so much for your time. But it's like, no, it's okay. Yeah, and that kind of gets into that baggage piece you're imagining, Stephen. speaker-2: Yeah, that's what we had our interviews. We're always very casual and chatty for that purpose. I wanted someone to feel comfortable to overshare perhaps. Because sometimes you learn a lot in that situation, right? I don't care what chat GBT ⁓ practice answers you have for the traditional questions you get asked in an interview. yeah, I don't care about that. Let's talk about the real stuff here. Well, know, that that's ⁓ my slow, my brain is moving faster than my mouth can go right now. ⁓ But how does this burnout to like show up in our work, right? Show up in how we support the parents that we work with who, yeah, they're also probably very burnt out for other reasons. And our staff, right. So for those of like we're talking to a group of of leaders, right? And so those of you who are leading your company, and then within your company, you have your leadership staff, and you have those who are supervising others. And then you have, you know, providing the services to the learners. So you have all of these pieces. So you know, how does this burnout that you're personally carrying show up in all of these different levels of being able to provide quality services for the whole reason we're here in the first place where there's learners, right? speaker-0: One of the questions, because you mentioned parents as well, right? And staff, both, or burnout. One of the questions I always ask myself is, to what extent do I have control over those environments in any way? With parents, usually very little. Right? With our staff, a whole bunch. So, one of the first things that comes to mind I was posting a lot on LinkedIn at some point, actually when I was living in Hawaii before we moved over to Washington, I was posting a lot on LinkedIn about different topics. And a post I got a lot of attention with was called like bruises, scrapes and bites or something. And it talked about staff getting hurt and wearing these as badges of honor for themselves. And I think it's a recipe for disaster when... you have staff and it leads to burnout when you have staff in a center without a crisis management procedure and the company is trying to fill cells within a center or rooms within a center ⁓ and they're bringing in guys and girls with severe behavior problems, continuous physical aggression, self injury, proper disruption. And then they just kind of say to the staff, do your best, or maybe they're incorporating crisis management strategies that they're not trained on and they're just kind of like, try this or do that. That really can lead to burnout very, very, very quickly. So that's the first thing that comes to mind with staff is the safety piece. If we think for a second that it's okay that I'm getting bitten every day, I'm getting hurt, I'm getting bruised and kicked and hit, no. that is not okay under any conditions and that is something wrong with the organization. Now there are places, this is my perspective, my training, my experience, there are places where, yeah, it gets gnarly. When I started at Threshold back in 1999, that's where Florida placed their most severe behavior problem guys and girls. Dr. Pat McGreevey was on the board of that organization. They're BCBCing. There's a lot of supervision, a lot of oversight, a lot of training, crisis management, a lot. But to have that kind of stuff go on at a center where staff aren't trained ⁓ and they're kind of thrown into the mix, not to mention, and I wrote about this too, but not to mention the effect it has on guys and girls at that center that don't have continuous physical aggression, proper disruption and self injury. What are they digesting when they see staff go after, for lack of better terms, a guy or girl who's continually hurting someone else or themselves? It has a huge impact, I would say. So, and I can imagine the staff see this and they're like, but I don't know what to do about it. Maybe they don't know. any other systems that are out there, any other ways of doing it because we get a lot of new folks in our field all the time. And so they may just see it as like, this is the way I know. It may feel a little weird, but I'm gonna just kind of keep treading on. And that may lead to burnout. But that's the first thing that comes to mind with staff is safety. then parents is a whole nother piece for sure in terms of burnout, because parents, think overall, talking with them, just very burned out. And quite frankly, I think a lot of them are just tired of just like receiving instructions that are bad and kind of lectured from VCBAs that are like, this is what you need to do with your kid. It's like, whoa, pause, do you have a kid? No, or whatever else it is. We kind of have a... we kind of have maybe like a way of like throwing our academic books at the parents rather than really pausing with them. And I think we touched on this in one of our conversations earlier ⁓ and really listening to what the issues are. ⁓ for staff at safety, for parents, I think it's the ability to listen. and really take on what they're putting out there. And it can be so varied that at least in my experience, it takes someone who has a lot of experience in the field and working with parents specifically to really digest that and go with that and talk with that parent, not talk at that parent. There's a big difference, yeah. speaker-2: Yeah, that's the big difference in that. And I think that's where that compassion piece and that human piece can also come along with it. And just the awareness that, you know, we in our field are predominantly working with folks on the autism spectrum. And so, you know, maybe some other comorbidities, and those I know that also those of you in practice who are working with families who may not have a specific diagnosis, but any the parent has brought you in because they're in a tough situation. And they could be dealing with a diagnosis. So they could be dealing with multiple layers of grief. Like this isn't the life that we thought