Episode 270: Hallie’s Inspiring Journey

Hi and welcome to episode 270 of the Untethered Podcast. Quick disclaimer. All information, content and material of this podcast are the opinions of the speakers and is for the informational purpose only and not intended to serve as a substitute for the consultation, diagnosis and or medical treatment of a qualified healthcare provider. Welcome to the Untethered Podcast. I am your host, Holly Balkan. I'm a certified myofunctional therapist, feeding specialist, podcaster, business owner and mentor. This podcast is all about getting your questions answered and collaborating with colleagues to bring you the most up to date information in the orofacial myofunctional therapy, airway, tethered oral tissue and pediatric feeding therapy space. If you're new here, I challenge you to keep an open mind and join my mission to spread this message far and wide. If you've been around since June 2019, thanks for being a loyal listener. As we jump into today's episode, remember to listen with correct oral rest posture, tongue up, lips closed, teeth apart, breathe through your nose. Let's get started. Foreign. So it is your host, Hallie, and today we are going to be talking about my journey. My journey through life as a college student, into grad school student, into SLP in the field, and through my cf, you know, into the SLP world. When I quit being an SLP and why, why I returned to it when I worked for a private practice, almost partnered with them, but then went out on my own. In the meantime, I also tried to launch an online business before starting my private practice. That failed. That was back in 2014. And then, or maybe that was 2015. I just was looking at that actually. So I'm gonna, I'm gonna look that up and confirm. I wanna confirm the timeline on that. Cause I thought it was 2015, but then I'm like, I started my practice in 2014, so maybe the practice had already started. Anywho, that's neither here nor there at the moment. Right? Fast forward. Right. I decided to launch an online business, started a podcast and launched an online business. Pandemic happens. I move states and generate this big successful online business. And now I have another online business. Right? So let's dive in to the nitty gritty, all the good stuff and talk about. I'm going to share more details about this journey along the way. But also one of the big themes that I really wanted to dive into today was sort of like how my identity as a human, like Hallie. As Hallie, right. And as a speech pathologist, as a student to cf to Speak, you know, full le. Licensed speech pathologist to business owner to online business owner. Like, how my identity has shifted throughout that and what some of the things, you know, I'll just share some of the things that I've learned along the way, right? Some people are like, what is your story? Like, tell us about it. Because we know Instagram is a highlight reel, right? We know Facebook is a highlight reel. So let's, let's talk. Let's talk good stuff. Now, before we jump in, I do need to tell you that the doors to the MILE membership are open right now. So if you're listening this to this, on June 3rd, 2024, when it launches, or the week of June 3rd through 7th, the doors to www.themymembership.com are now open. And the MYO membership is your online virtual study club for all things myo, airway and tethered oral tissues. So I'm not going to belabor it. I'm not going to go into too much detail other than to say that we have a new training every month. We give you research reviews. We've got libraries of past ones. We've got libraries of case studies. We do new case studies every month. We have weekly office hours, 24, 7 Q&A wall with a panel, a team of, you know, expert myotherapists who are in there answering your questions and talking to you about your cases and everything. We've got marketing materials, business trainings. I mean, like, this is such a wealth of information. So go to www.themymembership.com, take a look for yourself, dive in and reach out to us if you have any questions. Okay, so let's talk. Let's talk the history of all things Hallie. So I graduated high school in 2003 and went to the University of Maryland for college. When I went to college, I did not know that I wanted to be a speech pathologist. I did know that I wanted to be a business owner. And I knew that that was going to happen. I didn't know in what shape yet. At one point in time, I thought, oh, maybe I'll take over my dad's business. But, like, I don't know, something about that just didn't excite me. And so I never really fully committed to that. I was like, I just know that I'm going to own a business. I'm going to run a business, right? And I had different models. Both my mom and my dad had businesses. And so two entrepreneurs doing different things that, you know, I had the ability to see As a child, I also worked for an event planner and that gave me some really good insights into what it looked like to run a business and deal with clients of various different, like, you know, levels of financial means and expectations and all other fun things we were doing like bar and bat mitzvahs and weddings. And I was always taught that like the client should never know that there's an issue. Right. If you're doing your job well, you're putting out the fires before anyone, anyone else ever knew there was a fire. And I was like, okay, well it was very stressful when I was growing up. But then I went to grad school and when I came back to work some weddings in Barnabot Mitzvahs, I was like, this is such a break from grad school and life. I love it, but it's a very taxing job. I do not envy event planners. They give up their weekends. They are literally, it's, it's a physically demanding job and it is a emotionally and mentally demanding job because you are literally on your feet seat all day for long events. You're dealing with a lot of people. It's just a lot. It's a lot, right? But it taught me a lot too. And by the end of high school I was actually, I had an internship. So I was leaving every day. I was going to my internship in her home based office, which is always what attracted to me to having like a business where I could work from home. That made me really good money. Right. But I also was managing the independent contractors. I was like managing things related to making sure we had their 1099s ready and making sure that, you know, we were like basically setting up everybody's pay each for each event. And sometimes I was the one who was handing out the pay. And you know, I think that really educated me on like what an independent contractor was at a, at a young age. Because at that, up until that point I only ever knew people worked for people. And that model in my brain would have been more aligned with an employee model, which is basically what I was when I graduated from co from univers from grad school and went to work for the schools. Right. So all right, fast forward back or