Stepping outside your comfort zone with Dr. Karen Wilson

Are you ready to create riches in your work and life? It's time for Shedding the Bitch Radio and TV, where you can discuss, debate, and get advice on how to discover and shed the bitches of fear, insecurity, self-doubt, and negativity so you can realize your dreams and life purpose and create and accelerate the riches in life you deserve. So let's welcome your ball of fire host, Bernadette Boas.

Good day, good day, good day everyone, and welcome to another great episode of Shedding the Bitch Radio and TV. I am Bernadette Boas, your host. I'm with Ball of Fire Coaching, and we have a fabulous conversation for you today. We're going to talk about stepping outside your comfort zone. All right, so if that is of interest to you, and even if it's not, because we all know how uncomfortable getting comfortable can be for many of us, but Let me assure you, our guest today is going to solve that, solve that problem for you. But before we get into all of that, let me just thank our current and ongoing listeners and viewers. You are just fabulous and have been sharing and tweeting and posting, subscribing and commenting, even rating the show. And you're providing us ideas on what topics and guests you want to hear about. So keep those coming, if you would, across our platforms. We are live with Shedding the Bits Radio and TV, TV on YouTube, as well as the radio is out on BlogTalkRadio at noon Eastern time each Tuesday. But then we go to all your podcast streaming services after that. So you can find us on many of your platforms and leave those comments, tweets, likes, shares, and ratings. All right. I also need to thank our sponsors. NG Tax Solutions is a full-service financial and tax services company who services small to corporate size organizations around the country. And Debbie Snelling and her team do fabulous, fabulous work on your personal and business financial and tax service needs. So please reach out to them at ngtaxsolutions.com. We also have a sponsor more local to Atlanta, Georgia, And that is Up Top Roofing of Atlanta. Jay and his team are fabulous home service and roofing businesses, and they do fabulous work for anyone that reaches out to them, especially if they come from the Shedding the Bitch community. So feel free to reach out to Jay and his team at up-toproofingofatl@yahoo.com. All right, let me dig a little bit more into what we're going to talk about today and then introduce our guest.

Bernadette Boas.

So again, we're going to be talking about stepping outside your comfort zone, what it takes for women to find the courage to step outside of their comfort zones and become successful entrepreneurs by choosing to become bold, get uncomfortable, and attain extraordinary success as a female entrepreneur. But those of you corporate professionals or those that work for others, don't, don't go away, don't go away. We have a lot to talk about that you're going to be able to relate to in this conversation to your own career or life. All right, so listen, all of you, for how to leverage experiences to move into a new space, how our guest knew it was time to leave her comfort zone and start her own business. As well, we're going to talk about lessons learned that she's had along the way, good and bad, that helped shaped her, her life and how she went ahead and chose to be a business owner and how she's— you know, how she's still adjusting and not adjusting— how she's still handling that today. And then how your personal and professional experiences can help get you ready to step out of your comfort zone and become entrepreneurs. All right, so let me introduce our guest, Dr. Karen Wilson. She is a clinical neuropsychologist, director of West LA Neuropsychology PC, and the founder of ChildNexus.com, a digital platform that connects parents whose children struggle with learning or social-emotional issues with professionals who provide psychological and educational support services. Dr. Wilson is also the host of the Diverse for Thinking Different Learning Podcast. She is a sought-after expert speaker and has been invited to share her expertise in a broad range of media outlets and to a multitude of audiences, including parenting groups, educators, and professionals attending national conferences. So please help me welcome Karen— how are you, Dr. Wilson?

I am doing great, Bernadette. Thank you so much for having me.

Oh, you're so welcome. First off, kudos to you for the work that you're doing and especially providing that work to parents who are probably in very kind of challenging spaces in trying to provide their heart and soul and everything that they want to be able to give to their children. So thank you for that work because the children deserve it as well.

They absolutely do.

Yes. So how did you get into all this? Before we get into talking about getting uncomfortable, um, how did you kind of decide this was the space you wanted to be working in?

