Episode 88: From Outdoor Educator to ABA with Pam Martien-Koch

Pam is a neighbor of mine in Golden, Colorado and fellow former outdoor educator ... in addition to being a BCBA, on the faculty of Purdue Global, and owning her own practice. It's easy to look back on our lives and think 'everything happens for a reason.' Whether or not that's true, I like to think that hers and mine similar experiences teaching in the outdoors helped us find this ABA field that we both love. And if you're a student at Purdue? TAKE HER OBM CLASS! the projects that her students work on know no bounds. Enjoy, kind listener.

Resources:

Pam...

On LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/pamela-martien-koch/

Organization: https://clearcreekbehaviorservices.com/

"Building and Sustaining Meaningful and Effective Relationships as a Supervisor and Mentor", LeBlanc, Sellers, Ala'i, https://www.amazon.com/Sustaining-Meaningful-Effective-Relationships-Supervisor/dp/1597381209/ref=as...

"The Coaching Manager", Hunt & Weintraub: https://www.amazon.com/Coaching-Manager-Developing-Talent-Business/dp/0761924191

Building Better Businesses in ABA is edited and produced by KJ Herodirt Productions

Intro/outro Music Credit: song "Tailor Made" by Yari and bensound.com

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Transcript

Jonathan: 0:30

My guest today is Pamela Martine Cook. Pam is the founder and executive director of Clear Creek Behavior Services, an adjunct faculty at Purdue University where she teaches courses in supervision and OBM. She's a BCBA with over 20 years of experience working in ABA. Her passion lies in helping clinicians and supervisors realize their potential through evidence based supervisory practice. Pamela is passionate about expanding the field of OBM and sharing the science of behavior with individuals. outside our field. Pam, welcome to the pod.

Pam: 1:01

Thank you, Jonathan, for having me. You know,

Jonathan: 1:04

there's, this is a distinct honor, Pam, because this is the first time, uh, you live in golden Colorado and you and I actually both live in the same neighborhood. And, we were introduced by Missy Olive, mutual friend, um, and realize that we like literally live down the street from one another. It's so awesome to have another golden, acolyte of our, of our science here. So welcome. Thank

Pam: 1:27

you. Yeah. Thank you.

Jonathan: 1:28

Um, well, I, so I let's start cause I think, um, one of the things that I so cherish about golden and for all YouTube listeners or, or watchers check out my hat. Cause actually I'm wearing a hat with North table mountain on it. So I'm an unabashed Homer of golden Colorado, but like one of the common interests of everyone who lives in golden is the outdoors. And, um, we're just passionate about everything, every kind of outdoor sport and discipline from skiing to mountain biking to hiking to you name it. but Pam, tell me you have your own. Pretty extraordinary outdoor education journey. I want to hear about your journey from outdoor educator and Ireland to, uh, coming all the way then to ABA in Golden, Colorado.

Pam: 2:06

Yes. So, John, I grew up in the outdoors. We have a cabin in northern Michigan and I grew up camping and skiing, canoeing, sailing, just kind of everything you would do on a lake. And my parents were Just adamant about being outdoors and exploring. So I just kind of did that throughout my life. And then when I went to college at University of Colorado, I got into skiing and mountain biking and climbing. And that honestly was... My passion at that time. So I was studying advertising, but that was where my time was spent outdoors. And, after college, I moved to London to work and quickly realized that I wanted to move. Back into the outdoors. London's not a big outdoor city. Actually, I think they're a pretty active city. But, um, I wanted to be in nature a little bit more, and a friend of mine was working in Northern Ireland at an outdoor camp and said, come on over and work with us. Quickly moved over to Northern Ireland and started working at a camp there and did a lot of exploring and climbing. They're big, big outdoorsmen and women there. So just kind of got into that there. And then through my work there, I had a lot of influences that kind of led me towards my path at ABA. So some of the groups that I worked with and then a friend of mine actually worked in ABA. And so I started kind of Showing some interest in that area. And when I came back to the States, I, continued to work in the outdoors and guide programs for kids and ended up moving to Portland. And eventually worked my way to an ABA clinic in Portland and was a, I think they, you know, it's a behavior technician. They didn't have that title at that time, but, I was a behavior technician and just, that kind of got me started. And then I moved back to Colorado, came to Golden because like you said, the, the lifestyle and the people here aligned with my interests. So I've kind of been here ever since.