rewind back or wherever we are to college. I enter, I start in the business classes and I think at a certain point I was like, I don't like these classes. I don't need these classes to own a business and be successful. What do I want to do? Like what, what else do I want to do? Right. I know I'll own a business one day, but this is not it. And quite honestly, it was very highly related to the fact that at that point in time, I also got around 19, I got diagnosed with ADHD. And they said to me, being. When I went for testing, they, they literally said, this woman, this, I guess she was a. I don't know, is it neuropsych, maybe that assessed me. She said, well, your IQ is really high, but you have like, the inattentiveness, distractibility, you know, whatever it was that she was saying. So you're a candidate for Ritalin. But like, I, you know, I wouldn't really label you with add. I was like, huh? Okay. I was like, all right, well, whatever's gonna help. Like, whatever you're suggesting, right? That's why I'm here. So I did take Ritalin now before this. And the reason why I went for this testing my freshman year of college during winter break was because I'd always been like an AAB student, like a good student, right? Growing up. I got to college and I got like my first C in a class. And I was like, what is happening? And I remember going and taking a test in one of my business classes where I, I think I went. I basically was like so distraught over getting 15 wrong on this test that I had been in class for, taken notes for, studied, right? Okay, now granted, I was partying and studied like the night before, but I still studied. And I go back to the teacher and I'm like, can I just like, review? Can I come in and review what I got wrong? So without studying for a couple, this is like a couple weeks later, without even studying, without, like rereading their material, without, you know, we've moved on from that material, right? In class, I look at it and I know the answer, the correct answer to 13 out of the 15 I got wrong. And I was like, that doesn't make any sense. I haven't looked at this material in a couple, like, since before the test. Why is it that outside of the test I know the answers, right? And so this is kind of where I was like, okay, now I'm confused because this happened like twice that one time. That really stands out in my mind. And I was like, maybe I just, I'm not a good test taker. Like, I don't know. So I did find out that I had like some test taking, test taking anxiety. And really just, you know, test taking was not like my number one best skill, I guess you could say. But when they gave me Ritalin and I started taking the Ritalin to study, to take tests, to attend classes, to take notes. I could see a major difference in like how I took notes, what was written on the paper and, and that directly correlated to the information I was studying, right. Which then helped me improve my performance on tests. I also taught myself different ways of studying, right? So there was a behavioral component to this where I started chunking my studying. I rewrote all of my notes on notecards. So I studied differently. It wasn't, I'm not just going to write this all off to like I took medicine and all, all was good. No, I did learn how to study. That was something that was missing from my high school years apparently. But I think it's very interesting because it also just helped to shape like who I am. And I started to recognize like there were certain things that didn't come easily to me, but I never really realized that that was different, that others didn't experience the same things, right. Until I went through this experience. Now at the same time I volunteered in a clinic with children who, many of which were on the spectrum. And this was a clinic that was run through the university. And I just fell in love with these kids and I had like one that I was paired with in particular who did not communicate very much with the family, you know, at least through that was the family's concern was like they're not communicating, they're not this child, our child's not interacting with us. And so I just wanted to create these like interactive like fun moments, right? And so I was able to do that and I was like, huh, this feels very natural to me. I don't know why it feels so natural, but like being able to connect with this, this young child in a way where the child like we're, we're kind of having this back and forth interaction without even using words, right? Without using verbal or non verbal words. It was just sort of like this like, like we could look at each other and be connected kind of thing. It was very interesting, right? I was like, huh, okay, that's interesting, right? And then that evolved into me learning that my aunt was a speech pathologist. Why? I never knew that. Don't know. She had her own business too. And I went and they ran these little like, like social language groups at a private school in Potomac, Maryland. And I went and started helping out, just like volunteering there in the afternoons. Once, it was like once or twice a week for maybe a semester. And then I think I went back at one point and did it again. But I loved it. I loved being with the kids. It was done with an OT and a PT as well. And then I think the second round was just ot. But it was really a very cool experience to see the impact they were making on these children's lives. And I was like, that's it. Like, I found my calling now. In the meantime, I switched from being a business major to being an education major to going, I don't actually want to be a teacher because I don't think I could be in the same classroom every day. Like, I would get bored. Like, I need challenge. I need to not to say that it's not challenging to teach kids. It's very challenging. And I'm going to share more in a moment, so stick with me here. But I was kind of just like, I need to be, like, moving around. I need to be constantly challenged. Like, I don't want to be in the same room with the same kids every day. Okay, that's just me. I'm not throwing any shade. That's just me. So jokes on me. I'll tell you why in a second. So then I find psychology, and I consider moving, like, into, like, psychology because I'm like, that could be a way to work with children, right? And then I stumbled upon speech pathology. And at that point I was like, sold. I took my, like, communication 101. No, it wasn't. That was a different course. It may have just been like, Hearing and Speech Sciences 101 or whatever that course was. And I fell in love and I was like, wow, this is a really cool profession I'm in. I'm in, like, sold, right? So I enroll. This is now my sophomore year, maybe towards the end or so. And so because. Or because of. Maybe it was second semester sophomore year, but because of when I entered in, I also did not, like, consider studying abroad because that would have meant I would have stayed an extra semester in college to get all of my