Yeah, I mean, it, it was a journey. You know, I trained to be a psychologist early on, and I actually had started thinking I was going to work in geriatric psychology, that I was going to work on Alzheimer's disease and help to identify individuals who, who have Alzheimer's disease. Worked there in that space for a while, and then I had to do a rotation in a pediatric ward of a hospital when I was on internship, and a family brought in a little boy. He was about 6 or 7 years old, and he'd been in special education since kindergarten, and his parents didn't think he belonged there, and they brought him in to, to get an evaluation to see, you know, where his strengths and weaknesses lie, and lo and behold, he did not have any learning disabilities. He didn't have an intellectual disability. He had behavioral problems problems when he was younger and was placed in special education and didn't belong there. And I sat down with him after meeting with his parents and I said, do you know how smart you are? And he said no. And at that point I was just like, this is the space I need to work in because this— I have an opportunity to impact your lives very early on. And I just thought, you know, what would have happened if he had remained there and didn't get to ever see his full potential? And so that's what led me to kind of pivot from geriatrics to, to pediatrics, and I never looked back.

Right. Um, well, thank you so much for never looking back. Thank you, thank you, thank you. But only because, again, that breaks my heart. I don't have children, but I certainly have a lot of nieces and nephews and, and children around me, and I can understand the concept of every child deserves to live their full, full, full—

Absolutely.

Yeah, that's unbelievable. Now, so explain to us pediatric Where you're residing, how old are the children you're working with?

Yes, so I see kids anywhere between 5 and young adulthood. So individuals are coming in because they're struggling in some way, either with learning, with some kind of processing, or with some kind of mental health challenge. They're struggling in school or at home or both, and the parents just don't know why. Educators are kind of stumped as to why they're struggling, and they want to have a better understanding. So they know how to support this child moving forward. And so I do evaluations of those kids to kind of identify the reason why they're struggling and then write a plan for how the parents and educators can support them moving forward.

Right, right. And I know we're supposed to be talking about— we're supposed to be talking, and we will. We're supposed to be talking about women getting out of their comfort zones to start their own business. However, I just have one more question for you.

Sure.

For all of the parents out there that only because this has been something kind of hitting home recently, for all the parents out there that may have a child who they just can't figure out what might be going on, are there certain signs that they want to pay attention to, to where they should then say, okay, then I need to reach out to a Dr. Wilson to kind of do further assessments of my child?

Yeah, and they can look very different in different kids. And so, but I'll give you some examples. And parents will sometimes say, you know, my kid seems to be very smart, but has a lot of trouble paying attention, focusing, getting things done. You know, they do their homework and then they get to school, but they've forgotten their homework at school or on the dining room table, and it's kind of a chronic issue. The teacher may assign 30 minutes of homework, but it's taking my child 2 hours to get that same homework done. Or they seem to be struggling more, for example, with reading or writing than other peers their age. So those are just some examples of many.

Right, right, right, right. That we could talk about the whole time. And I may have you back specifically to talk about that, because again, I think having that conversation and keeping that conversation, especially if You know, really tuning into what the kid's behavior might be actually trying to convey.

Yeah.

I think it's so important. All right. So, so speaking of stepping into one's comfort zone, obviously you had to step outside your own in order to then move into the work that you're doing. So what was your journey like? What was your experience, you know, stepping out of your comfort zone like?

And I think about my journey, I think about what I had planned to do. My plan was I was going to get an academic position, I was going to teach at a university and stay there until retirement, you know, and do some private practice work on the side, which, which is where I started. And I went through that whole process of getting a job at a university. I got the position of coordinator of a graduate program. Built a new graduate program within the department. I got associate professor, and then I got full professor, and then I got tenured, then I became department chair. And then I was doing my, my private practice part-time, and I thought to myself, there's got to be something more. You know, there's got to be something more. And I just thought, you know, this is kind of where people aspire to be. They want to get to full professor and tenure. You could retire with a full pension. And I just thought, I can't do this for another 20 years. I want to do more than that. Yeah, but the safe thing would be to stay and get your full pension, you know, in another 15 years or so. But there were other things that I wanted to do, and I felt that staying would keep me from doing the other things that I wanted to do.