we were gonna have. even if it's a situational issue and they're dealing with some really hard behavior, a really hard situation or some trauma that, ⁓ know, they didn't, when they were excited to bring this bundle of joy into their family, this is not what they pictured, right? So there was also that too. And they're also human. and they have really hard days. I think that shift when I became a parent myself, when I became a mom, I always felt like I was very compassionate and very, really got the needs of a parent and I would really try to meet them where they were and give them the benefit of the doubt and really help to support them and have conversation with them and not talk at them and, know. the cultural component to really trying to understand like what they're not just their general culture, but their family culture, what's important to them, right? Like, how did they want it to look because I was predominantly in home services. And, but I don't even know where I was going with that. speaker-1: I'll just say like like ABA and my person from my perspective is so much like engineering. Yeah, I like it's like, okay, here's the data, right? The system's too hot. It's it maybe it's using too much voltage. Like we got to fix it, right? And there is there is no human element in this at all. Let's let's fix this thing because it's broken and and it for whatever reason. speaker-2: Like if you come in, you're like, okay, you're speaker-1: You're not doing it right. You got to do it this way. I've already told you 10 times. This is how you're going to fix it. just fix it. then you do this and like your job is so much that. Okay. Here's the problem. Like literally here's the problem. This is what we're going to implement to fix it. And this internal speaker-2: The function is a 10. speaker-1: environment that you care so much about is ⁓ pointless to me. I'm not even going to measure it. We're not going to talk about it. And you just got to listen to this treatment plan and all of your problems will be solved. And there's like grief involved. There's drama involved. There's emotions, there's self-awareness, which is very little. Again, if you're doing this for 25 years, you're going to have like, you're an engineer. You're going to have zero self-awareness. Right? Because why would I be self-aware? I know that this works. Right? I'm going to do this thing and it works. And so I feel very, very, I feel like I have a very similar experience to a lot of BCBAs, ⁓ you know, from that standpoint. speaker-0: Yeah, we put, we arrange the environment and we can do this fairly well in centers and schools and the community and home for the most part, but if we engineer an environment a certain way, behavior falls out, right? We got that for parents. It can just vary so greatly of what they're coming to the table with. ⁓ Yeah, and BCBAs will be wearing multiple hats. ⁓ at least I have definitely talking with families because the issues sometimes slash many times isn't necessarily I'm implementing a procedure incorrectly. It's like, ⁓ how do my partner and I communicate when our child on the floor tantruming? Do we have some kind of an understanding of how we're gonna navigate that together? Do we both kind of dive in? Does one person dive in first, the other's there for backup? you know, just let me know if I can help you at all in this moment or vice versa. So just even communication pieces can be a big part of any intervention for parents. speaker-2: Yeah, communication and then also like supper, maybe cooking and you know, like there's food cooking on the stove. Like there's other children in the picture. It's not as clean and and precise as, you know, one to one, you know, clinician learner. Right. And I think sometimes we forget that as well, that there's like life is happening. Right. Right. Life is happening and we have to like try to meet them where they are. but there again, that pulls us back. Like if you don't have, you know, assert those certain skills or skills. speaker-1: mean, you didn't go to school for this stuff, right? I think Josh, honestly, like you have come, you've grown up in a different environment, right? Like, than most BCBAs that I talked to, right? Where there is that self-awareness, there is that, and you know, maybe they're using the right words or I have a lot of empathy and I have a lot of compassion, right? like, you know, like, and that's great, but I think that there is some disconnect there, right? And when you're not as familiar with those skills, your go-to is going to be, okay, let's go back to the behavior plan. Let's fix this issue. And you use that within, not just on the behavior plan for the family, but also for your staff. And you shut off the emotion and you just fix it. ⁓ that can be difficult to turn on. speaker-2: laughing because that was me for so many years. that's part of my journey. last five years, mostly the last couple, I've said, it was like, okay, it's not even that you have to be happy, but I need you fixed. And this energy, this storm that you're pitting off, no, these aren't the behaviors that I want to see. I want to see these behaviors. Let me see what I can do to manipulate, to get you to here. And I wasn't self aware I was doing that. And then then I went to this whole light reflection. speaker-1: What does BCBA stand for? I'm just curious. Are you all manipulating behavior to get results that you would like? speaker-2: I was like completely broken down. was I was in therapy and I had a life coach who was a BCBA At the same time I was going through this whole course for like a parenting court like this whole thing I was it was like this whole pivotal point in my life and I remember sitting there and I had this like aha moment and I was like Was I like this before ABA or did ABA make me like this or is this way like? wanted me to get, this is what attracted me to ABA. And I had this whole like moment of, whoa, where am I? Who am I? You know, I think there's, I'm sure I'm not the only one here who's had like, especially like I'm pushing almost 50, right? Like I've had those at