How Kelley St Clair Built a Purpose-Driven ABA Company from Her Kitchen Table

[0:00]  the fact of the demand is good for the business model. Um I don't think that that's what was driving me so much as I just literally talking to individual families and um hearing their stories and knowing that they need help and there's just there's so many children who are looking for support and so many parents who are looking for support and I want to help every single one of them.

[0:25]  Um, it's it's um it's amazing and so fulfilling and it's also really hard. It's it's hard to talk to so many parents who are literally crying on the phone saying, you know, I need help with my child. I need help to um help keep them safe and help help them communicate and help them do all the important things that they need to do. All right, guys. Welcome back to a brand new episode of the Heart and Hustle podcast.

[1:05]  Now, I'm incredibly excited to bring this leader's heart and hustle into the forefront of your vision here today because I have Kelly St. Clair, the CEO of Clarity ABA. Kelly, welcome to the show. Thank you so much. It's great to be here. So, Kelly, you know, I think it's so important. Of course, we're going to talk about your business, right? Which is providing an incredible service in the community that you guys serve, but more importantly, I think it's more important for us to really kind of tell the story of the person who is the head of this organization. I want to learn a little bit more about you personally. So, let's start off. How is your heart doing today? Oh, it's great.

[1:42]  Spring is coming. It's I've got sunshine in my office right now. It's wonderful. Awesome. Well, so here's something that I never really asked, but you know, if people had to describe Kelly and you had no interpretation of what they're gonna say, what do you hope people say about you as a person, as a leader, and a little bit about your heart?

[2:04]  Well, if you're asking my team that question, I hope the first thing they would say is that I'm kind. Um, we really talk a lot about that here. Uh, I think it's so important that people can come to work and be treated with kindness. And we try to make sure that's happening every day. I mean, things can be hard. Um, and things can get busy and stressful on any day, but in the end, we all need a little bit of kindness, a little bit of grace on a day-to-day basis. And I'm trying to make sure that that's happening for everybody around here. I absolutely love that. You know, one of the things that I think about is we need more leaders who are very forward about being kind, about being empathetic, about being encouraging. One of the stories that I often talk about is when I was a younger entrepreneur, 24 years old, when I started my company in

[2:52]  2014, I started looking around and trying to decide like what kind of leader do I want to be? And all the instances that I had seen growing up to that point were of leaders like Steve Jobs or other people who were willing to be incredibly harsh on their team members who didn't really care about the people but more cared about the results.

[3:09]  And then I came across an amazing leader and my marketing director Dante talks to me about this all the time. He's like, you know, you should be plugged as an affiliate for this guy because he talks about building a large empire which is a honey empire. Now he's got a Fortune50 marketing company, but he says an empire is competitive. We want to do the best job that we possibly can, but honey represents kindness, empathy, compassion. And why do you kind of focus on that kindness element? Because I'm so intrigued about why you brought that up and where you got that from. I love that. Um, well, I think first of all, in our business, in ABA, there is a perception out there in the world that there's a lack of kindness at times. And so clinically, we want to lead with kindness with our our families and the kids that we're working

[3:56]  with. And that is one of, if not the most important thing to me, is that the service that we're providing to others is kind first. And then I think that if you want to get the best out of people, and I think the other thing people would say about me, people who work here and people who don't, is that I have an expectation that's really high. I'm asking a lot of people. I'm asking them to show up in a big way and do really hard work and do really exceptional work. And I think if I'm going to ask that of people, I need to make sure that they're being met with kindness and understanding and having a really good positive experience at work that feels comfortable, that feels good. Because if I don't treat them with kindness, they're not going to be motivated to do

[4:43]  the hard things that I'm asking them to do. I had an amazing leader on the podcast recently. Uh episode hasn't dropped yet at the time of recording this, but his name is David Castro. And the entire conversation we had is was about leadership and he said, "Kenan, something that we have to recognize is that in order for us to be great leaders, we first have to be able to lead ourselves." So my question for you, Kelly, is are you leading the same way with high standards? Right? Often it's easy for us to be, I would say, poor leaders of ourselves because we hold ourselves to a really high standard.

