Episode 82: Pass the Big ABA Exam with Dana Meller

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Transcript

Jonathan: 0:29

My guest today is Dana Meller. Dana is the co founder of Pass the Big ABA exam and CEO of Behavioral Intervention Specialists of Los Angeles, a BCBA and former Broadway performer. Dana is an industry thought leader, an advocate for underrepresented communities in ABA, a frequent speaker on topics ranging from entrepreneurship, professionalism, diversity, and inclusion, and a mentor to countless students who have succeeded in passing the Big ABA exam. She's a graduate of New York University, and she currently serves on the boards of Black Applied Behavior Analysis. and Latino Association for Behavior Analysis. Dana, welcome to the pod.

Dana Meller: 1:05

Hello, thank you for having me.

Jonathan: 1:08

I am thrilled to have you and I've got to say I recently saw I think it was a video of you on LinkedIn that you posted about May the 4th be with you and like full no shame disclosure. Like I'm a huge Star Wars fan. I don't know if you are but your post was you were dressed up as princess Leia and you were, um, uh, it was on response blocking and extinction. Can you reenact that for me or like, tell me more about this.

Dana Meller: 1:33

Well, I have to be honest with you. I'm not a Star Wars fan, and I know that, I lose nerd points with that, right? if I'm honest, the, team at PTB thought that would be hilarious, so I just got a picture from the internet. And, did the most famous one, obviously with the two side buns and she's holding what looks like a gun of sorts. Obviously I don't have a rifle or a gun at my house. So I just got the Thera Gun, you know, the massaging thing. and I just did my regular weekly YouTube video. I mean, the content was already planned. The buns were um, that was an added thing. Nothing to really react. I wish I could fulfill your Star Wars fantasies right now, but I'm not that girl.

Jonathan: 2:14

Oh my God, that would be a whole new level for this pod Dana reenacting Star Wars fantasies. I don't know that we need to go there, but we might have to record a separate session around that. Let's talk about, like, you're a co founder of Pass the Big ABA exam. And so, for listeners who don't know, I mean, go look this up. This is, you are a nationally recognized, Internationally recognized

Dana Meller: 2:35

that's the part I'm most proud of, yeah.

Jonathan: 2:37

it's extraordinary. And, you know, there's some phenomenal graphs on pre and post test results about, um, people who have, higher pass rates because they've gone through it. So what inspired you to start Pass the Big ABA exam?

Dana Meller: 2:52

You know, it's so crazy. It wasn't some lifelong dream or anything like that. It was quite random, actually. my fellow co founder Priya Ranian, Um, we were friends. before that, she was my professor for the ABA coursework, and after that, we worked together for an agency, and, she was the clinical director at the time. And, we were having lunch one day, and as many, frontline BCBAs will attest to, we carry our computers with us everywhere we go. So, we were having lunch between clients or something like that, and Just talking about the field and talking about friends of ours who we knew were struggling with the exam. And, Priya also, has a license in marriage and family therapy. So she had this idea of creating a prep course in ABA that mimicked something that she had gone through in, her prep for her licensure exams. And, and we were just sitting there and I just like took out my computer and I said, let's do it. We can do this. And do you remember that website Vistaprint or, um, that,

Jonathan: 3:47

I do where you can make your own business cards.

Dana Meller: 3:49

I made our own business cards. You can also, I don't know if you know this, make your own websites. Now if you know me, even for a second, you will know that me saying the words, I built a website, is hilarious and nobody would believe it. Um, but I did. I built a website and we were like, let's pick a date. At that time it was easy because, the exam was only offered four times a year. So that meant we could really sort of schedule something based on, well, there's an exam in May, so let's do, a six or five week workshop at the time, leading up to that date, we set the date and then proceeded to spend every free moment we had, creating content and coming up with a plan for what to do. And that first cohort, I think we have 25 people signed up and we had made it, uh, we did three locations. we used, the Bisla, uh, conference room for the West side of a Los Angeles. we rented a classroom at National University in Northern Los Angeles. And then another conference space of a agency in Southern California in Orange County. And that was it. We just put it online and I don't even. We didn't have, you know, SEO. We didn't know anything about, advertising or marketing. It, we just built this thing and all of a sudden the minute it launched, we had our first email very shortly after my home phone number was the number. I, would have to answer the phone, Hello, thanks for calling. I have to answer that way for anybody who called, because it's not like I could discriminate. Um, yeah, and that was it. And then we sort of built it week by week and that sort of set the foundation for what it is now. But definitely it has evolved, um, substantially. Thank God.