that, you know, midlife, like thinking about things, you know, especially as you're a parent and there's a whole nother journey there along with that. So, so yeah, it's, I don't know. I don't hear people talking about this. speaker-1: No, but and ask people to do that work, I think is asking a lot because this was this like for me personally, right? Like and and I this is all selfishness, right? Like and I think you mentioned that like you want Josh, you mentioned like you want to be a part of of like doing the right thing and and and it's it's a whole lot less stress and and anger when you could do the things that you love and do it the right way. And for me, it's like, I just want to be able to sleep at night, right? Like that's my goal. That's my selfish little goal. I don't want to have these thoughts in my head. I can't believe you did that thing, right? You didn't, you weren't honest about this thing to this person, right? Like, and so that, that my selfish, yeah, totally. Yeah. And so it's all selfish, right? It's a hundred percent selfish. speaker-0: And why not be selfish first? I call that the pillow test. It's like, to what extent, when I lay my head on my pillow, am I able to drift off to sleep? Or when I lay my head on my pillow, how much do I have raising thoughts and I'm thinking? Because if I haven't breathed into different events that have happened throughout my day and resolved in some way and accepted in some way and just... speaker-1: Exactly speaker-0: felt into them to give it some air, it's going to come up when I lay my head on my pillow. I feel it every time, every time, many times after work. You know, it's like, okay, I can breathe. okay. Wow, I'm drained. You know, like, wow. But I haven't had that opportunity to like feel into myself to say, ⁓ my gosh, that was a lot. You know, and then that's okay. And like feeling into those different pieces. ⁓ Yeah, I hear you on that. And I think it is that piece of like, well, if we're not gonna be selfish for ourselves, protect our own energy, work with ourselves, you know, are we gonna be selfish for somebody else? Do it for somebody else. And if you feel good doing that, then go for it. speaker-1: Yeah, do it for somebody else. speaker-0: I don't necessarily think there's a wrong way or right way to it. It's like how am I feeling about my actions and what I'm doing? And ⁓ Steven, you had mentioned about like, are we just saying that we're being empathetic or guiding with compassion and care? And April, I had this kind of aha moment. ⁓ Several years ago, I was kind of like, to what extent is there like alignment fully between what I say and what I do. And when I acknowledge that, I just keep striving for that. So that way, they're not just, because words are words. Like we can throw them around left and right. We've got tons of words in our field, right? We've got tons of jargon, tons of words that we like to use. But what if we just shut up and do? And that speaks for itself. And at some point we just do that. We just do and we act and we engage rather than say, this is what I do. This is how I go about things. I think one of my, if I reflect back, one of my most recent aha moments ⁓ was that, saying to myself, I want to have very little difference between what I say and what I do. And I constantly strive for that. speaker-2: Yeah, that's a good one. That's a really good one. I have a post-it note on my monitor and it says words matter. It's a bit, it says words matter and really, I mean, I was talking about the actions, but so it's a reminder to myself from, you know, fights and arguments that we used to have like years ago and we're the thick of it. And you're like, this is what you said. This is what you did. What you said sound great. But those words don't matter if you're not doing it. Right. And that was the core of a lot of some of our struggle. Right. And so really, it's like actions matter. But for me, I was like words matter like those words matter. You have to when you use those words, you have to be careful with what words that you use because then you got to follow up with them. You know, you've got to do those words that you say. ⁓ And I think that's, you know, that's just I don't know. Is that just I guess it's just part of growing. Right. And ⁓ And yeah. speaker-0: And it's a way also to continue with that. It's a way, at from my perspective, it's a way that we talk about our perspective of ourselves and the world around us, or the words that we use. As a matter of fact, I found out in, it's like 2006 or so, I found out there's a field called neuro-linguistic programming, NLP, that's... They study the use of words. I never studied it myself. I've been asked if I've studied it, because I guess certain words, I choose my words and how I convey them, right? But there's a field dedicated just to this on the words that we use. I think the premise, I don't know all the details, but I think the premise behind it is that if we choose to use certain word choices, our perspective will shift as well. So while words can carry our perspectives, it can reverse engineer as well. Like words can then, if we choose certain words, they can then change perspectives. I think we do this all the time with like, let's say affirmations, let's say, right? So I think that might be a good example of that. speaker-2: Yeah. speaker-1: that goes back to your believe it when you see it, right? Like, like, so, or, yeah, the opposite of that, right? I'll see it when I believe it. Yes. Sorry. I Yes. speaker-0: Believe it, therefore I see it. speaker-2: I love that. you go. The words matter. words matter. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. What was I going to say? I don't know. So, So as we continue this conversation, there was something that kind of came to mind a little bit playfully, but also like it's too. At least in a lot of the conversations that I've heard over the years, right? ⁓ But all of this stuff that we're talking about these like in internal events, right? All of these like, you know, awareness and like listening to her body and all of this like kind of like, A lot of people out there are like, hey, you guys are like, whoa, you have lost it. You've like, this is not science. Like these are internal events. We cannot see these behaviors. Like we can't like, so therefore like they do not exist. I don't know. Let's play around with that. speaker-0: Good for them. Good for you for that. to the extent that we can make them observable, we can measure them, we can work with them. The biggest surprise I probably ever had to date was energy. Yes. When I thought it was totally woo-woo. I was at North Texas at the time during grad school and I had been big into meditation since I was 21. So I've been practicing for many years at that point. ⁓ And I saw the sign that says, join meditation club and Patsapong was leading it. He was from Thailand, this really beautiful, kind guy was leading these meditations and they were guided meditation. So we kind of guide us through a forest and you see the purple flowers, da da. And after many months, after the semester, I think he said, any of you that wanna kind of stay behind and get into some other energy work, you're welcome to. So I decided to, and he started talking about energy. biggest question at that time when it comes to the practice was like, I feel drained many times after I'm done with my clinical work. Like, is there a way I can protect my energy and protect myself? I was going to people's homes and I get, just like, some homes I feel great afterwards, some homes I'm like, ⁓ my God, I don't know what just happened. And it may not be the work itself, it's just, the nature of the home and what I experienced. So yes, there are, and I took a shit ton of notes, but here's what opened my eyes. He, at one of the sessions, he came in with, I think they're called tuning forks, but basically it's like this cylinder, right? And it's got these two L-shaped prongs coming out that are free-floating, right? So imagine there's this thing like floating and just kind of sitting there in this tube. And he's standing there and there's like five of us in the room and I'm holding this thing. He's like, okay, bring that closer to me. So I bring this tube closer to him, to his body. Prongs just stay like that. I said, okay, now do it again. And I bring it closer him and the prongs separate. And he's like, I changed my energetic sphere. And that is absurd to me. speaker-2: Yeah. speaker-0: That's how we measure that. don't freak. I don't know. But at that moment, I said, OK, you know, I can have internal experiences of energy. OK, great. But when I can observe it in this way for me, that was profound. was like, wow, now this is a real thing that I can I can work with with with myself. And so I always ask when people get into like all these different topics, especially the internal events like you talk about here, but well, it's really just to what extent can we observe them? And many times it's a lot of self talk too, you know, self disclosure of like what's going on internally. have to have confidence levels in that and whatnot. ultimately it's like to what extent can we observe it and measure it? Therefore we can work with it in some way. speaker-2: I that you brought up like the whole energy thing because it's not a conversation that I have often with other people in the ABA field because I'm always afraid of the like they're gonna bring up the is this true science conversation. ⁓ But I don't care about that as much as I used to. But I'm just saying, is there the opportunity? The opportunity, ⁓ you get it all the time? speaker-1: No, no, no. Like just like here's the like it goes back to trust for me. Right. Like I am. It's so important. So important that nobody pulls a wool over my right over my eyes. And so like the energy work and the Reiki, my mind just cannot get past that. Right. Like the engineering thing is just so built in. Right? Like how do you measure that? I want to see it on the volt meter, right? I want, I want, right? And I just, and I cannot get past. speaker-2: But you know, I've had this conversation with people, other people before, and we've really talked about how, like how energy can truly shift a room. Like, you know, like when someone comes in the room and they've just like got bad vibes, right? Or they just like, you just kind of feel like, ⁓ I'm going to sit over here. I'm not going to, or like you come in and you choose a seat. Like there's something to do with like, there's stuff that you observe and past history and experiences of like that. But, like their energy is like, speaker-1: 100 % agree with all of what you're saying speaker-2: So this brings me to like, though, okay, so I'm curious about burnout even more so now as we're connecting these pieces, because like, what is burnout really? Is burnout that feeling of energy? Like zapped, right? Like drained, right? like, it would be, I'm sure there's studies out there. I'm sure there's research. I'm going to totally go dive in and see what's already out there as far as like people's descriptions of what burnout means to them. Right? What is that? Is it you're tired? Is that you're just so drained? Is it that you're like cynical? Is there a definition? I is there like a legit definition for speaker-1: Cynicism, think, is attached. It's like, it's a ⁓ legit thing, right? World Health Organization. speaker-2: I know it's a legit thing, but under what their definition is, how would people describe burnout? But then again, can we describe burnout? we have the general, like, do we know how to describe that if we're not self aware? speaker-1: chronic workplace stress characterized by three key dimensions, feeling energy depletion or exhaustion, increased mental distance from one's job or feeling negative cynicism related to it. so they have this like, it's a line in the sand. This is a work related thing, right? And like, I don't, I'm not buying it. speaker-2: health organization. Yeah, we had this conversation before. speaker-1: This you totally get this from home too and and you can't tell me that okay all that stuff that happened at work now you're gonna shut it off and