Jonathan: 4:24

Pam, what an amazing origin story. you know, it's so funny. So 20 years ago when I transitioned my career, cause I was in management consulting in Silicon Valley, I had a big. transition. And before I got into ABA, I spent about six, seven years in outdoor ed. And it was this kind of thing where I had worked my way up the totem pole, whatever the totem pole is in the corporate world. but I had to start over again and I was like wonderfully happy with that. Um, but like I was a summer camp, a back country, expedition leader. and so I was worked at a summer camp for three summers. I was, uh, leading trips up in Wyoming with NOLS. Um, I was actually working Outdoor education, science camp programs, and you talk about like a 24 seven, you know, this best, right? You're like literally with kids 24 seven. Yeah. And, um, and it was awesome. I loved it. I did this for years. I don't know if I still have the energy to do it today, maybe, but you know what I always think about is, gosh, if I just knew the principles of behavior analysis back then, I could have been such a better instructor and leader. I don't know if you ever have.

Pam: 5:23

Right, right. Yes. In fact, for a while, I remember talking to. The director at the clinic I worked in Portland and said, maybe we should. You know, build a climbing wall and use some visual prompts to teach certain skills. And I had all these ideas about how we could mesh the two fields. It certainly was a dream at the start of my career.

Jonathan: 5:46

Oh, well, maybe that, that climbing wall or that climb there's, we've got a couple of few climbing gyms here in Golden. Maybe that dream can still be real, like the confluence of ABA and outdoor ed. But you know, I, I love, you know, you teach at Purdue. And your passion is OBM. I'm passionate about OBM as well, but like what inspired that OBM journey for you?

Pam: 6:06

Well, I think that when you work in any business long enough, you start to understand that we need a way to Evaluate the systems, the processes, you know, individual performance within organization. It, it's part of what we do. And as I started moving up into leadership roles, I realized I didn't have that skillset. I wasn't necessarily taught that in my coursework. And I certainly didn't have that kind of guidance as I moved my way through. My work in behavior analysis and this wasn't to anyone's fault, I mentioned this when I was at ABAI this weekend that, um, there weren't a lot of behavior analysts in Colorado when I started, There weren't clinics, I'm not sure if there were any clinics at the time, and so I had to learn as I kind of went, and I had to learn how to supervise and oversee programs, and I didn't have training in that. So I started to look to, as I needed that in the work that I was doing in my supervisor roles, I started to look to the Journal of Organizational Behavior Management. And said this is some good stuff and really have recognized as I've supervised and taught practicum classes that this needs to be part of our core education for behavior analysts because they move into leadership leadership. Rolls quickly and need to have those skills. I think it's important.

Jonathan: 7:43

I want to correct you on something. This should not just be core education for behavior analysis. This needs to be core education for every single discipline, right? Like they don't teach us in MBA programs. They don't teach us another master's program. They don't teach an undergrad. And I think our world and certainly organizations are not as good of a place that they can be. They have not realized their full potential because they don't have that training, right? And otherwise we're just doing, like you said, that we're, we're sort of trying to Thank you. Do the best we can going along, but we know that's not the best way to learn.

Pam: 8:10

Right. I couldn't agree more. And, and I think there's a lot of options out there for people to use in businesses. And so they just kind of grab at what makes sense to them and it's not always evidence based and useful for their individual organizations. Yeah. I couldn't agree more. Yeah.

Jonathan: 8:28

Totally. I think business, right? So I'm, I'm zooming way out. And, um, there's always these business fads and trends. You go back to the eighties with like, um, so George Welsh, the CEO of, uh, of GE for a long time, who was regarded as the guru of leadership. And do you know what GE used to do? Rank and yank every single year, they would rank people, literally force rank them top to bottom. And then the bottom 10 percent that yank them, fire them out of the company. I mean, you talk not only like That's not to your point, not evidence based, but it creates this like psychologically unsafe environment where people can't do their best. So amen like we just in this world, organizations need more of it.

Pam: 9:03

Right. Yes. And I remember my dad taught business, um, as I was growing up. So that was kind of the verbiage that I heard growing up, but he did always say people need to have, no matter what field they're in, they need to understand business. And so that kind of resonated with me as I started again, moving into those leadership roles, thinking about my advertising background and the business courses that I took, that this made sense to kind of, Merge that understanding of how to look at workplace behaviors. from the behavior analytic perspective.

Jonathan: 9:39

So true. Well, one of the really cool things that, um, that you've told me that you do in your class every semester is your students, they don't just study OBM. They embark on a project and OBM project every semester. Tell me more about that.