Yeah, money isn't everything, right?

It's not.

It is a lot, but it's not everything.

It's important, but it's not everything.

It is, but it's not everything. And, you know, would you rather be happy, or would you rather be, you know, have a lot of money in the bank and be miserable? Uh, you know, because that's where I was myself, and it was like, no, I want to be happy. And yeah, yeah, well, that's— so help us understand, for those that might be out there. And there, and there have these rumblings. I'll call them rumblings. What did it feel like for you? Like, what was, what was, how did it kind of transpire within you that made you start thinking about it?

Yeah, it made me feel, first of all, uncomfortable because I thought this is what a lot of people want. There are a lot of colleagues, my junior colleagues, who want to be a full professor. At a university who want to be able to feel secure in a job for pretty much life, unless you do something completely egregious. And I just thought, this is the safe thing to stay. But what I was experiencing when I was coming into work is not that I didn't love what I was doing, I did, but I felt more passionate about doing something else. So it wasn't like I was coming into my office and I was dreading it and I didn't like teaching and, you know, I didn't feel like I was making a difference at the university. I felt those things, but when I stepped out and was doing work with families whose kids were struggling and interacting with colleagues who were also helping those kids thrive and reach their full potential, I was really feeling like I lit up in those environments. And I wanted to do more of that.

Yeah, yeah, that's cool, that's cool. And when you say even lit up, It probably can't, you know, was from the inside out, like it, like, you know, because I often feel with the work I do that my heart just is smiling, like, you know, it's just this white light of excitement. And, you know, even doing this and meeting people like yourself, it's just so exciting to me.

Absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah. And I just felt too that in the space where I was, I was making a difference in my private practice with the families that walked through my office. But I also felt inside me that I wanted to have a bigger impact in that space. And if I just stayed with teaching, not that that wasn't important at the university level, I couldn't have the kind of impact I wanted to have if I stayed.

Right, right, right. So what were your, what were your initial first steps that you took to kind of acknowledge what you were feeling and then to make this big decision? And anyone out there, you know, whether or not they're, you know, making a big decision to leave a corporate job for an entrepreneurship, or leaving, you know, making a decision to leave a marriage or a bad relationship, or they're running a business. What, you know, what, what were your first steps that they can lean on?

I think my first steps were having a conversation with my family about what I was thinking about. So I talked to my husband about it and said, is this crazy what I'm thinking about doing right now? We'd leave a city, you know, we'd lose an income. How do you feel about that? And we talked about it and he was fully supportive of me kind of transitioning out of that role and doing something else.

Right.

And because he knew what, how I felt doing the other things that I wanted to do.

Yeah.

So that was part of the, that was kind of my first step. And then I started talking to my colleagues about, you know, first of all, my idea about having a bigger impact and building what ultimately became Child Nexus. You know, do you think this would be valuable? Is this something that you would, you know, you would find helpful for the clients you work with? For you as a clinician, is this something that you like? Is this something that's needed in this space? And I got a lot of support for my idea.

Right.

So that helped me as well. And then I had conversations with a colleague at the university, who— a couple colleagues, and one was very supportive and the other one said, "Why would you do that? You know, why would you leave? You know, you could stay for 10 more years and get 80% of your pension." Right. I thought, I can't stay for 10 years. I can't stay for a year.

Yeah.

And it just— I knew that it was time to go because I could stay for even 5 years and get more of the pension that I would have gotten if I, if I didn't leave right away.

Right.

It wasn't compelling enough reason for me to stay. Yeah.

Well, and I think the key example that you said, you said that jumped out for me was that person who said you're crazy.

Oh yeah.

You know, it wasn't that a great test to kind of say, even this, even though this person's making maybe great justifications for me staying, I still don't want, still don't see the value.

Right, absolutely. And I think you have to come to the realization that what is right for you is not going to be right for someone else.