[5:15]  It's easy for us to be negative. So, are you kind to yourself? Do you lead yourself in the same way that you lead your team? I try to. Um, I think I think I'm pretty good at that most of the time. I mean, you have to be a self-critic in order to grow. You have to look, you know, look at yourself and find the opportunities to improve. But, yeah, I think I'm kind to myself. I think I try to let go of things like um guilt or negative thoughts because I think they just get in the way of what you're trying to do.

[5:43]  And so when when you know everybody experiences those I'm just human and I have those things um I try to you know put them in their place and move past it and try to learn from learn from it because some of that self-t talk is telling you what you need to work on for sure but I don't want to dwell on that because it just holds you back and do you think you've developed a little bit more of that skill set right once you went into kind of your entrepreneurial chapters of your career? here like you had to be nice to yourself because it was you on the battlefront, right? 24/7.

[6:17]  Yeah, absolutely. And there's nothing that um there's no doubt that becoming a business owner and a leader that it puts you out there in a big way. It it's going to expose your strengths and it's going to expose your faults and your limitations and the areas where you need to grow really fast. Um, and in order for you to survive and, you know, do well, you have to be ready to look at those things and say, well, that, you know, there's one example where I've, you know, got to make make an improvement. I mean, there's a huge learning curve as a business owner.

[6:53]  There's I I made lots of mistakes right from day one. Um, and I those were painful and I had to move past them and make sure that I, you know, I was going to turn them into um a way to grow and a way to mentor other people who are, you know, emerging leaders. So, yeah. Well, so here's a question for you. Did you um ever play sports when you were a kid? Uh, yeah, I did. I did. I played a few different sports. What sports did you play? And did you ever have a dream of going pro in one of them?

[7:28]  Uh, no. I don't ever I don't think I ever thought about becoming a pro alete. Um, I was a competitive swimmer as a kid and then in high school I played tennis, not very well, but I liked it. Um, and I ran some track at times, but no, sports was not my uh my pro aspiration. The reason I bring that up is I uh I talk about this often on the podcast, but I was a lifelong athlete, right?

[7:55]  Right? I played football. I played basketball. I played baseball. Baseball was my best sport. And when I was younger, 16, 17, I really started leaning into the dream of becoming a pro baseball player, right? And then I went to college and I got hurt and I stopped playing and I went through a huge identity crisis. And one of my mentors at the time, as Keenan was indulging in some bad habits and was just on the other side of 70 pounds gained by comforting himself with cheeseburgers from the Sonic down the street, I had a really important conversation and my mentor said, "Ke, you know, you've dreamed a long time about being a pro baseball player. But guess what? Now you're going to have to choose to go pro at something else." And let me tell you one thing that you could choose to go pro in, which is business. Have you ever thought about that? And I said, I mean, my dad's an entrepreneur, so maybe. And

[8:42]  he said, one of the advantages that you have in coming from the baseball space was a Hall of Fame baseball player often fails seven out of 10 times. And guess what? Entrepreneurship and starting your own business is very similar to that. And so I took a lot of the lessons learned that I had from baseball and becoming comfortable with failure and put all of this effort into becoming an entrepreneur and starting a business.

[9:05]  But one thing I recognized was the season of being a pro athlete and getting to your peak of your career wasn't capped at 28 or 30, right? When my body starts to change, but more importantly, it can be something I pursue for a lifetime. And I think that's one of the beautiful things that we can talk about is the time frame that you think about the impact on your business. You have so much time to be comfortable with failure and experimentation. The only objective is to sustain and continue to get better, which I think is such a beautiful blessing.

[9:35]  Absolutely. Um it is a blessing. It's really exciting and I think if you get into it at the right time um at least for me it has felt really invigorating in so many ways and there's so much growth that can happen. So we talked a little bit about your heart here. I want to talk a little bit about your hustle and clarity. So for everybody who's tuning in today and says okay clarity ABA. First of all I don't know what ABA is. What business do you have and what problem are we combating or services are we providing in the community? Yeah. So, ABA stands for applied behavior analysis and I think of it as the science of learning. Uh, it's the science of helping people learn how to um change their habits and their behaviors and um grow new skills.