Like your home life is no effect on burnout I don't I don't buy it like maybe not this specific definition, but if you're going through a divorce financial situation a hell thing with family members Maybe your mom is sick like come on. That's gonna come to work And if work life is right on the edge, that's going to put you over the edge. So I think that both of them impact the other, right? So it's really hard for me to be okay with this definition of where we're just going to talk about work, right? Like that, especially for business owners, especially for couples that are business owners, like, ⁓ good. There's no such thing, right? As a, let's shut the work up and let's, you know, we're having. We're having supper. We're not talking about work. Come on. That doesn't happen. speaker-0: And it will, could be different for every person, every family, every relationship, ⁓ of like where those conversations are, right? ⁓ And then I like April said, it can be so unique to each person what burnout means for them. ⁓ It could be an energy drain, it could be a financial drain, you know, like. We've got folks moving out of Maui as RBTs to the mainland because they can't afford to live there anymore as clinicians. So it can be so different for each person and every couple too has their ⁓ kind of conversations that they have with their significant other. I think one of my professors, I remember him saying, he's like, next time I get married, I'm gonna marry a clinician. Like he just, it's just like, I'm sad that he didn't marry a clinician. It was kind of funny. Cause he wanted to, he like, guess he just wanted to have those kinds of conversations all the time. And I think it's an interesting conversation too, at some forwards, like do BCBA choose, some people do, they choose to marry clinicians and some don't. And someone's just like, well, it just so happens that my partner's not a clinician, you know, so be it. But then also there's that kind of comfort thing of like, Well, do we want to talk about all the pieces that happen at work or not? You know, are there other things that we want to get onto or not? It's, you know, it's so individualized. It just depends. And I think it's also like super individualized for burnout and what each person experiences. Yeah. speaker-2: Yeah, it's ⁓ by the time this podcast airs, the couples podcast would have already aired. on Valentine's week, we've got a panel of, don't know, I think there's four couples, five, including us, who are going to have that conversation about working together. ⁓ some are. Yeah, it's gonna. Yeah, it's great. Some are clinicians, both, but the majority are like us clinician business. speaker-1: How you really feel? speaker-2: So this is that that's that's if you haven't already listened to that podcast, you should check that one out. ⁓ So okay, so fine. We've talked about burnout. We've talked about like self helpy stuff like we've kind of danced around like, okay, this is what it could look like our stories, what it kind of looks like to us. And but if someone's listening today, and they're feeling like burnt out, maybe, maybe this conversation is helping them to like sit in their and their feelings are set like in this moment and say, man, maybe this is where I'm at. Or maybe they already came into this and this is why they're listening to this is because they're like, yeah, burnout reel. Yep. Here. Done it here. Doing it. ⁓ What are some, I don't know, what can we, what, like, let's be there. Let's be there. You know, mentor that we're going out for coffee with them and we want to give them some just some advice, you know, of course, we don't know everyone's individual situation. And we're not, you know, here to offer specific therapy. But yeah, just as like we're just sitting around a coffee and a friend is kind of their colleagues come up and they're talking about their burnt out, like what kind of advice can we can we give those who are listening who might be feeling this and not exactly sure what direction to take next? speaker-0: Yeah. Sometimes it's also that listening piece too. What is it? We kind said this before, what is it that's burning you out? How are you feeling about that? some people like relishing and feeling burnt out. speaker-2: Well, that's what I by like that like badge thing, right? It's like, like, what do we get from that? Like if we say, ⁓ we're bent out, burnt out, like, let's go back to the science. Like, is that getting us more? Like, are we getting access to things that we need where people are actually leaning in and listening to us when we're saying we're burnt out? speaker-0: And then, after that listening piece, perhaps it's like, okay, well, what fills your cup? And the question of, do you wanna move into a different emotional state or not? Do you wanna stay there? And let's explore that, because maybe you do wanna stay there. I know I've stayed in different states of sadness or fear, grief, I was just like, my grandma passing away, it's like three years ago, whatever it is. It's like, I wanna stay in this grief right now. You know, I don't want to think about other things or moving into different emotional. I to stay in this grief. I want to experience this grief. I want to cry the hell out of myself. You know, it's like, okay. And that's where I want to be. I think just, and Steve was mentioning this earlier, it's like acknowledging those pieces and shedding light on it can be, can be really, really eye-opening. And that may lead to what I want to do next. Do I want to find ways to fill my cup or am I doing activities that don't fill my cup at when I'm outside of being a clinician. Am I acknowledging that or not? Especially ⁓ early on in my career, no, I was not acknowledging that. It was just like, nope, but all good. Like I enjoy the heck out of it for sure. But it's like, you know, as we get older, we learn how we wanna navigate things. And part of it is that journey too. And so people overall, take a breath. And I like to say, take a pause for the cause. And the cause is yourself a lot of times. Just pause with yourself and listen