Oh, absolutely.

So for someone else, staying would be more important because they want that security. They want, you know, they want to just retire with a pension in 20 years. And there is nothing wrong with that for a lot of people.

No, right.

But it wasn't the right choice for me.

Right.

It wasn't the right path for me.

Yeah. And so that speaks volumes to the fact that anyone listening or watching this, it comes also down to belief in yourself, that what is coming up for you in this decision, that you're going against people that, you know, are saying you're crazy, but you're also leaning into those that are loving and supporting you no matter what. But I'm confident enough, right, to be confident enough in yourself that this is the right thing to do. Was that your experience?

That was it. That was really it. Because even, you know, as you're trying to weigh the pros and cons, you know, you still have that fire inside you. And again, what lights you up and what you feel passionate about. And I leaned into that passion.

Yeah.

And felt that I know myself and I know what I'm capable of doing. And I know that if I step out in this way, that the universe will align to, you know, to, to bring things into fruition. But I needed to make that step first.

Right, right, right. So you did some practical, logical, academic— I'll call it since, you know, you know, you went through that, those processes. But at the same time, ultimately, you also went with the heart.

Absolutely. Yeah.

Which is probably for many people, wouldn't you find to be the scarier part, because once you build a business case, you know, you can kind of logically justify that. But when it's the heart, that's when people get really scared. Is that your experience?

Yeah, it can definitely feel that way, because, you know, I'm a clinician. I was, you know, I grew up with a scientist-practitioner model where we rely on data. What does the data tell me? The data tells me if I stay, I can make, you know, I can have a good living. Right. But if you're stepping out into the unknown, there is no guarantee that what you want to do will bring you any income. There's no guarantee that you will be able to pay your mortgage. You know, there's no guarantee with any of that. The only guarantee is that you will be doing something that is meaningful, right? And that you enjoy. That's the only guarantee that you know.

Yeah. Yeah. It's so true. It's so true. So leaning into that.

Yes.

Leaning into the idea that, okay, so let's talk about when someone decides, you know, that their calling is more, you know, starting their own business and, and taking that risk, like you said, because, you know, running your own business, so that's risky.

It's a lot. Yeah.

Yeah. So help us understand, you know, paint that picture of what you did in regards to starting your own business and then what lessons you've learned along the way, right, has helped you.

Right, and you know, I think it was a little bit of an easier transition for me because I was trained as a clinician and I had been working in private practice work part-time while I had my academic position. So part of it was stepping into that full-time and taking ownership of, you know, a business and stepping into that entrepreneur role. And, and so doing that wasn't as hard, and I think one of the reasons why it wasn't difficult is because I realized that I have so many skills that I can leverage to be successful as an entrepreneur. You know, I had, I had been in school obviously for to study what I needed to study to become a clinical neuropsychologist, but I'd also worked in academia. I had been head of a department. I had been hiring, you know, faculty members. I was on the search committee for the provost of the university, hired him. I had, you know, collaborated with colleagues. And I had been teaching, so all of those skills I could use and leverage in a new space. Now I just doubled down on that.

Yeah, absolutely. Now, did you have that idea yourself to kind of take inventory of what skills you currently possess, or what, what kind of told you? Is that the academic side of your brain? That's kind of— that's definitely—

yeah, that's definitely the academic side of my brain. Because some of it, it didn't even occur to me until later on. It wasn't something where, you know, I have skills X, Y, and Z, so now I'm going to feel comfortable resigning from the university.

Right.

I resigned and then it kind of came, you know, I had a better understanding as I kind of pursued different things that, wow, these skills that I learned and I developed while I was in academia are really helping me in this regard. Yeah, one of those was speaking because I needed to— I wanted to do a lot more speaking on the topic of children who struggle with learning issues, with pediatric mental health, and get the word out to parents and teachers that this is an issue. We know ways to help kids, and there are things that we can do to help them reach their full potential. And there was— and that was one of the reasons why I left, is because I wanted more of that information to get out there in the public domain. And I realized I've been teaching for 15 years. I've been in front of a classroom teaching on a lot of these topics every day for 15 years. So that is a skill that I use when I would go and go for speaking engagements. And that just blossomed and grew because I had the ability to speak to, you know, not only other adults because I'd been teaching at a university level, but I could reach families, reach parents, and reach educators.