[10:26]  Everything that we do as humans is behavior. And um so everything that we want to do in terms of changing our behavior, both increasing behaviors and decreasing behaviors, um ABA can help us do that. And so for clarity, um ABA is most traditionally used to help autistic children. It can help um anybody change any behavior that they want, but that's where it's most commonly used, and that's what we do here. Um, we love working with children and their families. And many autistic children, um, can benefit from some help, trying to improve some skills that they, you know, that they need to grow. And a lot of families with autistic children also need some help, trying to understand

[11:14]  what's going to what are the conditions that are going to help their child thrive. And so that's what we're all about. And we specifically provide ABA services to kids in their homes. So you guys are bringing the clinical environment into the home, right? And being able to serve families where they are with compassionate care, which I think is so beautiful. So here's one of the things that I think is interesting to kind of paint a picture of context for the audience. Um, now I also work in the space of ABA, mental behavioral health. And when I first started working in this space in 2018, one in 56 kiddos were being diagnosed with autism. As of 2024, with one of my recent partners, we shared some statistics at a big fundraiser.

[11:56]  It's one in 36 kids are being diagnosed with autism. So, there is an incredible growing demand inside of our communities for the services that you guys provide and the compassionate care that you meet families with. Did you strategically think about from a business perspective alone that this space continues to grow and if we have the opportunity to serve our community, this is a great place for us to plant our flag or what were some of the motivations behind, you know, creating this type of business? I mean, sure, the the fact of the demand is good for the business model. Um, I don't think that that's what was driving me so much as I just literally talking to individual families and um, hearing their stories and knowing that they need help and there's just there's so many

[12:45]  children who are looking for support and so many parents who are looking for support and I want to help every single one of them. Um, it's it's um, it's amazing and so fulfilling and it's also really hard. It's it's hard to talk to so many parents who are literally crying on the phone saying, you know, I need help with my child. I need help to um help keep them safe and help help them communicate and help them do all the important things that they need to do. Um and for me, I've been working in this field for a long time, but I also have a personal connection um myself. I have a child who is autistic and um I just feel really drawn to doing that. And so, yeah, as a business owner, it's it's wonderful that there's sort of, you know, there's a really high demand and um there's a lot of

[13:33]  opportunity to grow for sure, but I don't really think of it that way. I think about how can I help this next kid and this next parent who I'm talking to. And that that's a beautiful way to approach it. And of course, I wasn't trying to come from this as being disrespectful in any way, but trying to paint a picture for the audience about what's actually happening in our communities, right? When we think about one in 36 kiddos being diagnosed with autism, it completely changes the way in which you look at your neighborhood, look at your community, the people around you, and like you said, this isn't just an individual patient diagnosis, but this is about supporting families in total. And so I want to talk about the growing demand from the perspective of how you started and kind of scaled clarity. So one of the things I know is that you started which is the famous story of entrepreneurship at your kitchen table right with one other team

[14:21]  member and now you guys have grown you guys are serving over 18 different communities plus. So let's talk about that process. Yeah. So we did we started in my kitchen um one day and it was myself and another BCBA board certified behavior analyst and we um had an idea for just going into homes and working with kids. Um and we started with a couple of clients um in early 2023 and very quickly um we were we were busy uh she and I were working just ourselves uh with individual kids and as word gets out um that there's a new ABA provider available who maybe doesn't have a wait list that we started hearing from families really quickly. Um, and we we gradually grew our team. We had to

[15:12]  bring on some uh direct care staff and it just very naturally grew from there. Over time, as our schedules got filled, um, we wanted to, like I said, help as many families as we could. And so we just as rapidly as possible, um, started, you know, building adding additional programs to to help kids. And then our wait list just exploded as word of mouth spread. And currently we have a wait list for kids looking for afterchool services for over a year. And that is pretty typical for ABA providers in our area. For kids who um are younger and aren't in school all day, um there's still a wait list, but we can, you know, sometimes get to those kids more quickly. And now we have uh five clinicians and a team of 20 employees.

[15:59]  And we're serving a lot of families. And we're we're still growing. We're trying to add more teams. I know any families who are listening to this, we're trying. We're trying to, you know, add more clinicians and more staff so that we can open up more cases. If the Heart and Hustle podcast has ever sparked any idea or made you think differently, do us a favor. Make sure to guys share this, post it on LinkedIn, or even text that nonprofit friend that you just have.