Pam: 9:55

Right, yeah, so when I was developing the course, questioned whether I should actually build that project into it. I had heard other organizations, I think I'd even read, um, in different places and talked to some people, maybe through ABA Technologies, that that's a tough thing to do, to learn about OBM and do your project all in the same semester. But I felt pretty strongly. From my experiences at supervising BCBAs and maybe like conducting FBAs that you needed to practice to really kind of mess up and, and go through those steps and learn what you don't know. So I really wanted to build that into the course. And one of the cool things that happened this semester is ABA Technologies, worked with me to allow us to use their, OBM specialist certificate course within the course. And so students were able to do that and get a lot of content. and of course the content would be taught throughout the course, but then we could really focus on those projects in our courses. so they were asked to pick an organization. The majority picked organizations that were ABA clinics, but some did reach outside our field and do projects and really cool organizations. And then they go through the semester and identify a business need or opportunity within an organization, and then address that throughout the semester. And then in the end, they provide recommendations to the organization. They don't have to complete the recommendations, although some of them do. And then they solicit feedback from that organization to kind of talk about that process and then talk about what they learned as

Jonathan: 11:34

well. Oh, I'm getting like the spine tickles. What is that? ASMR, whatever it's called. Like with you describing this in just a moment, I'm going to ask, for you to tell me a little bit more about what one of those projects looks like or what recommendations are, but you know, it's, you know, what I love that you said is you have to have this opportunity to experience things and fail. Right. I mean, that's a lesson I've learned as an entrepreneur and starting an organization, right? You're, if you think going into it, like you're not going to fail, you're going to fail on a ton of stuff. But the key is, how have you come back from it? It's no different Pam than like, than a baby learning to walk, right. A baby gets hurt and falls down and things happen. And yeah, it's sad, but that's all in the process of learning how to walk most effectively. but anyway, I, so I love that you said that, but yeah, tell me more about one of those

Pam: 12:19

projects. Well, you know, I. I want to say that I hate to use that word fail, and I do kind of just come to that and actually use that word fail because it's... the vocabulary maybe I grew up with, but I don't really think of it as failing because I do think in doing these projects, these students really grow and learn a lot. And students come to the table pretty fearful of having to do this without any background knowledge. And then typically by the end of the semester, they're really excited. They have a lot of aha moments, how we can take The work that they've learned to use within their clinic practice and apply that to those workplace settings. I think they learn a deeper understanding of behavior analysis. So some of the projects that students had, I had one who worked in a surfing company, um, yeah, and it was customer engagement. They were looking at, I had some people starting their own businesses. Some students were actually. Starting their own businesses. So they used it for their own businesses that were not behavior analytic businesses. So they had sort of side gigs. And then, um, I had a student who was working with a company that builds products an equipment for environmental testing. and I think looked at the systems within that organization. I had a student who was involved in sort of the art world, in international art world. So really, really cool. There was a couple farms, um, that they worked with to help. And this was all happening when we were hearing across, The globe about, difficulties with organizations, with hiring and staff retention and distribution. And they were all addressing these high, high needs. So we did talk about that. This is, you know. I don't expect that you're going to solve all these problems for this organization, but small steps.

Jonathan: 14:20

Oh my God. From surfing to like international art worlds of farmers, the like environmental testing. And just to be clear, like you teach online, right? Through Purdue. So this is not just here in golden or Colorado. This is like all over the country. Correct.

Pam: 14:33

Yes. Yeah. Yeah.

Jonathan: 14:35

So I don't know if I ever went back to school to get my, like, Like, I would want to be in your class? Like first and foremost, that's cool. Real world hands on experience. Um, that's yeah, that's really profound. at the end of, a semester what kinds of reflections do your students have about what they've learned and how they've grown?

Pam: 14:56

Yeah, I think, you know, if I could sum it up, I think what a lot of them have learned is that it's okay to try something new, and as long as you have the right guidance, and I hope that I provided that to make it comfortable for students, um, to try something new and see what it feels like, and learn along the way, and that There's a lot to take away from that. And they did. I think they really had a stronger understanding of OBM. A lot of them said I think this is a, starting point for them to now investigate more how they can apply that to the, their own practice. But I think they had a newfound interest in it. That's

Jonathan: 15:37

awesome. Because I mean, school is just a starting point, right? Of learning. That's not the end point. it's like excellence, right? It's not the end point. So it feels like if you're inspiring them at the beginning of their journey of OBM and giving them guidance and real world experience and they become a lifelong OBM seeker, that's a neat thing, Pam.