Yes.

Yeah.

God, that's so exciting. And, you know, if you were like me, I kind of went, ah, what did I just do? And there and sat down and went, you know, like, something's got to justify that. I know what in the heck I'm going to be doing. But others come like yours. It's like you do it and then you start kind of ticking off. Oh, wow. You know, someone's asking me to speak. I know how to do that. Someone's asking me to write. I know how to do that.

Right.

Yeah, yeah, it's fascinating. And what would you say was your biggest maybe new experience or lesson through your journey?

I think one of the things is that I'm very big on doing everything myself, right? So when I started my private practice part-time, I was the one who picked up the phone, answered the phones, talked to every parent who called. I was the one who was sending them information. Sending forms, scoring those forms. I was arranging all of the appointments. I was doing my own bookkeeping. And I just realized that I don't need to do all of that. I don't need to do all of that. And I had a better understanding. If I wanted to do and— if I wanted to do and spend more time doing what I want to do, I needed to do less of what other people can do. Right. And so I realized that I can hire people to do bookkeeping. I can hire an administrator for my private practice office. And that freed up my time to do higher-level work and spend time doing the things that I know will have a bigger impact on the lives of the people that I wanted to touch.

Right. How long in your journey, in your entrepreneurship— she's already laughing.

I'm laughing already.

Yeah. So we know what this might be.

Yes, it's too long.

How long did it take, though?

Um, it depends on like the, the office manager. That was probably the first thing that I did, um, hired her. And even then it was part-time and I was still kind of holding on and doing a lot of those things myself.

Right.

And then the bookkeeper probably took, you know, 2 and a half years before I hired a bookkeeper and felt comfortable handing those finances over to someone else. Yeah. But it's, it's been a life changer.

Yeah.

That's right.

Actually, is that— actually is a short term. I want you to know that. I've been, you know, I've been coaching, you know, beginners, you know, startups for many, many years. And it's more like 5 to 7.

Oh my goodness.

Before they start turning, like, feeling comfortable turning things over. And it has nothing to do with— and I don't know for you, you know, you can let us know. It really rarely has anything to do with money. It has to just be this confidence of trust. Trust.

Yes, it's trust and control. Yeah, as you know, I, you know, I just, I'm a person who likes to control a lot of things and make sure that I'm kind of overseeing, making sure it's done right, and having a handle on everything. And so turning it over to someone else was, it took me a while, but I also, I think during this journey, realized that there are things that I can do that other people can do better.

Right. Yeah.

Right. And so that's where I hired out. You know, I'm not a bookkeeper.

Right.

I'm not an accountant.

Right.

You know, I'm not a financial advisor. So those are the things that I hire other people to do for me and on my behalf.

Yeah. All right. But in the role that you do have professionally, don't you see control to be fake trust?

Yeah, I would say so. I would say so. Absolutely.

Absolutely. Okay. And I think that's a good Lesson in regards to delegation. I think that's a good lesson for all anybody listening or watching, is, you know, you don't have to do these things by yourself, and you'll never get where you want to go. You know, one struggle you found with that, you're just not going to get there unless you release some of these things.

Absolutely. Because when I looked at the time that I was spending, I cannot even imagine now spending time doing my own bookkeeping, picking up my own phone. And making all the appointments myself because I can, I can do more right in the space and do more of what I feel that I was called to do by having other people do that.

Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. And like you said, and I don't recall the exact words, I wish I did. I think you said strategic maybe, but like, you know, and what you can do are those higher level.

That's exactly it.

Higher value. Higher strategic activities.