requirements done, because I switched my major three times, which is what they tell everybody you're gonna do. Kids change their majors three times on average. I said, no, no, no, not me. Yeah, I did fast forward to grad school, right? So I ended up finishing out college with, like, straight A's and then got straight A's all the way through grad school. Thank you, Ritalin. Hated myself on it, but it did serve a purpose. And before grad school, I signed a contract that the school would pay for my tuition and books and, you know, stuff like that in exchange for me signing an agreement to come work for them for three years. Never wanted to work in the schools, but it felt like a really silly thing to turn down. So I took it, I signed it, they accepted it. I graduated. I went to work in the schools for three years. I was miserable. Miserable. Like, I would cry all the time. My third year, I did end up in Montgomery county infants and toddlers. And I loved that because I was working one on one, but I did not love that. It was only a parent coaching model. Was a parent coaching model. There was, it was like, not a medical model, even though we were working with feeding kids and medical complex kiddos sometimes. And then they were like, okay, now we're bagless therapists. Like, you can't take your bags into therapy. And I was over here going, like, don't tell me what to do. Some of these families, I'm walking into their homes and they don't want their children to bang on their pots and pans when they have one set of pots and pans to put to use. So, like, I would go and I would buy toys from like the Dollar Store or from Goodwill or from, you know, some of the. There was this cute little place called Kid to Kid where people like sold, you know, their old toys and stuff, and I would leave them with the families and if I never saw them again, it was fine, right? But the idea was like, if I could bring some things into their home where they can play with their child and they can elicit some speech, language, communication, you know, these are for those cases, obviously different for feeding. But if I can do that, I'm happy to leave those materials there. And if someone has a problem with that, like, come at me, come at me. So I left the schools because there were a lot of things he told me I could not do that I am licensed to do. And I just. That just didn't sit well with me. I don't like being told what I can and can't do. And honestly, at this point, I'd gotten into network marketing. I was a beachbody coach. I replaced my income in the school. So I left and I quit being a speech pathologist for about eight months. And it was around the eight month point where I was just like, or maybe six, six, seven months. And I was like, I really miss the kids. I really, really miss the kids. It's sort of like I had this like identity crisis of like, I worked hard to become a speech pathologist and I really want, I. I still want to do that. I just wanted to look different than What I was doing. So I did go to work for a private practice where we were traveling to the kids like preschools, daycares, homes and everything. Working one on one. I had free reign to be the therapist I wanted to be, which I freaking loved and almost partnered with that individual. We actually did for a little bit, but then quickly went on our own separate ways. That's neither here nor there in that conversation. But what I will say was that's the point where I shifted from being like an employee to not an SLP at all, right? To an independent contractor, to a business partner, to a business owner. Owning my own thing. June 1, 2014 is when I opened my private practice. Right? That's a lot of identity shifts in a short period of time. So I graduated in 2019. 2019, my goodness, 2009. Just going to just over here, you know, dropping my age by 10 years. It's fine. Anyways, so private practice was great for me. I went from like zero to six figures in eight months. I hired my first contractor when demand basically, you know, required it. People are saying I want after school hours. And I was like, I'm working like 8 to 2:30 and I want to be home by 3. Like it's a long day for me already and I'm driving in between patients. So yeah, no, I'm not doing after school hours. So instead I basically brought in a contractor who was working in the schools and who wanted those after school hours and could see those patients in the afternoons. And so that worked out really well. Quickly got pregnant. So I remember I launched this June 1, 2014, got pregnant like towards the end of November of that year and had my first child In August of 2015, just a. About 14 months after launching my practice. Or almost 15 months. So anyways, fast forward, let's see, fast forward. And I guess that that was about the time I said I was going to look this up. I was talking and clearly I did not. I wanted to look up the name of this like Mastermind thing that I did to see like what year it was that I did it. I can tell you exactly when it was. So. Oh yeah, no, this was not in 2014. So I started the private practice first. I think I was like a couple years in to the private practice and I was doing like little videos on YouTube and then once I had, you know, Lily, my first child, I was doing some videos with her in the background and sometimes she was even in them. But it wasn't until around 20. Let me see. I did do some private Consulting, actually. And I'm trying to remember to do at what point I joined. Here we go. Okay, so November 4, 2015, is when I joined this mastermind program that basically started at the end of that year, like, beginning of 2015, 2016. Sorry. So 2016 is when I believe I attempted to launch my first online business. I had this amazing course. I think it was amazing. I still think it's amazing. It's probably still very relevant. Honestly, I should probably just put it out there for free at this point. But I created this course, course where I taught parents how to advocate for their children in IEP meetings. And it was, like, made so simple for them, like, so much gold in that, in that training. Because I. When I worked in the schools, I was taught how to withhold this, how not to give out too much information, how not to ultimately give these kids what they deserved, and how to combat parents and how to, like, you know, reference, like pages of manuals of the Goldman Fristo or other things that like to, like, have an argument against why we could give something because we couldn't say, oh, we don't have the funding for that, or, oh, we don't have the staffing for that. That's illegal. But we could say other things. So anyways, when I had once I had my own private practice, I was on the other side of the table now, using all of my skills to help families get every single thing that I believe their child deserved on that iep, they everything they needed and deserved. And I was very proud of that. Very, very proud of that. It was very fulfilling because that's just