[16:24]  Whatever works. This is what keeps the conversation going and allows us to just grow this community together. Seriously, we appreciate you. I want to put a pin in the the statement, we're trying to grow the business to meet demand because that is a unique position to be in, but it also has to be incredibly taxing emotionally on not being able to serve as many people as you want. So, let's put a pin in that. I want to go back to the days at your kitchen counter, your kitchen table, right? When you guys start this business and it's you and another ABA therapist, right, who are sitting there, what are some of the conversations you guys are having about formulating clarity? Is it hey these are the services we're going to formulate?

[17:02]  How do we get our first customers? Like what does the the early days look like? Um mostly it's about philosophy and it's about approach. We're we are having a lot of conversations about the different types of ABA we've seen implemented and the lessons we've learned about how we approach the actual work with the child. And we knew um that there was a particular approach that we wanted to take that um is sometimes being referred to as today's ABA or progressive ABA and it is a it's a traumainformed approach. It's a neurodeiversity affirming approach and we knew that that was going to be central to everything that we were doing. Um I was trained in, you know, traditional ABA methods that are um were

[17:51]  very very much coming from the heart of everyone um at the time who was doing it and was considered best practice. And we know from some adult uh adult autistic individuals that that wasn't wellreceived all the time. It wasn't experienced as positive and in some cases it was experienced as traumatic and abusive. And I see that I see that history. I understand it. Some of the approaches that I took with my own child, I can look back and say I did that out of love and I did that out of the guidance of very well-meaning clinicians who I still um respect and um love and appreciate. And now I think we can do it in a little bit of a different

[18:38]  way. We can do it in a way that the child experiences as more comfortable um and that is more um less likely to stress cause stress as we're building skills and we can do it effectively. That's the that's the beautiful thing. We can make huge progress with kids without causing them any discomfort or distress. And so that was really central to those conversations we were having that that we were going to focus on that. And then the other part was we were going to focus on staff also being comfortable and our employees being happy and um having as much flexibility as possible.

[19:18]  Um that our direct care staff who are a paraprofessional level were going to feel like professionals. they were going to feel like they were really um critical team members because they are and that their voice was going to be central to what we were doing. And basically we're creating a work environment, a community that feels healthy and good for everybody who's participating while we do this really important work.

[19:47]  Did you ever have any uh friction, I guess I would ask, when you come from a traditional ABA therapy experience and training, right, and you say, "We're going to do things differently now because we have more data, more informed decision-m, more available practices." Did you ever have any hesitancy about kind of what the marketplace would do to kind of accept these new type of, you know, practices or was there any type of doubt in your mind about the right approach? No. Um I went through that uh previously um for sure I went through that because it's it's self critique as well knowing that I was a participant in some of that um so not now but but I think the field has gone through that we've we've all been feeling that friction and there's sure there still is

[20:35]  in in the field of ABA there's questioning about the terms like like what does it mean to be compassionate in ABA and do we need to say that and I I think we do I think we do need to say we are doing this with compassion and we we're doing this safely for everybody involved. Um I think we have a responsibility to um to make sure we're doing that and to talk about it that way. Um and so no I don't I wasn't worried about friction. I I understand that there's um there's people working in ABA or who who are working outside of ABA and who don't know about this um this shift necessarily and they they might look at what we're recommending and say, "Well, why are you doing it that way?" Um, I've experienced this with, you know, staff coming in who who

[21:25]  it's new for and where they're like, well, you know, shouldn't we just ignore this behavior and just, you know, not give attention to it? And when I explain, well, well, actually, that's not what we're going to do. Um, and we're going to we're going to approach it this way that shows the child that we hear them and that we're giving them compassion. And by the way, we're still going to make really amazing gains in their skills. And no, we're not worried that that behavior is going to get worse. It's it's going to improve and we have the data to back that up. Um so I think once employees experience that um and they see that there's progress and they feel good delivering that service that um it's pretty easy to get their buy in. That's that's uh this is exactly where I was hoping this conversation was going to go. But like leadership in I would say uncertainty is something

[22:13]  that's incredibly interesting to me especially when we're building organizations around changing people's mindset right and beliefs about how we do certain stuff. So what are some of I guess like the tactical approaches that you have to getting people to buy in to doing things a certain way but also casting a vision for what the impact's going to be as well. I always love asking this question to kind of get inside your head. Yeah. I think you have to um speak to people both in terms of big picture and the nitty-gritty. So you have to like give them this big picture that gives them a little inspiration um and talk to them about the the values behind it and like where we're going and sort of show them like I think you can kind of see it like you have to um convey your own enthusiasm and the love