Pam: 15:55

Wow. Yeah, I hope, I hope that was the case. And I think if nothing else, it inspires me to see their growth and how much I grow in this. And I mean, I learn every project. that I take on, I think, Oh my gosh, how am I going to guide a student on, you know, like this company that's doing environmental testing? And, um, they always come away knowing way more than I do. So it's pretty cool.

Jonathan: 16:18

That's so awesome. Spoken like a true, humble, wise, uh, teacher that you're, you're constantly learning from them as to, well, tell me, I want to shift gears. Um, tell me about your mentor and our mutual friend, who connected us, Missy Olive and, Sort of how you all got to know what another, and what you learned from Missy in grad school.

Pam: 16:39

Yeah, so Missy was a professor of mine in grad school and one of the really remarkable things about Missy is her Desire to mentor and supervise. So she always provides opportunities to her students and to me in my professional development. And that's where she really has become. When I think of the literature where it talks about sponsor versus mentorship versus manager, I think she was really a sponsor and a mentor for me. She's helped me to grow professionally. She includes me in opportunities for presentations. She and I just sat on a panel together at ABAI. I can always still turn to her and say, I don't really know what to do here. Can you help me with this scenario? So she's always, she's just available. If I, um, have a need professionally, I can reach out to her and, um, Can I ask this question? She has incredibly high work ethics and high standards. So she always encourages and challenges me to work at that level, which I respect. I admire that. And, um, I know that again, I think one of the panelists in our last talk said that they often call Missy to check them on if they're doing something, you know, that's ethical, et cetera. And I do, I feel like I can call her. And, um, ask questions about ethics and is this appropriate to do this? she's helped me with a couple school scenarios where I've been working with schools and she has some background in that to say, here's some things you want to look to. And she encourages me to have the autonomy to do it. So she doesn't necessarily do it for me, but helps me to learn how to get there.

Jonathan: 18:29

Wow. You know, and I think this is a good takeaway for. Any manager anywhere is like, yeah, you're going to have your direct line supervisor, your manager. but it's really important to stay in touch with and I'll call it quote unquote collect mentors, right? Along the way, almost like a kitchen cabinet. Um, because there's always, there are always things to be learned. that's what I've done over the course of my career. And having those people to pick up the phone and call, it's just a really powerful thing. It's a humbling thing too, but I love that idea about checking ourselves. So You consult school districts, you have a small practice Clear Creek Behavior Services. Tell me a little bit more about that work and, um, and by the way, Clear Creek is the name of the creek that flows through Golden, Colorado. And most people would say, Oh, I haven't seen that. But if you've ever watched a Coors commercial, Coors the beer, and they talk about that. The Rocky Mountain Springwater, uh, they don't actually show Clear Creek in that, but they were referencing Clear Creek when they talked about that Rocky Mountain Springwater. But anyway, tell me more about Clear Creek Behavior Services, Pam.

Pam: 19:30

Right, well, so of course it got its name because of my interest in golden and the outdoors and being by water, so... A lot of people think I'm affiliated with the city. I have to clarify that a lot. Yeah. But yeah, so I run a practice where I provide consultation services to families and consultation services to schools and in the community in general. I used to work for one of the community center boards in Colorado, which is sort of the entry point for services. And I, oversaw their behavioral health team. And then, um, moved out on my own when my son came to me. So, um, it's a small practice and it kind of fluctuates and how many clients I have based on my teaching load. So,

Jonathan: 20:21

well, I think it's really cool that you're teaching and you're also on the side, you're doing the same things, right? I'm sure employing the OBM techniques and your science and that feels super powerful.

Pam: 20:32

Yeah. Helps me kind of practice what I preach, I think a little bit.

Jonathan: 20:36

Nice. I like that. By the way, I'm going to share. I don't know if listeners will care at all, but a fun fact about Clear Creek coming back to it. Do you know what its original name was? I don't. No. I just learned this and I've lived here 11 years. Um, the original name was Cannonball. Creek. And I don't know all the history behind that. I will say this because I am an avid craft beer fan. We have across the street from our neighborhood Cannonball Creek Brewery. Huge shout out to the owner, Jason and his partners, Jonathan and Brian. They've been in the community for 10 plus years. They are the only Colorado brewery. That has won an award at the great American beer festival every year for a decade. And they make dank IPAs and pilsners and it's so good. And my kids like have grown up there. So I had to, I had to do a shout out. Let's come back to, you spoke so eloquently of the role that Missy has played for you as a mentor, Pam, what should BCBAs look for in a mentor?