Absolutely. Yeah, absolutely.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's awesome. And what would you tell— what would you tell a woman who is sitting across the table from you and she's struggling to not, not start? Let's assume that, you know, they have at least found their way, but now, you know, it's kind of like, I, you know, I have, I have this control thing. I want to hold on to it. I can do it myself. Everything's working just fine. What would you tell her?

I think two things. One, you have to trust yourself, and the second is that you can do more of what you ultimately want to do if you delegate some of those tasks. Yeah, that's what I would say.

Yeah, you don't need to pull out your hair doing things like I, I I was sitting on my couch doing like my Twitter and Facebook till like midnight and, you know, midnight every night. And I'm just like, this is not what I want to be doing.

Right.

Yeah.

That's it. And then when you get to do the things that you ultimately want to do, you know, for example, I last, I think it was the year or the year before, I spoke to 900 teachers. I was in a room where I was giving a keynote address to 900 teachers. I had to prep for that keynote. And then I did a breakout session. And flew to Northern California to do that. And I thought I would never have been able to have the time to prepare that keynote, to prepare that breakout session, to spend time out of my business to go and deliver that.

Right.

That keynote. Right. Had I not hired other people to do some other things.

Right. So your process, if we can revisit that so those of you listening or watching should make note, your process was to kind of identify, almost make a list of those activities that, you know, are either— you could invest less money to hire them out. Is that what I understood? Because you, if you had that time to go and do your more valuable work, you know, your, you know, your, um, your revenue would be so much greater, the profit would be so much greater. And therefore it would be worth it to you to be able to delegate these things out.

Absolutely, absolutely. And I think that, you know, what I would tell whoever would be listening and who's kind of thinking about making a similar decision is kind of think about what— if you could like design your week, what would that look like? How would you like to spend your time?

Love that.

What would you like to spend your time doing? I'd like to spend my time speaking, connecting professionals with parents and families who need their support, collaborating with allied professionals to kind of have a bigger impact, whether that be public speaking, designing a town hall, you know, doing a webinar, you know, all of those things, and seeing families and seeing kids, connecting those kids with other professionals who can find out what's going on, identify the struggle, and give teachers and parents a plan that will put that child on a trajectory of success.

Right.

That's what I want to spend my time doing. Yeah. So if I think about that, then I don't have time to do some of the other things. I don't have time to go and make sure that I'm writing checks for my parking and, you know, standing in line at the post office to, you know, send things out in the mail.

Yep.

You know, doing an Excel spreadsheet on my finances. I don't have time to do those things if I want to do those other high-impact work.

Right. And did you have any hacks or workarounds when it comes to any of those that are, you know, more so struggling with— they don't have the revenue coming in to support them being able to, you know, hire somebody. Did you have any workarounds or hacks that you used?

Um, well, some of the things I did was I, I did more of the things that I was doing part-time. So part-time I was doing some private practice work, and so I did more of that initially. To bring in more revenue, right? Because that was something I was already able to do. I put myself out there as a speaker, a paid speaker, because there's something that I would do for free and I was teaching. And so I, I put that information out there as something that I, that I do, you know, I get paid for speaking and I do, right? And that wasn't something that I had time to do when I was working in academia. But I put that out there as well. So you kind of look at your skillset and think about what other revenue streams are there where you can leverage your skills to bring in more revenue into your business. So that's part of what I did initially.

Right, right. And if someone wasn't, because your comment about paid speaking, if someone that comes to you from a, like they wanna start their own business, but they're like, but Karen, I've never spoken before, let alone been paid to speak before. Let's address the first things first. You believe that everybody has something to say and therefore anybody could be a speaker?

It depends. Not everybody can be a speaker because not everybody wants to be a speaker.

No, no, no. Well, okay, if they want to be a speaker, you believe, you know—

yes, I think if somebody wants to be a speaker, they have something to say, something of value to say, then they can absolutely do that. They may need coaching around speaking, right? And I'm a firm believer in in developing that skill set, right? So where you don't have expertise, that's where you seek out— again, you seek out that support.

Yep, right.