[23:02]  that you're putting into the work. Um, and then they can feel that and then drill down to okay, these are the details on how we're going to do it. Um, and then as you're doing that, I think delivering it with organization and clarity, um, to coin the phrase, uh, that it makes it really clear and accessible to them and helps them connect with, um, with what they are going to do in a way that they can really understand easily and and then it's showing them it's showing them um, how to do it. So, one of the things that we really focus on here is really effective training. Um, training that's evidence-based. And so, I think our

[23:49]  employees feel really empowered. And part of their buyin is that they know what to do because we've trained them really thoroughly, really well with kindness and with good feedback that and that feedback keeps coming. Um, and we get people really comfortable with feedback happening every day, every week. And you know, sometimes tough feedback, but delivered with kindness.

[24:18]  And so when people are really well trained, they really understand the big picture mission that we're going for and they really understand the details of the tactical approach we're taking, they feel really confident because they know what to do and they're not sitting around going, "Oh, I'm trying to figure this out and nobody's really telling me and my supervisor doesn't show up and I I don't really know what to do, so I'm going to kind of make it up." Oh, and you know, that doesn't work very well.

[24:41]  And people feel uncomfortable when they don't know what to do and and what they're going after. I think about this in a term as well. Um, not only are you creating organizational culture, right? But you're also meeting a new generation of millennials, Gen Z, and Gen Alpha behind it with the values and characteristics that they want to be met with. So, here's my theory. I believe that we have a huge leadership shortage in our society today. And leadership is not just getting up in front of people and telling people what to do, but it's being able to cast a vision that gets other people excited and gives them a perceived I would say idea of agency.

[25:22]  Meaning what they do today impacts the world around them and the organization at a whole. And when we think about kind of the macro challenges of our society, 2022 surgeon general comes onto a national broadcast. Biggest threat to the American society, not another viral pandemic, but an epidemic of isolation and loneliness. I feel like since the pandemic, the world that we live in, the blur between our personal and our professional lives has become incredibly sketchy. We can't see really see the difference. And when we're not getting that social connection, that feeling of agency in our personal lives with the media and all the negativity that swirls when we come into work, we feel so validated and so empowered when we know what we're doing every day has a direct impact on the people who we serve and the organization as a whole. And I think that we need more leaders very

[26:09]  transparently like Kelly who can give us clarity about what the future looks like of work because we just need more leaders like you. And it's just so cool to hear that you are so compassionate and so kind and so intentional about how you're building your organization. Thank you. I I think that it's such an important point that this idea about isolation especially among young people and young professionals. Um, and we do have a lot of millennial um, or Gen Z employees um, fresh out of college. I think the they make excellent behavior therapists and it's so exciting to to shape them and work with them. Um, they come with so much enthusiasm and, you know, we're really careful in in the employees that we're selecting. We're looking for very key specific

[26:56]  characteristics. Um, and when they come in, um, being able to give them a positive work experience where they're they are making a difference, they're making a difference in the life of that child that they're working with every day, but also just as part of the team is really exciting. Um, and I I agree. I think that helping them feel connected to our team and helping them feel like they're also making a difference within like their the group of co-workers that they're with is super meaningful.

[27:29]  I mean, it's it's what it's all about. You know, I think we spend so much time working. I mean, if we think about an eight hour shift, right? You only get 24 hours in a day. And people say that's a third of your day, but you're also sleeping for a huge majority of that as well. So work is a gigantic part of our lives. and why should we not feel fulfilled in the work that we do? And it's just so cool to kind of hear, you know, your perspective on the intentionality. I'm just going to hit it on it again. Okay. I want to come back to the pin that we put in our board a little earlier when you were talking about some of, you know, the the emotional strain, if you will, or the perceived friction that you feel not being able to scale to meet the needs of the demand in the community. You also a couple seconds ago said we are incredibly intentional about the people who we bring into the organization to play the role that we need to support us. There are two approaches. One is let's scale this thing to the moon but

[28:17]  we lose quality and the other is let's go slow but we're not going to be able to serve everybody. So how do you balance that? Yeah, it's so important because in the field of ABA, you you'll you hear a lot about there's these big corporations that are coming in um that have a like venture capital behind them and they are they're scaling in these huge ways and then there's businesses like Clarity that are small usually they're run by BCBAS and they're they're trying to figure out and so how do you make that jump? How do you go from small to, you know, solidly building while maintaining quality while maintaining the health of your employees and the financial health of the business? And it it's definitely tricky and there's so many variables that that come into play.