one of the reasons why I just didn't want to say the jokes on me. It's like I ended up working in the schools and, you know, getting paid a teacher salary. I was in the closet of a preschool classroom where the door did not close because my desk was up against it, because literally it was a closet. Like, maintenance came and took the three shelves off the wall and pushed in a filing cabinet for me, pushed in a desk, and the door didn't close. So imagine like your office being in a preschool classroom in a public school setting. It was just. Yeah, it didn't. It didn't work for me. I was also split between two schools, and I had, like, 52 kids on my caseload, which sounds low for a caseload, but if they're only there four mornings a week, and you can't pull them from lunch or specials or breakfast, so you literally have 30 day, 30 minutes a day that you can see Them, but they have 60 to 90 minutes of speech on their IEP. Like, how are we doing this? Tell me. Oh, and I was only at that school two days a week. Cause my time was split between two preschool programs. So that's why the joke was on me. Anyways, fast forwarding again, right? So I ended up getting out of the whole network marketing thing. Um, I had residual checks coming in for a while, but I did not pursue it after a couple years. Made good money. It allowed me to leave my job. So I'm very grateful for that. But I just got really tired of adults being really whiny about, like, wanting to make money and lose weight, but nobody wanted to put in the work. Went to another company, thought it was the company I was at and the culture there and the payment plan and blah, blah, blah. It was some of that. But also it was not that much better at the next place, which I also had a lot of success with at the next company that I went to. But yeah, I was like, network marketing is not for me and I'm out. I was like, this is not actually working for yourself. Especially if someone could just take something away from you overnight, which we see happen over and over again with different companies. I was like, I want to build for myself, right? So that's where 2014 launched my private practice. 2016, try to launch the online business. Except for that online business crashed and burned because I try to do it all myself. Okay, So I now have another podcast called the Online Medical Entrepreneur Podcast. And I actually just recorded an episode for that that'll be out probably within a couple weeks of this one that talks about, you know, hiring an ads team and how to know when to hire and who to hire and what to hire for and all those different things. Because that is what I did not do. That's what I failed to do in 2016. So here I am, you know, I've got this identity of very successful private practice owner, but could not seem to, like, inch my way into the online world. That just wasn't working. Meanwhile, I was mentoring one on one private practice owners because people were just seeking me out to teach them, like how I went from zero to six figures so quickly. Like, could I help them do that? And so I've now helped numerous SLP business owners do exactly that. And that's a big passion of mine. I've talked at symposiums about it. I've given trainings on it. I love, you know, online conferences, all kinds of things. I love business. Like I eat, sleep and breathe Business. It's just like, it's very second nature to me. But anywho, failed at that first attempt in online business, and that was again in 2016. And that froze me in my tracks for about three years because it wasn't until I was. Let's see. Let's Fast forward to 2018. And I asked a good friend and colleague of mine, I said, hey, what's that program you were doing you were talking about? It sounds really interesting. And she tells me, you know, what program she's doing? So I go and I do this program and I get into it and I think, like, okay, this is going to really help me with my business. And, like, I want to. I want to go at that whole, like, online business thing again, right? This is December 2018. I sign up and I realize, oh, my gosh, I got to work on myself right through that course. I realized, like, I was stuck in this identity of, like, a perfectionist and an overdoer and a people pleaser and, like, all these different things. I cared what everybody thought about me. And I don't mean that, like, in a. You know, when I say, like, now I don't care. It's not. It's not an ego thing. It's. We'll talk about that. It's more of an identity thing. But the point is, I worked for 12 weeks on myself. I was a changed person. And then I shifted from there into working on creating the business that I desired. And so, you know, enter spring 2019. I'm like, I don't know what course I want, but I know I want to launch a course. Okay, we know that much, right? Um, so I go, I buy a course and how to do all this. I'm like, I'm going to watch the whole thing. I'm going to go to the live event in the fall. I'm going to watch the whole thing. You know, I bought this in the summer of 2019. I'm going to watch the whole thing before I go. Yeah, okay. So I launched this podcast, right? This one that you're listening to on other podcast in summer of 2019, and it didn't exist, right? So, like, I'm like, in true Holly fashion, I had to create that podcast because I went to look for it, and there was no podcast that just focused on, like, my airway and tots. Like, there were individual episodes, but no, like, dedicated podcasts. And so my business mentor was like, do it. That's kind of like a wide blue open ocean. I was like, all right, let's Go. Let's go. Which did position me really well because that's how people started to find me because nobody knew who I was before that. So fast forward to the fall. I go to this event, I get really clear. We'll actually back up a little bit. August, September, ish. I'm like, all right, I know I'm going to this event in October. I'm going to come back and we're going to hit the ground running because I'll get really clear on, like, what it is I want to do, like, which course I'm going to do first. And a good colleague and friend of mine, Teresa Richards, if any of you know her, basically was like, hallie, we really, we really need a, like, comp. A solid comprehensive pediatric feeding course. And I was like, I know. I wish I had that myself when I was getting started in feeding. She was like, yeah. Like, we were talking. It's like that doesn't exist. And at first I was like, aha, this seems like a really big job. Like, I don't think I'm here for it. And she kind of was like, I'm tell someone else, you know, I'll just go talk to somebody else. I was like, nope, nope. Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. Let me sleep on it, right? I come back the next day, I'm like, all right, let's do this. But it felt scary, right? There was some fear around that because it. I recognized that, like, I didn't know there was everything. I didn't know everything there was to know about pediatric feeding. Like, I, I myself specialized in working with oral tissue cases and, you know, airway, like, but more upper airway, not so much lower airway. And these kids who are struggling to feed, but mostly over the age of one. So not these breastfeeding, bottle feeding babies, but these kids who have already transitioned to solids and who are, you know, who've always been really picky or who have become more picky and are like, selective and they're eliminating more foods. And we're getting really kind of fearful of, like, where we're headed because we really eat very few foods now, right? Like, that's who I was working with. I was like, I can teach on these cases because this is what I know, but I can't, I can't teach on what I don't know, right? So, so all that to say, I was always taught to kind of be a problem solver. And so I was like, how do we, like, okay, how do we do this? I. I'm feeling called to do it. I'm not sure what it looks like yet. I went to this, I was like, I'm going to hire the team. So at that point, I took money from my private practice to invest in starting this new online business. I hired a marketing team and an ads team and a virtual assistant. And I was like, let's go. Like, this is what we're doing. And so we had some initial conversations, but then we really hit the ground running when I came back from this event in October of 2019 and we launched into our 90 day Runway, which was basically like launching the free pediatric feeding screening packet that you all know and love. Hopefully, if you don't, what are you waiting for? Go download it. And from there we just, we just stayed in the inbox, in everyone's inbox every week, right? Like sharing information from the podcast, sharing other helpful information about pediatric feeding. And when we opened doors, our first course and launch and everything was March 16, 2020, as the world shut down. Now, I had already planned for this to be a fully online course. I never had and have no intentions of this ever being taught in person because I wanted a course that was exciting, accessible. I wanted a course that was recorded. I wanted a course that you could go back to and learn from in the future if you wanted to, especially as you got different patients. I wanted everything that I felt like was missing for me and for the type of learner that I am. And so. And I also wanted to create a critical, a critical thinking journey where you come in and you can be completely new to pediatric feeding, but by the time you leave in 12 weeks, like you have evolved, you are being a pediatric feeding therapist who can go out and assist, assess, and then create a treatment plan to start treating right. Pediatric feeding patients. Right? So I was like, who do I need to bring on the team to help me? And so I did recruit other SLPs and OTS. We had a very different team when the pandemic happened. Unfortunately, some of them had to kind of bow out because they were now not working and home with their kids. And they were like, I just, I don't have time to create a course or teach or get on Zoom at 8pm for case study calls. And I was like, that's fair, that's fair, right? So I remember Ramya, who actually is one of our co educators, she joined us at like the 11th hour. And then at that point we also had another slp and then Caitlin, who's our OT now, and. And the two of them are still with me and it's really just, it's a really beautiful course. It's amazing. I love it. We just launched it for the 14th time. Holy moly. Because I'm told most courses sizzle out after six to eight online launches. But I'm like, we're still going strong and we're creating all these pediatric, feeding parent, parents patients and getting these kids off of Waitlist, which is my ultimate goal. But backtrack, right? So at the point of launching this, I was like, I don't have time to run an online business. Basically, I've got two kids at home, two small kids, right? This was 2020 and I had a. Almost two year old and actually she had just turned two in February of 2020 and a four year old. And I like, I don't have time to parent to run an online business and build that online business and treat full time, right? And so I already was only treating a couple days a week and that still felt like a lot. So I was like, I was like, I'm gonna decrease it. And I had a couple of kids who basically I pulled myself out of treating with the exception of two cases which moved to virtual with the pandemic. And I stuck with those cases for about a year after that and then actually have not been treating since because I, I stepped into more of a mentorship and business owner role. And so, you know, what was interesting to me was I always had this little voice in the back of my mind, like, who am I to be teaching if I'm not treating? Like, who am I to be mentoring if I'm not treating, who am I to? And so honestly, like it's, I always joke, I'm kind of like, it's kind of like riding a bike. Like I will have friends bring their kids or someone I know has a baby. You know, I've done this for our courses where I have somebody bring a child and I assess them, I create a treatment plan, we do a little treatment, right? And so I'm still like in it in that respect, but I'm not in the throes of the day to day. And that was a massive identity shift for me going. And, and this has even happened in the past with like certain cases that I worked on for a very long time or schools that I went into and had relationships with with a lot of these things, like shape shifted over time where I always identified like as the private practice owner, right? And I still do, but I am no longer the private practice owner who knows everybody's name in the private practice Like I once did. Right. I mean, I have. I can see everyone in the practice, but I don't know them on the same level that I once did, Mind you. My team is also in the D.C. metro area. I live in South Florida, and they travel to them. So it's not like we even have, like, a home base where all the patients come to us and where I could, like, pop in when I visit Maryland and go see them. All right, so that was kind of an interesting, like, shift in identity. Right. But then there was the shift from being a assessing and treating therapist, like, regularly to someone who really wasn't and who was more like mentoring business owners and mentoring clinically and running an online business and running a private practice. And so I made this major shift to, like, online business owner, mentor, and podcaster. Right. Mom. And all those other hats I wear, too. And then I completely stopped treating at a certain point, and I was like, I'm on a sabbatical. Right. And so it's interesting now because I talk, as I talk about this, I'm like, I can't. I remember when these things all happen, but I can't even really pinpoint, like, every single individual feeling I had or thought I had. But I know that this is a common theme that happens as we shift in our careers, because