Even when I was building a business and launching a startup, I've never launched a tech startup before. And so I'm a psychologist and I'm an educator, so I got support around that. You know, I, I joined groups with other founders. I sought out support and coaching for people who coached people who wanted to, you know, build a tech startup. So you go and you get the support in the area where that you want to develop.

Yeah, or need to develop.

Yes.

Yeah. And even— are you also indicating even if they have to develop as a leader, like as a true entrepreneur, not just somebody who decided to hang a shingle, but to be really a true business entrepreneur.

Absolutely. I mean, as I think about my, my life in, you know, academia and being like a psychologist and a professor, you know, that was my world. But when I stepped out into entrepreneurship full-time, I couldn't go to a professional conference, a psychology conference, to get the information that I needed to build the business. I started to— I had to start going to business conferences, right?

Right.

I had to start connecting myself with other business owners and with coaches who coached business owners, because I wasn't going to get what I needed from academia, from people who were helping people become professors or become department chairs or university, you know, leaders, because that wasn't the space that I wanted to be in anymore.

Right, right. Did you ever have a pride issue when asking for help?

No, I don't think— I think when I, when I was— when I'm asking for help in an area where I don't have expertise, there's absolutely no pride because I know myself and I know that I cannot build a tech— like I said, I can't build a tech startup because I've never done it before.

Yeah.

And so I needed some support around that, right?

Yeah.

Right. And that's Child Nexus, correct?

Absolutely. That's right.

Let's talk about that because I'm very curious. All right, so, you know, so help us understand what it is. And I have the link up there, and everybody listening and watching, you can go to childnexus.com to learn about it, but from a, even from your journey starting it up, where you are today, share with us about it.

Yeah, Lena, like I said, I am a clinician who helps identify, you know, neurodevelopmental disorders and learning challenges and mental health challenges in kids. And there are 26 million kids in the United States who struggle with learning or mental health challenges. And, you know, 15% of those go undiagnosed and unaddressed. And those kids end up, you know, looking like they have behavioral problems in the classroom. There are higher rates of anxiety, higher rates of depression, higher rates of suicide, substance use, and I felt like there was a need to get this information out there so people have information that they can trust, because there's a lot of information that is not based on science and not based on the real situation with respect to learning and mental health challenges in kids. So first I wanted to get more information, more reliable information into the hands of parents and educators. And then I wanted to go a step further and if parents have a concern about their kids, that they have a place where they can go to not only get information but connect with professionals who can help their kids, whether their child needs an assessment, or their child needs a speech and language pathologist, an occupational therapist, a child psychologist, an educational therapist, a parent coach that they could go somewhere to get reliable information and then providers that they can trust. So it didn't exist in a sense that it was multidisciplinary because parents had to hop onto multiple websites just to find information and then another website, other websites to find professionals who can help. I wanted there to be one place where parents could go to get information and to connect with professionals. I built it and I found a tech person to build it for me, right? But they needed to know what was important.

What is your vision?

Absolutely, absolutely. So they had to translate my vision into a digital platform and that's what Child Nexus is right now.

That's fabulous. And how long ago did you launch?

So we launched, it's a funny, funny thing. We launched, we We launched on March 11th, 2020. Oh! 2 days before the pandemic hit.

Wow!

Right, so we had like a mockup site, we were kind of testing some things before, but it became a business, we incorporated it on March 11th, 2020. And then boom! 2 days later.

Wow, and was it a major resource for people? It ended up being—

it's so interesting because, you know, we were launching it thinking, okay, we're going to put this out there, it's going to help some people. We're starting with a small cohort in Southern California, and then 2 days later everybody was home with their kids and they were remote learning and they were trying, you know, at that time we're thinking, oh, it's going to be 2 couple weeks and then we're all going to go back. Then it stretched out to, you know, a year and a half. But over time, parents were at home watching their kids learn for the first time And many parents were at home watching their kids struggle for the first time. And so, and we also know what mental health challenges emerged during the course of the pandemic. So people needed resources. And so just having the website up wasn't enough. We started, I started collaborating with, you know, other professionals to do town halls and webinars and, you know, this is what ADHD looks like. This is what it looks like when kids have anxiety. This is what you can do to support your kids. When they're struggling in with remote learning and all of that became all of the things that I wanted to do became important in the time that we were in, right?