to your breath. Listen to the air vent as you're just sitting there. And attempt to shift focus and notice those thoughts that are coming up. And gently guide yourself. to something that you could focus on, whether it's a candle sitting in front of you or the air vent or the breath, move yourself gently. If you choose to, if you'd rather relish in thoughts and go through that, let that happen. It's kind of like that idea of, what is it? Kind of like a leaf floating downstream kind of thing. It's gonna take its own natural course, but to allow for that moment, to occur, that I think is the big deal. Is that just programming that time for ourselves, whether it's two minutes or five minutes, 30 minutes or an hour, whatever it might be, just allowing that and giving ourselves that to take a pause for the cause can really, at least in my experience, can be really helpful. speaker-1: So like, if you want my, I'll fix it for you. So, talk therapy. No, I did that for years. It just made things worse. Right. Like sitting around talking about myself. ⁓ it just made me get angrier. Right. ⁓ and blame more people. So, ⁓ I, what I worked for me was body scans. Like that was a really good, cause I didn't know how to feel into my body. speaker-2: about what a body scan speaker-1: So it's like you closing your eyes. You don't have to close your eyes, but it can be helpful, right? ⁓ I tried meditation. I tried a talk therapy that was like meditation. Okay. What focus on my breath or imagine a stream. Imagine the green leaf. I can't, I close my eyes. I see black. There's no color. What are you talking about? Imagine green. So So for me, it was like, okay, just what does it feel like in your body? And like, what, what can you feel on your hands right now? Right? Like, are they hot? Are they cold? Are they tight? they, you know, does, do you feel anything? Right? And that allowed me to go into my body and I did this for probably two years. And like, it was like the best thing that I ever did for myself. ⁓ And that's where it started for me was I could then open up, I could then sense emotion that I didn't know that I even had. Right. And I think that that was a really good and easy way. It's gentle. There are a lot of them that are like trauma based. Right. So like if you are dealing with trauma, PTSD, like they can be very gentle and and allow you to start. speaker-2: the name of that. speaker-1: It's so the one that worked for me, the one that, um, uh, my, uh, therapist that was open to meditation was I rest. Uh, think they're out of California. It's I R E S D. Yeah. Like I, yeah. Like if we're going to go into my backstory, like, like, like, dude, I was like 330 pounds, right? I was so angry and so depressed. Right? Like. The normal self-talk for me was, hey, as I'm driving down the road to go to work, why don't you just jump the culvert and kill yourself? That was the normal thing that I would say to myself, that you'd probably be better off. That was my life. And it was just awful to be me. It was awful for everyone to be around me, but I had to live with myself 24-7. You all got breaks. ⁓ And then I met this amazing therapist that used ⁓ mindfulness meditation and body scans and it was like life-saving, right? And so ⁓ she got me onto iRest. then went to, like again, an engineer, again, the only thing that matters is your brain. That's it, right? ⁓ And then I went to Cropallo twice. to get ⁓ meditation teacher training. speaker-0: meditation center something like Kripal I've heard of it before. speaker-1: Yeah. like they, they, you go into silence, right? And you're and, and so I went to two, two week courses on this and like, you know, it was, it was life changing, life saving. ⁓ and, that's really where my journey started. ⁓ and it was so helpful, right? So helpful. So I would recommend anybody starting off if you're not sure where to start. And again, like everybody's journey is going to be different, right? And so this may not work for you at all. ⁓ but that was, ⁓ that was how I got on board. Cause my brain, it was easy to convince my brain. ⁓ yeah, you're actually feeling those things. I can, I can, yeah. Right. It's real. Right. And where it wasn't the woohoo stuff. Yeah. speaker-0: Yeah, and thanks for sharing all that too. one of the beautiful pieces in there is that you, from what I hear, you made these attempts to find what kind of works for you. And you did that. You put yourself into that journey. ⁓ Quite a beautiful thing, man. Awesome. Thanks for sharing that. speaker-1: and our speaker-2: Yeah. Thank you so much. It's been a while since you've shared. And I think that it is important, right? Like this is not a, okay, you're burnt out. is the anti, okay, here's the problem, let's fix it, right? ⁓ You're burnt out because burnt out means something different for everybody and what we're going to find to help is going to be different from everyone. I think that speaker-1: that. speaker-2: It would be fair to say that, like you said, like practice the pause, right? And we do that in our day-to-day family life. We try. It is not 100 % or anywhere close. There are some days where we're great at it and other days where we suck at it, But if nothing else, just being able to stop and just recognize what's here right now, even if that's it, just acknowledging it, just naming it. speaker-1: I can also appreciate though that there are a lot of people out there where the pause is tremendous, like is so traumatized. It's so ⁓ painful to allow yourself to pause and, and like sit with those thoughts. Yeah. speaker-2: You're right. Thank you for saying that. That's very accurate. speaker-0: And then it may come down to, okay, voice the thought. What do you think? If you feel like you have a safe enough space with somebody to just get into voicing the thoughts or writing them down even can be a great way to kind of get them out into the open. I practiced that for a couple of years. I forgot the book that was recommended to me at the time, the heart of something. anyway, it was like the practice was writing things down and man, it really helped me