I've talked to other dear friends and colleagues about this, even one last. And you know, it's. It is. It's like a certain part of your identity shifts and even dies off in a sense. Right. Something that you once identified so closely with is no longer how you identify. And so, like today when people ask me, well, what do you do? Like, who are you, Halle? I'm a business owner. I'm, you know, when I'm talking, if I'm not talking about being a mom and, like, family person and all that stuff, if I'm talking just like, SLP business, like, career kind of stuff. I'm an online business owner who mentors other business owners. Like, that is really like, what I've shifted into now. Yes. Do I still mentor inside my courses? Yeah, for sure. And, like, do I still know all of that like the back of my hand? Yes, for sure. Right. But I've continued to evolve into someone who, yes, teaches in my own courses, but also has made a massive shift to teaching online business owners. Why? In private practice, I've mentor private practice owners as well. Why? Because that's what's lighting me up right now. And that's who keeps, you know, I keep attracting that. I keep attracting business Owners who are like, hey, can you help me, like, grow my private practice? Hey, can you help me move into the online space like you did? Like, I would love to generate a couple extra thousand dollars a month or I would love to go from zero to six figures with an online course. Can you help me do that? Like, yeah, I've done that multiple times. I can help you do that too. Right? So the reason why I even wanted to do an episode on this and share my journey was because it has not always been like butterfly and rainbows. And, you know, I had this interesting situation where I have a therapist who's in a program and this program is like shifting their model and they basically want to hire this therapist, like in house. And like, whatever, that's fine. They also wanted to take all of our clients. I was like, that's not fine. Like, no to that interesting story that will leave for another day or we won't discuss for, you know, reasons of just me being a good human. But it really made me stop in my tracks because I was like, wow. Like, the person who I spoke to said something to me that really stood out and she was like, hallie, I mean, like, how are you doing? Everything going well? And I'm like, yeah, things are going well. Like, I wasn't going to get into like the nitty gritty of like, like, you know, well, I'm a law. I might have to serve a lawsuit to this company who's trying to steal my registered trademark. And then there's this one who's trying to also use my trademark in her business. And my attorney's working on both those cases. I mean, like, what I'm going to get into, all these nitty gritty things that happen. This just life of a business owner, okay, Be prepared that when you do grow a business, people are going to want what you have. And sometimes they just try to take it from you. Sometimes it's not worth minding any business towards it or attention or time. And some other times you're like, well, this could really, you know, this could really cause a huge problem, a big, big financial problem. Because, like, if you're trying to, you know, take my certification, my cmt, my certified myofunctional therapist, right? No, aomt, you can't have that. That belongs to me. And that is something I can say legally because they have it on their website and that is my mark. And I have certified myofunctional therapists already that have it. So anyways, I won't, I won't go into like, what steps we're taking at the moment. But this has been going on for a few years, so don't be confused. No, they do not give the CMT that is through my company and my company only. But it's not all butterflies and rainbows. And this individual said to me, they're like, well, everything you touch, Holly, turns to gold. I was like, that's the perception, isn't it? I was like, amazing. All right, well, you know, that is the highlight. That's the Instagram highlight reel that we all talk about. What you see on the outside or the snippets you see of someone else's business or someone else's life here and there is not typically the reality. Right. That's just what they're sharing or just what you happen to see based on the information that you've fielded on any given day or number of days. Right. Or what they're. You know. Right. Like what I said, what they're choosing to share. So, again, I wanted to do this episode because I think it's important to honor where you are now, honor where you may want to be in the future. Like, none of us are stuck where we are. We all have the ability to shift into another role. I am a person that really, you know, I value relationships with colleagues, with friends, family. But when you lose my trust for doing something super duper shady or something super duper unkosher, that's. That's. I'm an enneagram8. If you know anything, it's sort of like, I will be your biggest cheerleader. Even if you're my competition, I will be your biggest cheerleader until you try to cut me off at the knees, and then you are dead to me. Real talk. Real talk. Oh, my goodness. Yeah. One of my dear friends and colleagues, Autumn Reed Henning and I talk about these things all the time because we're very, very similar people. And I think that it is just fascinating. It's fascinating to see how there are some really good, good humans out there, right, who will come to you and say, hey, can you mentor me? Can you teach me this? And I'm like, yes, I will literally teach you what I did. And then there's others who just try to copy exactly what you did, steal and sell what they got from you. Don't recommend that. I don't recommend that. I believe in karma. I believe in, like, energy and stuff like that, and it just. It's never going to serve you. Well, I've seen quite a few people, like, fail because they tried to copy me, they tried to copy several other colleagues. Not to say that you can't try to do some of the similar things that we have done, right? You can totally emulate things that you see out there, but you got to put your own personal mark on it. Like this is me giving you free business advice. You've got to put your own energetic stamp on it, your own personality. You gotta make it yours. That's why things are not going to sell if you're trying to copy and sell what someone else has created because they did it, most likely, if they're successful, they did it based on like their own intuition, their own guidance, their own energetic stamp, right? Their own energy, help them to create that. And you don't know what level of investment. Like I've invested so much time and money and energy into learning so many different things about myself to then in turn be able to figure out like, who I like, what I wanted to sell, who I wanted to market to, who I wanted to attract into my business. Like I teach us all an online medical entrepreneur in my, my course and my other