Episode 95: The Elevation Movement

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, Hallie Balkan. I'm a certified orofacial myologist, feeding specialist 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, tethered oral tissue and airway space. I challenge you to keep an open mind and join my mission to get this information out to the masses. Let's get started. Hello friends. All right, so it's just me today, your host, Hallie Balkan. And we are going to jump into a topic that is super near and dear to my heart because really, this is everything that I stand for. And it's funny because it's really the movement behind everything that I've done from this podcast to Feed the Peas, the MILE membership, to working with one on one private practice owners with coaching, and now with the real biz mastermind that I launched. What we found when the team was sitting down and talking and looking at like, what have we created and what are the values? What is the foundation behind just everything we do as a company and a business and as a leader in this industry? What, like, what is that interwoven theme? And it really. And I'm laughing because I didn't set out with the intention to have a name or all these things, but this is just who I am. And so this is, this is what's been interwoven through all of my programs. And so what that thing is, is elevation. Ok, the word elevation. And so what we are, we are coining this now, the elevation movement. There are three pillars to my elevation movement. And these are the three things that you'll see interwoven throughout anything I create, anything I do. And that is mentorship, identity and skillset. Now, anybody out there could probably teach, right? Okay, maybe not everybody's a great teacher, but anybody could say, hey, I know something, I have a skill, I'm going to teach it, right? So skill set. A lot of us can gain a skill set from multiple sources. However, what I find is that so many of the students that have gone through Feed the Peace that have come to the MILE membership, that have gone through all these other courses and, or they're new graduates from graduate school and they just didn't get the Info in their grad program, whatever the case may be. And I'm also telling you there's people who've been in the field for 20 to 30 years who've gone through some of my programs who have shared this with us. There are no other programs out there currently in our field that look at identity, that look at who you're being. And I have past episodes. You can go back and look for the be do have episode where I talked about the be do have model, which is from one of my mentors, Jim Fortin. He's got his own podcast and all that fun stuff. If we're not, you know, in that podcast, I talk about if we're not being first and foremost what we're trying to create, we're not going to create it. You can go and learn all day long. You can be a CEU junkie. Hey, I am. There's nothing wrong with that. I love my ceus. I love taking courses. I love learning new information. You know, we always say it's a dangerous place to be if you think you know everything. If you think you know everything and you say, this is how we've always done things. Nope, nope. Nobody knows everything. None of us are perfect. There's no such thing as perfection. There's no such thing as a know it all, who knows all the things. Very dangerous place to work from. Right. So we all have to continue to upscale or elevate our skill set. We all need to continue to learn, and that is highly promoted in our field as speech pathologists, occupational therapists, registered dental hygienists, dentists, you know, all business owners, private practice owners, even. This is all. This is something that, yes, I do see that interwoven in what our industry, in the narrative presented by our industry. Right. But what is not connected to it typically is identity and mentorship. Now, don't get me wrong, a lot of people out there will say we offer mentorship, or, you know, if you want mentorship, do X, Y or Z, or, oh, you absolutely need mentorship. But what I see is very insufficient mentorship in terms of people say you need it, but then they're not willing to provide it, or people say you need it or. And they make it really hard to access. And look, I'm not saying call my private practice or call somebody else's private practice and expect that you're going to call and get an in and you can observe all the patients. That's just not always how it works. There are certain practices that identify as teaching institutions and There are other ones that just don't. And that's okay. That's not what I'm referencing. What I'm referencing is the ability to work with somebody one on one, maybe to review your cases. Yes, I'm visual. Yes, observing things helps me, but that's not actually how I honed my skills and my craft. Because anytime I reached out to somebody, they didn't allow it. They wouldn't allow me. And even if I offered to pay them, they didn't allow me in to do that. And so I said, okay, well, if I can't really get my hands on that type of an opportunity, what can I do? And that's where it became very clear that I wanted to take certain courses, link up with certain providers in the industry and learn from some of them. And even then, it was very hard beyond taking those courses to get mentorship. And again, I'm hearing more and more of it, but I'm not actually seeing it play out. So the differences in what I decided I needed to provide in my programs was different levels of mentorship. Right? You get to ask your Q and A in our membership in the MYO membership, and you get answers from four of us, plus your colleagues that are dedicated there to answering your questions. Same thing goes for the courses I create. We have very focused conversations around what we're learning. And the