out a lot. like, you wake up and, You're just writing three pages worth of free thought going on at the page. was cool. speaker-2: Yeah. Well, I mean, in my experience is completely different because like, if you told me to fill into feel into my body and have like, still to this day, like have issues with that. I'm like, I don't know. And I get really frustrated. And, but I can visualize the most vivid, beautiful, gorgeous, vibrant, colorful landscapes in my house and can take myself right there. Right. So it's like, we all have our, know, we all have our own things. In fact, when I learned that not everyone sees and color and can, you know, like, that was the whole thing, right? And he's like, no, I see black. you know, so like we all have our each have our own very special individual experience. And that's what makes us so human. And I think that's like the invite today is to like, like recognize that, yeah, we are each one of us is a very special individual human. And we're also interacting with a lot of humans who have their own individual story yet we are all connected, right? And so, know, yeah. speaker-0: And when we extend that into our clients, I think it becomes a beautiful dance because then we're seeing them as humans, kids first before a bunch of behaviors that need to be shaped. speaker-2: And it's so important for us to, you know, these things are important for ourselves. But, you know, the reason we're all here having these conversations is our common, you know, goal or common value is to be able to provide quality, ethical services for our learners, right? Our learners, I mean, there's some adults too, right? ⁓ And so, you know, I just, I guess my challenge is, ⁓ to invite some curiosity and when we're looking at those specific behaviors that we're dealing with with our learner and maybe take a step back and not be so focused on the very black and white ABC, the function of the behavior, right? ⁓ this is a void. This is attention-syncing. Freudian, I don't know. But attention seeking, and they're crying, we can't hug them, right? And so it's like really looking at, you know, this is a little kid and it's a little kid first, you know? so I think what's kind of driving this conversation as well is like really looking at ourselves, but ultimately to be able to, you know, ⁓ to be able to show up in the way that would be great for these individuals. speaker-0: I've heard this a few times different RBT's or different BCB's, know, he escaped the task and then he was seeking attention like pause Just describe to me what you see without putting those functions on to it Let's just start there describe what you observed and we can just kind of kind of go from there. Yeah. Yeah, I like that We were saying speaker-2: All right, well, we know for a fact that we can talk for hours and hours. Was there anything else that ⁓ you wanted to chat about that we didn't cover Stephen or Josh? Thinking face on. speaker-1: No, I think just that stupid saying, right? Like you, ⁓ you put the mask on in the airplane, you put your, your mask on first before you put somebody else's mask on. ⁓ there, there, there is a reason for that, right? and I, I think that BCBAs and, and techs, you all are here for the, I think for the goal, like you mentioned to help. Right. And so in order to maximize your helping ability, then maybe you should focus on yourself a little bit more. And, know, if you are struggling with burnout and stress and overwhelmed for whatever reason, might be seeking out professional help, obviously. But, you know, downloading Insight Timer, it's free and fine. speaker-2: Callmap too, believe is another. speaker-1: Find, you know, find one that you can tolerate, right? And it may start off with toleration, right? And maybe, ah, this one is not 100 % horrible. And that may be where it starts. And then you can get a little bit of relief from this. But like it again, like you all have both have said, like, it does, you have to acknowledge that there is a problem here. Right? And if you're stuck in burnout because you love to be stuck in burnout, that's okay. ⁓ but maybe, maybe we need to move past it. That's it. speaker-2: Well, I need such a reach out. just want to also guess, you know, shameless plug here, but reminder that we do have our ABA business leaders support group. And so in the show notes, wherever you're watching this, there's a link for a sign up sheet and it's not on social media. It's on a Slack group. It's very, I like to say very safe place. It's, it's, been great. It's still relatively new, ⁓ but we're having lots of great conversation and it's a place where BCBA business owners are, you know, can show up and support each other and hold space for, you know, like it's, hard being an owner and a leader in the ABA space. And so it's a place that you can also come and share and, and get community and connection from that as well. So any last words from you, Josh? speaker-0: I was thinking about when Steven was talking with some of the pieces and the thought that came to my mind was to the extent that we can change our own behavior is the same extent to which we can change others. I think that that's I would want to leave that piece of like what my next steps can be and kind of go from there. Yeah. Yeah. This has been a... extremely enjoyable as it has been the past two conversations too to kind of hang out and chat. And these are the kind of topics too, at least for me that are most meaningful to connect. Because yes, we're clinicians and great, we all have our skillsets and that we can always change and we can shape and we can always learn more. I've been in this field for long enough, I could always learn more as a clinician. But these underlying pieces of just being human and connecting on these levels is, It's a beautiful thing. And thanks for kind of creating this space for us to do it. I think it's just so cool that of all the topics, the past two conversations we had of all the topics, you chose this one. Just, I just had a sheer curiosity. Like what, what made you choose that one? Or was it April? Was it