business. But man, it's, it's fascinating because I will tell you what hurts the most is when people who are close to you and people who are really involved in your business or someone who's been a relationship you've had for 10 plus years, 15 years, you know, comes to you and basically cuts you off at the knees. And sometimes I'll do it under the guise of like trying to help someone else or oh well, you've been so successful. And like you remember when you were starting out, that doesn't make it okay. You can't just, if, if those, if individuals who are successful, right? Like let's say you start a private practice and you're making a couple hundred thousand dollars a year and a contractor or an employee comes to you and says, hey, you know what, you're really successful. So like, just give me my clients, I'm gonna go, give me my clients, let me start my own thing. Cause like, you're really successful, you don't need it. That would put a business under most of the time. And I don't think that people stop and think about that, right? And this is just one example. This is true of like many, many businesses in our industry and beyond. And these can be seven and eight figure businesses, y'. All. So when somebody kind of like puts up a boundary or they tell you no, that's their prerogative, right? Because people want to protect what they've built and that's not somebody being mean or nasty. That's somebody who has, who is strong in their boundaries, who understands their identity, who is living out their truest version of themselves. And they're not typically. Most people are not living out of fear at that level of business. They're typically living out of, like, I worked hard to get here. I'm confident in what I've built and who I am. And no, you can't just take it from me. You can't just take it from me, right? This is why a lot of us also very, you know, different situation. But similarly, a lot of people will come to me and say, like, oh my gosh, did you see this person's posts? My gosh, you're spreading false information. And like, this could be true about what's going on in the world right now. This could be true about what's going on in the myo space, the tethered oral tissue space, pediatric feeding space. And I got to the point where I was like, I cannot be the Instagram police anymore. Like, it's just, I mean, look, there's plenty of other people doing it so good on you. You can't force somebody to change. They have to want to. So the best thing we can do is open up them for me, open up those, those conversational channels to allow for that, share information and focus on who you do want to attract, right? And kind of like ignore the rest of the noise. And the last thing I want to leave you with today is one of the biggest lessons that I ever learned that has helped me, I think, in each phase of my identity shifts, in each phase of me questioning myself, because we all do it and it never stops. I tell you this in the five day free training that, like, we never stop questioning ourself and how some, you know, some of us are questioning how good we are, like, how much information we know, how well we can help our patients, so on and so forth, right? So I had a mentor who basically said to me once, you are going to be good. You're going to be judged good or bad, right? You're going to be judged good or bad. They're going to be like, halle, I really like your hair today, but that shirt, awful. Oh, don't like your. Don't like your Jewish star necklace? Nope, that's not sitting well with me. Or like, why'd you pick those headphones? Those make your ear, those make your head look funny. I mean, like, look, anybody could look at me right now and say any number of things, right? Good or Bad. But if you are strong in your convictions, right, if you know what you're doing and why you're doing it, you have a larger vision, you have a larger mission that you're trying to accomplish. Does it even matter if. If that larger mission, if your vision and mission actually plays out and you go do the thing that you're setting out to do, right? You're being that person who can go and do the things, you can have the things that you desire at the end of the day, and you're helping people in the process. Does it even matter what other people think of you? No, it doesn't. It doesn't. Right now, all that to say, be a good human, okay? Be a good human. Don't be a crappy person. Like, right now, there's this whole thing going on with Ms. Rachel. And like, I have to use this example because it's. We're literally living. Living it right now. And many of you know I'm Jewish, right? If you don't like that, that's on you. Ms. Rachel decided to partner with an organization that does not support Israeli children. And so I don't know if that was part of why she's not or what, but she basically made this video saying that she wants to help all children, and all children deserve X, Y and Z. And like, hey, look, we all agree with you, Ms. Rachel. Like, all children. Yes, but then why did you exclude, blatantly exclude Israeli children, Jewish children in your advocacy efforts, right? That was a choice you made, and that's your choice to make, right? So when people call you out on that because you chose to use the word all children and not just, you know, talk about certain groups of children, you basically demeanor, you know, Jewish or. And. Or Israeli children, because not all Israelis are Jewish. We have, you know, Muslim, we have Druze, we have Christian. We've got a lot of other religions, right? And identities and individuals who live in Israel that are not Jewish. So when you choose to leave out an entire section of children, entire group of children, a nationality of children, blatantly leave them out. But you continue to reference all children. It's almost like saying all children except if they're Jewish. All children except if they're Israeli, right? And so you get called out on being anti Semitic, and then you don't feel good about it because you got called on your excuse my French, so you go cry crocodile tears. Then you go on Fraggle Rock and you sing a song about how you're dancing. You're Fraggle Rock dancing your cares away, and I call you out on it, you know, and others call you out on it, and there's articles written and there's canceling happening and I don't know what else. Right. The biggest difference that I see, I don't even know how we got on this topic at this point, but the biggest difference that I see is that a lot of the Jews who are advocating, especially speech pathologists, because many of us, you know, I didn't know who Ms. Rachel was, honestly. But a lot of these speech pathologists who are really, really upset over this, their kids or their patients watch Ms. Rachel. And no one in their right mind would have thought she was anti Semitic. But she has made a choice to continue after being, you know, called out. She's continued to ignore the fact that there are different Israeli children being held captive