same thing goes in the my business program programs. You get access to me and those programs through different means to get your questions answered and truly get that mentorship. So you can move forward, you can learn, you can tweak, you can move forward. Right. But then on a higher scale, sometimes people want more direct mentorship, one on one. So we offer that too. Right. And this is not a sales pitch. I'm just using examples now. Okay, that's great, Halle. Like you offer mentorship and you do it very differently than everybody else, blah, blah, blah, blah. But identity, okay? This is this. You have to understand that these are three pillars that all build on each other and they really are something that coexist. Ok? It is the trifecta of having these three things together that makes up the elevation movement. Right? We have to elevate each other by sharing our skill set so that we can help the patients. What good are we if we keep our skill set all to ourself? I'm one person. I can't treat everybody out there. That was the whole reason why I decided to create this online course, to create this membership, to create business coaching. I'm taking a love of what I Do. And I am sharing that with the world because I can reach more people that way. I can reach more patients that way, indirectly through my colleagues who also have the same desires that I had in my private practice and in my skillset. And so. Skillset. Right. We are elevating the skill set. Right? We are also. I am elevating identity. Okay? This is not something that I really see anywhere else in our industry. I can say that for at least SLPs. I can't say that as well as like as much as possible, you know, for SLPs as I can. I'm sorry. For SLPs, I can say it with more confidence because that is the world that I typically live in and that I see and that I'm very, you know, that I'm surrounded by on a regular basis. You know, I'm newer to being surrounded by more OTs and RDHs and in the past couple of years. And so I can't really speak to those industries because I haven't lived at firsthand. And so I won't. But I will say in the SLP industry, what I see, which drives me up a wall is people teaching who say, hey, we're going to give you all these skills, but let's just make sure, you know, you are not a specialist. You need X number of years practicing. You need X number of patients giving them, you know, therapy and working through it before you ever call yourself a pediatric feeding therapist or you ever call yourself or a facial myologist or oh wait, you skipped through that. You know, you skipped through the certification too fast. You know, nobody should go as fast as you did because they say that about me. I got pregnant and I decided to hit the ground running. I already had the caseload, right? So I made it happen fast. And there are people who don't like that. And guess what? Whatever. That's their issue, not mine. Ok? Bottom line is I was already doing the kind of work that made it very easy for me to transition into myo because I was doing feeding and I had a. It was very easy for me to conceptually grasp how to integrate MYO into that, especially because I took my course with somebody who made it very clear as to what the connection was there and how to basically go from step A to step B for me. Okay? So that resonated with me. That worked for me. But I enter into everything I do as I have to have that being in my subconscious. First. I need to be the pediatric feeding therapist before I'm ready to accept the skill set, before I'm ready to accept the mentorship. We can do those things all day long. But if we don't identify as being that individual with that skill set, we're just going to suppress it, we're going to learn it and we're going to move on as though we learned nothing. And that is what I see all the time in our industry. And look, I'm not saying that it's purposeful, I'm not saying that everybody who teaches does this. But there are some people in our industry who have created quite a narrative because this has been shared with me by many of my students. And where there's fear instilled and I am sorry, but I don't stand for that. I am very pure and heart centered. And if you're instilling fear in people because you are worried that they're going to surpass you and you're worried that they're going to become better than you and then you will become non relevant, you need to take a good hard look in the mirror because you have got some control and ego issues, you guys. And I know I'm going hard and deep here, but this is something that is extremely, extremely important and that needs to be said in our industry because as of right now, there are certain people in our industry that keep suppressing down other therapists. And I am over it. I am tired of it. I will be that voice. You don't like it, send me an email. Don't care. That's fine. You know, I'm just going to delete it, but go ahead and send it to me if you need to. That's fine. Unload your stuff. Whatever send, I'll erase. I'll send it back to you. Bottom line, right? What I'm getting at here is that nobody is in charge of you and how you identify you other than you. You are in charge of you and who you choose to identify as. Whether that is as a pediatric feeding therapist, a myofunctional therapist. Like yes, guys, stay in your lane. Do things that are within your scope of practice. I'm not telling you to practice outside of your scope, okay? What I'm telling you is how you identify and what you choose to specialize in. That is up to you. And I don't care if you're one day out of grad school. I don't care if you're a grad student going through my programs. I don't care if you've been in the field for 20 years. Doesn't matter. This applies to all of us and yes. Does your skillset get honed in and get better with experience