Steven? it both of you? speaker-2: Yeah, I'm behind the scenes here at the podcast. I had a, I did a solo podcast. It may, by the time people hear this, they may have heard that one. ⁓ because I had like this realization, cause I was kind of getting preachy. I was getting preachy about self-help. was getting preachy about burnout. I was, I was feeling, I, I know I recognized it because I felt so passionate and I hated to see people struggle and be in this space where they were just like really struggling. And I also personally just didn't like to see like the, this just negativity, this energy that was oozing out. need to... 100%. And so I recognized that and I said, okay, what can I do? What can I do differently than what I'm doing now? And how can I show up better? ⁓ Because I used to end the podcast saying, reach out to another BCBA owner in your area, invite them for coffee and collaborate and connect and let them... speaker-1: Shut up and you need to... ⁓ speaker-2: And I had quite a few people that was so lovingly were like, yeah, no, thanks. I don't like reaching out asking people for coffee, especially someone I don't like. Are you kidding me? And so with some self reflection, I recorded just a solo rant, not rant, but just a solo like spill of all of that. speaker-1: I'm I'm gonna have to listen to it. speaker-0: Yes. speaker-2: I'd be scared. because we are actually, you know, we record things out of order. you guys listening know this. it hasn't, you know, hasn't come out yet. But anyways, so in through that, I said, okay, I still want to help. I don't need to fix. I don't need to change how people are doing. don't. It was coming across. I thought it was coming across as being passionate, but I don't think it was. It was like, I need to fix you. You need to do this differently. you need to stop your burnout. And so I then I also went on a journey. I feel very much about like I've been more in this like we were all just people might call it. And, you know, I put out my intention into the universe. I decided, OK, this is how this is what I want it to look like. This is well, not as a how, but this is what I want. This is what this is the need that's there. This is how I want to show up. These these are the things that I want to be able to provide differently. And so it's been brought to me. And so I've had numerous conversations where this has showed up. so this was the absolute last thing that I thought that we were going to bring Josh on our podcast to talk about. mean, no, like it just really wasn't like, I was like, okay, Josh is like this, you know, PhD, BCA with all this experience and businesses and He, know, you know, clinician-owned companies and, you know, your stance on certain things and all of it. And I was like, yeah, this is the conversation. And like, never did I think that it was going to land on like the topic that we talked about today, but I couldn't be happier that this is where it landed us because I really truly feel like, ⁓ you know, not that I'm changing anyone, not that anyone needs to be fixed. You're worthy with how you are right now in this moment. However, I still want to be able to provide something, you know, to the convert, if nothing else, just a conversation to say, it's okay to talk about these things. speaker-0: There's a, thank you for sharing that, there's a brotherhood and a sisterhood in our field that can be recognized, that can be navigated on an emotional level that every one of us deserves to be, to be part of. And I wonder if folks reach out to you and they may be willing to share live on a podcast and, you know, maybe in like small increments, talk about these pieces because... We've all experienced all kinds of crazy shit in this field. And let's be real about it, and let's talk about it, and let's share it together because one person's experience in sharing in that can help 500 other clinicians. I wonder if that's even something that may come up, who knows? speaker-2: Absolutely, I love that idea and if you're listening right now and you're like, this is really great But I don't really want to leave with something like this on the podcast hotline. Just email email info at three pi squared. Mm-hmm.com speaker-1: Yeah. speaker-2: I've like said that like all like that. I was like, I don't know. What's the email? It will put it in the show notes, but thank you so very much Josh I just I'm just so grateful for the time that we've had together to discuss and I I'm Excited for this relationship to continue. don't think that this conversation ends here But I do really thank you for your time and thank you for sharing and thank you for showing up. I really appreciate that speaker-0: My absolute pleasure. Great talking with you two again. speaker-1: And I do have one one more thing. Do you want to plug your stuff Josh? you I do mentor BCBAs? Can if someone was like, ⁓ this all sounded great. I need your help. Like is that something that you do? speaker-0: I mean, with momentum, the company momentum, you can find us on LinkedIn. You can look me up on LinkedIn. You'll see us there. You you're looking to become a company owner. You're a BCBA and you're looking for true partnership in that process. Look us up. Other than that, as far as mentoring, not necessarily. But again, like I said, I really believe in this brotherhood and sisterhood in the field. And if you wanna just reach out and have a conversation and talk story, I'm very much open to that, especially on these topics that we've talked about. speaker-2: Awesome. Great. All right. Well, thanks, everyone. We'll see you next time. Thanks for joining us on ABA Business Leaders. speaker-0: Thanks for asking. speaker-1: We provide mentorship, courses, handbooks, billing support, credentialing, HIPAA support, web design, and more. Everything you need to build an ethical and sustainable ABA practice. speaker-2: You can find all of our resources at 3pi2.com speaker-1: Don't forget to subscribe and share this podcast with other ABA business owners. speaker-2: We'll see you next time and remember you don't have to build your practice alone.