[29:00]  Um, one of the things, like I said, was hiring intentionally. So I interview so many people for our direct care positions and a lot of these um individuals are, you know, are coming from other big ABA agencies where they clearly did they are just just hiring anyone. Um and that that puts bodies in front of kids for sure. Um but it's not it's not going to help meet our goals.

[29:29]  We're looking to do really high quality work with children and we're looking for people who are ready to um do hard things and commit to learning this science and learning it well and performing uh at a really high level and takes a lot of energy and so I have to be really cautious and make sure I really understand the the raw material that someone's bringing in. So that takes a lot of time. Um, and I'm trying to do it as fast as I can and find as many good people as I can to do that.

[30:02]  And then it's it's also about like financially making sure I'm being responsible. Um, cash flow is is a thing and we're working with insurance companies. That's the main source of of our income is health insurance premiums and that has been the biggest learning curve without a doubt um, as a business owner. So, I have to make sure that I that I plan to be able to bring on new clinical teams who can serve kids while making sure that the the income is going to be there to support that. Um, and so, yeah, it takes it you have to I have to pay really close attention to the numbers and I can only do it a little bit at a time. Yeah. I mean, I think about there's like we I mentioned,

[30:51]  right? we can scale this thing to the moon, which often means that we've got outside capital right behind us and investment and things like that. But also, we lose control about what the organization looks, touches, and feels like to the people who we serve. Um, the other side of that is we can be slow, but you have to become incredibly skilled, right, at managing cash flow, bringing in team members, making sure that we've got the demand for these services, which we obviously do. So, I mean, I'm just so excited for kind of what the future looks like and how you execute on these things. Mhm. Um I want to shift gears a little bit and talk about what a lot of leaders are talking about these days. Technology, automation, AI. What roles do you think that that plays in this space of ABA therapy? Being able to meet people where they are. Is it operational, clinical documentation? Are we getting creative about this stuff? How are we looking at this new world that we really can't

[31:38]  ignore through a lens of curiosity? I'm really excited about where AI is going with ABA. And I think I, you know, I'm I'm excited to see more of it. We are are using a little bit of that in some of our tools with clinical case notes. Just starting to explore um how effective that is and how we might need to shape it. And I'm definitely not um a pro at this yet, but I'm trying to learn as much as I can. I'm very excited about what AI is going to do for us in terms of saving time uh for clinicians and for supervisors. Um, one of the biggest things that we spend time on that I'm always trying to make more efficient is writing our clinical plans. Um, it our clinicians are so skilled at this and it takes so much time. It takes way more

[32:27]  time than what insurance companies are paying for and we need to become more efficient. Um, and AI I think is really going to help with that over time. And then the the biggest uh issue the biggest like bottleneck that we experience week to week is scheduling. And I'm very excited for what is happening in terms of AI tools related to scheduling because it's so detailed and we have to match clients to staff based on where they're located and their availability. And then every day around between 7 and 8 in the morning, we get calls, I can't come into work today or my child is sick, I have to cancel. And we have to fix those problems. And I think, you know, there are some new AI solutions available in the market right

[33:15]  now. And I'm I'm waiting for those to become more mature and to see more of them and see how they can be integrated into some of the other tools that we use like electronic health records. What I'm hearing you say is let's be quick in the micro, but let's be patient in the macro, right, for these big changes that are happening in our space.

[33:34]  Yeah. There's nothing worse than rushing in to use a new tool and finding it's it's not um meeting your needs and you just spent a lot of time trying to learn a new system and move all your data over and now whoa, it's not quite really doing what you want. I want to talk a little bit about the concept and I haven't really talked about this in the podcast recently which is upskilling.