Pam: 21:37

You know, I ask this question to students every semester, and I have people ask me this question a lot, and I think probably the first thing to look for is someone that you can have a good rapport with, because you are going to be inevitably dealing with complex situations where you have to have complex conversations, where you are receiving corrective feedback, and you need to provide feedback to your supervisor as well. So, starting with a good rapport, I think, is critical. and finding someone that recognizes their own limitations and their own needs and has that humility to look to other mentors, that can model that. they need mentorship as well, I think is critical. I also think someone that can provide a good structure to supervision, so who's well organized, has systems in place to provide supervision, is incredibly valuable because there's a lot of nuances to providing supervision, just the logistics of your forms, understanding the BACB requirements. I think having those systems in place helps that relationship. Um, Be more functional as you move through that relationship. I said someone who is humble, prepared to. Accept that feedback as well and learn along the process. I took a parenting class early when my son was first born that talked about how to raise, um, kids who are resilient and have autonomy. And it talked about understanding that. the nuance of when to come in and take charge and provide more guidance and when to step back and let people learn and possibly even lead the, you know, child led instruction. so I think that relates to supervision. If we know when to let supervisees try and they have a strong base to kind of move out and try on their own and have some autonomy, I think that's important for us to let. Supervisors do that and then understand when there's times that we need to pull back and kind of take charge and help guide them a little bit more. So I think that's important. and then my students always give me feedback because I ask in every one of my supervision classes, what should we start doing? What should we stop doing? What should we keep doing? And they talk about feedback in particular. that they want from the supervisees more feedback. They want feedback to be timely and they want to see mutual respect and supervisors being respectful of them and their individual needs. So I think that's, you know, from a lot of students, that's kind of some bullet points of what is valuable. I

Jonathan: 24:21

love that you asked for that feedback, right? That's the best way I think as a leader. to create a culture and an organization and on teams of feedback is you got to ask for it first, right? So that's super powerful. You know, it was really cool. You know, it resonated with me, Pam, when you described, you've got to know is a good mentor when to lean in and take charge and then when to step back. There's a component of discernment there, that's hard to develop, right? Like, I don't know, what is that process? Like, how do you recommend someone who's an emerging leader? How do you build a repertoire of discernment? Gosh.

Pam: 24:58

Um, I think there is probably A lot of information out there to address this, but I feel like I really learned that through trial and error. I'm not sure if that's the best way to learn that. Um, but I do take notes on what students and supervisees have told me. And I have started the relationship just modeling that, like, give me feedback, give me feedback, give me feedback so that they do start to feel more comfortable. I talked about that. You have to sort of shape. the behavior of providing feedback as well as receiving feedback. Um, so kind of systematically doing that in your practice, I think is helpful. I'm sure there's other strategies. I know that supervision book, that we have in our class is an excellent book, by LeBlanc Sellers and I, it's just a great book, um, with resources for how to be an effective supervisor. so I think. Mine was trial and error, but now I probably look to the literature more to understand how to do that, how to set that up. It's

Jonathan: 26:04

a great point. I, I mean, I learned through trial and error as well. Right. but there are wonderful resources and you mentioned one of them. I mean, that book is seminal, right? It's just, it's so good, but it gives guidance, right? Into how to do that more systematically. And,

Pam: 26:18

um, yes, maybe you can give the proper shout out to the authors of that book because the third author, I can never say.

Jonathan: 26:25

That's right. Dr. Allawi, I believe, but I'll put a reference to that book in the show. I've got that on my shelf as well. Thank you. Yeah. You know, the other thing, Pam, I would add on top of that. And one thing I've learned over, my 25 professional years is to get a lot better at. Asking the right questions. And I think early in my career, and this is probably a function of insecurity, it would be like, no, I got to show that like I'm the smartest, right? I'm the man, the consultant who comes into a fortune 500 company at 21, 22 years old. And so I've got to show that I'm going to add value. But as I've grown older, I realized it's not about me, like demonstrating I I'm adding value. It's about me demonstrating. I understand what someone is going through, what they're experiencing, what their needs are. And If I can ask those right questions to guide them on a path, that's where it feels most valuable. I don't know how do you think about asking questions?

Pam: 27:15

I think you're so right. I do, and as you're saying that, I'm thinking that that's how I start to see behavior analysts, bud in their practice is when they start working in that clinical setting and working with families and other teachers and they start conducting their assessments and they start learning how to ask the right questions, you start to see that happen across.