right now. There are Israeli children who are very much so in need. You know, this was not meant to get political or anything. And this is not political. This is about children. This is not about the state of Israel. Don't come at me when you make that choice. Right? That is an identity that you choose to have and own and live with, and you dig your heels in further into the ground and really just. Yeah, we're just, you know. Oh, I remember why I got on this. She came on today, somebody sent me this reel, and she made this. This, like, reel about, like, I don't care about their opinions. I think is kind of like what the message is. Like, their opinions are just their opinions and I don't care about them. Or just like, that's fine. You're just furthering our evidence that you are anti Semitic. Right. And look, that's the identity she chooses. She chooses to hold. But at the end of the day, right, she is being judged out the wazoo right now, good and bad. There are some people that love her for what she's doing, and there are some people that are really unhappy with her. And she's still going about it, and she's still obviously going to be very successful because she has 10 million followers online. And she's, you know, Ms. Rachel, who apparently is a big name in households. Who knew? But, yeah, I wanted to bring that up because there are great examples and then there's examples that I prefer didn't happen, but nonetheless an example of identity and who you choose to be and who you choose to show up as and who and how you can move forward even when you're being judged. Right. Whether I agree with her or not. So, anywho, I want to Wrap this up. But all that to say hopefully my journey goes to show a little bit more of like who I am, how I got to where I am. Because I think a lot of people look at me even and they just assume like, oh my gosh, like everything you try. Halle is so successful. Well, I mean, yeah, we have big launches and that's a lot of what we share, a lot of what you see. But there is a very hard working team behind the scenes that makes everything look that beautiful and pretty and manicured and you know, makes it very, look very successful and that takes a lot of energy. Business know how, right. I've got a full time COO now. I've got a handful of virtual assistants who are amazing and carry this team. I've got mentors in my programs, right. I've got an ads team, I've got a copywriter, right. We've got different individuals who all serve various roles in really each business. Because this is like I've got this in each of my businesses and so it may look super easy and well manicured and pretty on the outside, but until you go through it and do it yourself, right, I don't think you'll, you know, it's hard to have understanding of what it takes and how it feels to even be the individual who is operating various businesses. So all that to say this is my story. This is a bit about it. I have now started another business called Online Medical Entrepreneur where I am teaching because I do, I do still mentor private practice owners. I don't really advertise that a ton. It's more so when they come to me and ask because I love doing it, but I don't want to fill my schedule with that because I like having the freedom to do what I want during the day and work when I want, where I want. So I'm very careful with like how many things I do that tie me to the computer. There are some days where, some weeks where I may work five to 10 hours and there's other weeks where I may work 20 to 30 hours. It just depends, right. And I, it's actually a choice that I get to make very often. But I've worked very hard to put all this in place. Right. This didn't just like appear magically overnight. I didn't have all this magical money, you know, to start a private practice or to like everything I've ever done I've created for myself. And I think it's important to put that out there and help others realize that because I like nice Things. I live in a nice home, I drive a nice car, right. But I do these things for myself. I'm not showy. So you might see things in the background of my videos, but I'm not doing it to be showy. I'm doing that because that's where I live. So that's my background. And it was interesting too, because I talked to somebody about this the other day and I was just like, you know, sometimes people like, value different things and I like nice things for myself, but I don't buy them to show them off. So like, I don't know how other people perceive my success. Sometimes it seems like people, there's people who feel like I'm not successful at all, and then there's some people who treat me like I am a billionaire. It's always very, very fascinating. I am not a billionaire, for what it's worth. Anywho, okay, so wrapping this up, as I've said now three times, I do want to remind everybody that the doors to themiomembership.com are open right now. So come and join us if that's something that interests you. If you are somebody though, who wants help with private practice ownership, I'm considering re starting my real biz mastermind for private practice owners who want to grow their private practice. So you already, you have to have one already does not have to be successful or making a ton of money, but you got to have a practice. So if you're interested in that email supporteedthepedes.com let us know. And then if you're someone who's like, yeah, I mean, this is all good and great, but I really want to grow an online business. Email supportnlinemedical entrepreneur.com and we can help you out over there. All right. I hope everyone has a great day. This is just like this part of my journey. I'm sure things will continue to evolve and change and shape shift and my identities I'm sure will change even more, you know, going forward as a business owner. Because if you had asked me 10 years ago where I would be today, I would have never known that this is where I would be and that this is who I'd be being in the world. It's a very cool and exciting time and I love everything that I'm doing and I've learned to just lean in and trust my intuition. Meaning, like, I follow my gut, I do the things that I feel called to do and I don't do the things that society like expects me to do. Right. I do things Hallie's way. So I also help others do the same and do things their way. And guess what? When you're aligned like that, that's when the money just. It just comes to you. It flows so easily. So if that's something you desire, like I said, reach out. I'd love to help you. But yeah, this is me. This is me and my story in a nutshell. Thanks for listening to this podcast. If you found value in this episode and want to hear more of these Myotots, Airweight and Feeding related episodes, be sure to leave a review on Apple Podcasts and check Share this episode on your social media platforms. You can access free resources and all I offer@halibalkin.com or pop over to Hollybulcken on Instagram to get all the latest updates.