[33:54]  So, we've got team members, right, who are coming from different generations, but a lot of people now, like you said, are millennials and Gen Z. So, we're kind of like technological natives. We understand how systems work. We grew up with a IIM, hearing the door shut and open up when we were chatting with our friends after school, and we've seen cell phones and the internet and everything else. So when you have team members who maybe aren't leaning as hard into this new world of things like chat GPT to help them be more efficient, how do you kind of think about the upskilling and skill development process and your responsibility as a CEO to continue to push people to use these tools because it's easy to continue to do things the same way we've always done it, but it sounds like we don't have that luxury anymore. Yeah, I mean I think um similarly to what I was describing before, you have to help them see the vision and the end goal. And

[34:42]  then for things like this, I think you have to make time for people. You have to provide them time and resources and um help each person along in the way that they need to feel supported and comfortable so that they can build um their experience with it and get comfortable and feel successful. Uh so that you know if you introduce it in a in a way that they feel successful with it from the beginning and they don't build negative associations that make them want to you know get away from it then you're going to have more buyin and they're going to be more likely to go to it. So it's ABA. you have to put reinforcement um into their experience and help them um feel like it's working for them, that it's creating efficiency for them and that it is valuable.

[35:31]  So, let's talk about like I talked a little bit about me being a baseball player, right? And one of the famous baseball clips that's been seen through history is Babe Ruth way back in the day standing in a black and white film and calling his shot to center field and then he hits a home run. Right now, my question for you, Kelly, is what is your Babe Ruth moment calling your shot as we go through 2025, 2026? What are we hoping for? What are we going to accomplish with clarity? And what's the future going to look like for you guys?

[35:59]  Oh my gosh. Uh I you know I want to see us grow in a way that helps um me do less of the like wearing every single hat. Um and so I can step back and do more in terms of the clinical leadership and the big you know big picture company stuff. Um and that means h having more employees. Um that means um serving more families and I don't think it's going to happen in 2025 but eventually we want to grow so that we can be serving kids in multiple settings. Um we have some families whose children would really benefit from being in a clinic setting where there's fewer distractions um and we can control

[36:49]  things in the environment a little bit more to maximize the child's learning. But I feel really strongly about ABA happening in clinics that it can't stay there. It has to go back to the home. It has to be connected to families and their routines so that it ends up being meaningful in the child's life and in the family's life. So having a clinic in the future is a big goal of ours where we can connect that um to high quality parent training and include inhome ABA as well. Another thing that we're really interested in is um a little bit different space in the ABA world, which is helping kids who are struggling academically and providing some academic based ABA in the world of precision teaching and fluency based instruction.

[37:37]  There's a lot of talk right now in the media about the science of reading and we have some people here who are really passionate about that and know how to help kids um make rapid gains even kids that are struggling in one-on-one work in schools. Um so we'd be like to be offering that service as well. And a lot of that is for kids that we serve for other reasons. So, so children with autism or ADHD who don't feel very successful at school, we might be able to help them get back on track um academically so that they can experience more inclusion in the future in their schools. Well, Kelly, it's easy to understand why you are the definition of heart and hustle and the way you're showing up for your community and your team and the clients and patients who you serve and the families who you're supporting. It is phenomenal. And so, I want to say thank you so much for coming

[38:24]  on the show. But one last thing that we do is our previous guest wants to ask you a blind question. Okay? So this is going to be a little bit of context around this is has to do with agency. Okay? So we talked a little bit about that today. So in a world of uncertainty and negativity, right? Many people feel like no matter what they do, they can't change the world around them. Now, if that's false, which I presume that it is, what would your suggestion be? If you had five minutes with an 18 or a 20-year-old, what can they do to impact their immediate circle around themselves, including themsel and the community around them? What would your suggestions be?

[39:03]  Well, I think it's important to stop and figure out what in this moment, what around you is a sign of light in the world. Um, and how can you how can you turn that into um a positive experience for yourself, like happiness for yourself, but also for other people? How can you be a light for other people? Um, and e whether it's one small change, um, it could be as simple as, you know, holding the door for a parent who's trying to get a stroller through into a building, um, or in a big way. So, how can you do one small thing to make a connection with someone else and help them in a small

[39:52]  way? because every time you can put a smile on someone else's face that that spreads and grows and it can help you feel um really like you're making a difference and meaningful yourself. That's a perfect place for us to end it. Kelly, once again, thanks for coming on the podcast. That's it. Thank you so much.