Jonathan: 27:40

Yeah. And it feels like it creates more trust with family asking as opposed to trying to assert things like ask questions and that's, that, that feels super important. There's another book I'll, I'll drop it in the show notes, that I've loved over the years. It's called the coaching manager. And I, Hey, like full disclosure, I coach a bunch of my kids, sports teams from soccer, like skiing to basketball to baseball. I love being a coach. And it's cool. this book came out of Stanford, graduate school of business. but it talks about the discipline of as a coaching manager, quote unquote, how you make sure you're discerning and asking the right kinds of questions. And that's felt, powerful to me in my journey. Oh, I like

Pam: 28:19

that. I like that. I'll be interested to look at that book. Yeah. One of the things that I often say to my son and his Friends, I do some literacy work. Sometimes I volunteer to school sometimes, and I always start off telling the kids So I don't remember where I heard this long ago But we have two ears and one mouth so that we can listen twice as much as we speak. So I try to Remember that myself as I because I love to talk. I love to tell people what I've learned and help supervise me so sometimes I have to remember to step back and listen to

Jonathan: 28:52

Oh, I love, I love that. I also recently learned, did you know this? That, um, silent is an anagram for listen. Oh,

Pam: 29:05

that's wonderful.

Jonathan: 29:07

Two years, one mouth silent and listen anagram. It all goes.

Pam: 29:12

Beautiful.

Jonathan: 29:13

Yes. Pam, what's one thing every ABA business owner should start doing and one thing to stop doing?

Pam: 29:20

You know, I think collaboration is the big thing we can do as business owners. We're a fairly young profession in some respects, and I think in order for us to disseminate the science, we need to work together and share our message together and share resources and knowledge. And then, I guess conversely, maybe don't act as an island. We are a part of a much larger system, and this includes our behavior analytics system, and then other systems that could benefit from the science of behavior. So, um, Remember that we're part of a larger, a larger group.

Jonathan: 29:59

And I like that homage to dissemination, right? Like, we have an obligation, I feel like, to disseminate our science. Yes. So powerful. Well, Pam, where can people find you online?

Pam: 30:08

My website is clearcreekbehaviorservices.com So I'd love to hear feedback from anybody there. My email is listed on the website.

Jonathan: 30:18

Awesome. Right on. And, um, for anyone who's currently at Purdue or is thinking about going, look up Pam and, and her class on OBM. Um, gosh, I would love to take it someday, Pam.

Pam: 30:31

Yeah. I'd love to have you, Jonathan.

Jonathan: 30:33

Well, all right. You ready for the hot take questions? I sure am. Okay, here we go. You're on your deathbed. What's the one thing you want to be remembered for?

Pam: 30:41

You know, I heard a talk by Wayne Dyer once and he used the quote, don't die with your music still in you. So I think it's, you know, find your music and, and I think try. I think the biggest thing I encourage everybody to do is just try. Give it a try. Try something new. Try your hardest. You could apply it in a variety of different ways, but just try. And so hopefully I leave trying.

Jonathan: 31:07

I love that. Don't die with your music still in you. I've got goosebumps. That's powerful. Yeah. We have an expression in my family, try anything twice, but I could not agree more. What's your most important self care practice?

Pam: 31:23

You know, I think discipline and time management are probably a start of that because then it allows me to, when I have good time management, when I'm disciplined about my routine, then I can have time with my family, exercise, meditate, which ultimately is what kind of helps me in my self

Jonathan: 31:40

care. Do you have a favorite song and or music genre?

Pam: 31:46

You know, um, I would say I have a lot of favorite songs, but one that sort of resonates with me recently is Scare Away the Dark by Passenger. I love the messages, love without fear in your heart. If we all light up, we can scare away the dark. So that's kind of how I feel like I live my life a little bit. So,

Jonathan: 32:07

um, Light up, we can scare away the dark. These are just wisdom nugget bombs. What's one thing you'd tell your 18 year old self?

Pam: 32:19

Gosh, I think it would be to listen to yourself. Trust yourself. I think you know yourself and to hear those inner voices and follow through with those inner voices. You're going to be successful if you truly trust in yourself.

Jonathan: 32:36

All right. And if you could only wear one style of footwear, what would it be?

Pam: 32:41

Um, sandals. Flip flops, but like Chacos, I think that I can move around in

Jonathan: 32:49

super versatile. Um, as are you, Pam, this has been so much fun, my friend and neighbor. Thank you for coming on the pod and sharing your wisdom.

Pam: 32:58

Thank you so much for having me. I just love your podcast and you bring on such amazing guests. So thanks for letting me be a part of it.