and more patience over the years? Absolutely. I'm not downplaying that, but that's a very different conversation. That is not what we're talking about here, ok? And in order for someone to get to that point, they need people in the industry elevating them up. So this is my call to action. To everybody out there who feels called to step into a role like this, where we choose to elevate our colleagues, we celebrate their wins, we celebrate when they decide they want to take a big leap into a new space, we celebrate their excitement. We don't just go, oh look, there is another one popping off who just wants to be me. No, please be, please follow in my footsteps. I am encouraging you to, to step up to the plate, ok? Figure out what it is you want to do. What do you so badly desire that you just haven't stepped into because you have been scared? Knock that stuff out, ok? Get out of the fear. Step up. And I know it's easier said than done sometimes for some people, ok, I get that. But step up to the plate. There are so many patients who need us who, who are waiting for you to step into that role. You are the person for them. And so think about how many patients you're leaving sitting on the sidelines who need you when you choose to listen to some of these other narratives and you choose to work from a place of fear and you choose to not step into being that pediatric feeding therapist or that myofunctional therapist or that business owner, that private practice owner when you choose not to do these things. And that's selfish because there are people out there who need you. They don't know they need you yet, but they're out there, I promise you. And people think that certain areas are inundated and there's just too many private practice owners and there's too many myofunctional therapists, there's too many feeding therapists and, oh, I'm only going to be successful if I'm in a rural area where nobody else around me has these credentials I call bs, you guys. I live in Bethesda, Maryland currently and there is a private practice. Every time I turn around, to every varying degree around me, like within a five mile radius, I probably can count 15 on my hand, if not more. Go 10 miles. We're talking 30 plus practices, okay? Some are individual owners, some are brick and mortar, some take insurance, some don't. There's a mix of everything. And there Are a lot of comms around me, too. I'm not the only comm. There's a bunch of them directly around me. And I have a very successful private practice. And guess what? Some of them do too. So we can all be successful if we learn to step into our being and allow ourselves to elevate our colleagues. Elevate ourselves. Elevate our colleagues. That is how we step into being the best version of ourselves and helping our patients. Ok, so I'm going to get off this soapbox, but I wanted to introduce this concept of the elevation movement. We will talk more about this together. But the pillars that we talked about today, right, Mentorship at the top, followed by identity and skillset. You guys, these are three really important things that I want you guys to sit with, think about, and I want you to stop listening to the narratives out there that tell you you can't be or they put you into fear, because those are not people who are there to help you. And those are not people you should be learning from. You should be learning from the people who elevate you and who want the best for you, because that's going to come through in their teaching. And they're also going to teach you the skills you need and the how to. To get out there and do the assessment, to do the treatment, to be that person for your patients. Okay, so sit on that. Let me know what you guys thought about this episode too, because, you know, this is a concept and a movement that is extremely to my heart. And like I said, it has been interwoven through everything I teach, everything I do. And I want to elevate you all, I really do. And I invite you all who want to be elevated or who share in this, who want to elevate others to reach out, because I love interacting with you all, Reach out on social media, send responses to the inbox, whatever. But bottom line, we need to be elevating each other and that's it. It is as simple as that. And those who are not elevating, we should not be supporting. We should let them go do their thing. And there's people that are attracted to that, by all means, let them go that way. But if you're attracted to the elevation movement and the concept and the, you know, the story behind it and the pillars with Mentorship, Identity and Skillset, this is where you need to be hanging because the people are in our communities and we invite you in as well. So come join us. You know, come hang with us. There's all kinds of ways to connect with us. One of the ways is just like a free Facebook group. I want to, you know, feed the peas. I want to be a pediatric feeding therapist. You can join us there. I welcome you all in. Let's all hang together, elevate each other and just see how many more patients we can all help as a result. All right, hope everybody has a good day. This is Hallie signing off, but we will talk more about the Elevation movement so come hang with us on social media. Thanks for listening to this podcast. If you want to hear more of these Myo Tots, Airway and feeding related episodes, be sure to leave a review on Apple Podcasts or pledge a small amount on patreon.com if you found value. Others you know in this space will too. So be sure to share this episode on your social media platforms and join us over on Facebook on my Facebook page @HALLIEBLCAN BIZ, on Instagram at Alibulcan. And you can head over to theuntetheredpodcast.com to grab a copy of the Show Notes where you can also subscribe to be kept up to date on the latest podcast episodes.