Well, in the time that we were in and then still and going forward, I think absolutely, you know, one silver lining of the pandemic is it definitely put a spotlight on many, many, many, many, many things and one of them is the mental health of children.

Absolutely, absolutely. It's like, what I usually say is that, you know, these issues are not new. The 1 in 5 kids who struggles with learning or mental health issues, that has not changed. But what changed was that during the pandemic, it kind of lifted the veil so we could see them in a way that we weren't able to see them before.

And we can understand, and/or at least if we don't understand, start asking a lot of different questions. Yes, yes.

And we were more willing to provide those kids with support.

Yeah, yes, that's key. And Karen, I have a rumbling going on. Something's going to be happening because I have a rumbling going on when it comes to this subject matter, so we're going to have to talk.

Okay, yeah, let's talk.

I love it. I absolutely love what you're doing. All right, so, uh, we, you know, we covered a lot of different things, and I'm— thank you for obliging that because I think everything that you're doing is so critical. So what is kind of one key message you would want to put out there for our listeners and our viewers?

I would say to lean in to who you are now, but don't be afraid to lean into who you ultimately want to be.

I love that. How can they lean in and really maximize who they are right now? And then part 2 of that is, is there something that you would suggest they start working on to really understand where they— who they want to be?

Right. I would say that know, know your strengths and know yourself. Know what you're capable of doing. Don't shortchange yourself. And then as you're trying to develop something new, to test it out. You know, you don't have to walk away from a full-time position right away. You can start it on the side. You can start it as a side hustle and see if it has legs. And then as you develop that thing and you you know, spend more time doing that and you see if you can get some traction, then you can make a better decision if it feels uncomfortable to leave right away and to leap right away.

And they can also figure out if that gurgling, as I call it, a very scientific word. Yeah. If that really is gonna be there to sustain them, because if there's one thing about working on your own, you have to just have this like yearning or gurgling.

You do.

Yeah, yeah. And it's written all over your face, by the way. It's like a, a shine. It's like, it's just a shine. It's wonderful, wonderful. I am so glad we had an opportunity to meet.

I'm thrilled. I'm so glad.

I am so glad. So everyone, I want you to be following her on Twitter, Dr. Karen— is that an I? Dr. Karen I. Wilson. Follow her on Twitter. Definitely, definitely, whether you're a parent, an aunt, an uncle, a sibling, and, you know, a niece, a nephew, it doesn't matter. We all need to be helping our children. So childnexus.com, go there to learn more. And of course, just reach out to her and see, you know, what she can do for you. Yeah, yeah, this has been fabulous. Thank you so much for being part of the program, and thank you so much for having me again.

It's been a pleasure.

Oh, absolutely, absolutely. Absolutely. All right everyone, how was that? I mean, step into being uncomfortable because you never know what's on the other side of that, and it's most likely going to be glorious. Anyway, thank you, thank you, thank you. It was such a great conversation. And remember, every Tuesday at noon Eastern time for Shedding the Bits Radio and TV. And be sure to leave those comments, ratings, subscriptions, and let us know who do you want to hear from and what topics would you like us to be talking about. So until next Tuesday at noon Eastern time, I'm Bernadette Boas of Ball of Fire Coaching. I will see you then. Take care, everybody. Bye.

Thank you for taking part in Shedding the Bitch Radio and TV with Bernadette Boas. We would love to know what your biggest takeaway was. Go to Shedding the Bitch on Facebook or YouTube and leave a comment. You can also subscribe to the show on Apple Podcasts and YouTube so you don't miss a single episode of the show. And with your input, we can help other powerhouse women just like you find the show and decide if it's right for them. Learn more about Bernadette at balloffirecoaching.com. See you next week.