Jonathan: 5:25

I mean, this is very common in, in virtually or this type of organization that supports, applicant certificates to achieve, an exam results. this exists across healthcare, across any

Dana Meller: 5:36

Yeah.

Jonathan: 5:36

of discipline, right? And so can you just like, maybe any highlights on like metrics that you look at around improvement and pass rates from, soon to be BCBAs going through the Pass the Big Big Exam.

Dana Meller: 5:47

I wish I could give you valid information on the matter, but here's the thing. one year, we did like really spend a lot of time gathering pass rates specifically for our program. and, we were very happy with the outcome, but it was such an arduous process. And the reason it was so hard is that if you send a survey, you Guess who responds? People who passed. and so we have like a 100 percent pass rate when a very non random sample, right? So there was that piece. The other thing is that our program is really interactive. So unlike the BDS modules, um, you know, who's a friend, we are collaborators and... Steve Eversole is even a mentor to me in some ways, um, but you look at their program. What's really wonderful is that it's really measurable. You can really measure the behavior of the participant. Whereas ours is more like a university class. you show up, you, you have to do a lot of this stuff on your own. And then when you come to class, the more work you did on your own, the more helpful we're going to be in helping you dissect and learn how to apply what you've learned. So it's a really, difficult thing to measure. Our personal success rates until we discovered that we can actually see improvement from the pre to post test in our class and so obviously nobody comes in with well Hopefully nobody comes in with a zero but people's pre test scores are very low. I would say our pre test and post test are quite difficult, you know on purpose because we want to be conservative but we identified that the majority of our students, you know without a few outliers really do grow to a passable Post test score. so that for us is, something we can, reliably claim and own. Everything else I kind of, I'm afraid because I feel like the pickle jar theory, right? Like if you're the fourth person to try it, uh, it's going to open and you're going to take credit for it. Right. So I don't want to do that. it's not so ego driven for me. I feel like, you know, if people pass, if they keep coming back, which they do, that means there's good word of mouth. It means that wherever we are in their journey, whether it results in an immediate pass or just an improvement to their knowledge in general, which I think we can attest there's some lacking things there. Um, then I, I feel successful. I think when people Stop showing up. It means the word of mouth, you know, doesn't improve. I mean, to be honest, the company grew 500 percent in its first two years without any advertising. I mean, this is 12 years ago, almost. This is before social media. social media existed, but nobody was using it to promote their businesses in ABA. we were very late to, modern marketing, tactics. And it was all word of mouth and it continues to be word of mouth. And even now, that I have actual people who specialize in, analytics and marketing analytics, the most of our traffic is people going directly to the site. It's not getting there through other means. So that to me says, you know, word of mouth, but your question was not that, was it? It was about pass rates. Was it about our pass rates or about the exam in general?

Jonathan: 8:46

well, I think it's a great example of this extraordinary need we're seeing that you grew 500 percent in the first two years alone and, and like with no marketing and, um, but I was asking about the pre and post test pass rates. If I remember correctly, the graph, like the graphs are pretty phenomenal.

Dana Meller: 9:00

Yeah, we get people close to 80% on their post-test and, you know, the exam is a 76%, approximate, to pass. So, yeah, I mean, I think so, you know, I'm not looking to provide any shortcuts for anybody, and I would rather people that shouldn't pass didn't pass. not because I wish anybody ill and, or I don't wanna see their careers elevate. But, having come from, as you, as you shared, an acting background, I'm incredibly proud of having, um, You know, become a scientist, becoming an academic person, that that's something that I just never really envisioned for myself. I just sort of saw myself as, a girl who goes to auditions and sits on the subway learning lines and that I have this other life and this other person that didn't come easy to me. it's not like I just like came out of the womb doing science and being all smart, I had to develop that for myself. So. I want everybody to have that journey, and I really respect our science, and I respect academia, and knowing things, and earning things, and I don't want people to think of ABA as something less than the law, you know, passing the bar, or passing any level of medical boards. I want people to see us in that way, so I like the competitive edge of the lower pass rate for the exam. I don't think that will ever change, by the way. I mean, if you look across all disciplines, that's That's what it is, you know, that's how they keep it, fair, competitive.

Jonathan: 10:20

Well, Dana, I want to share. I got to confess. This has been a huge pebble in my shoe and I can't figure it out. So you need to help me get this right. But I'm going to share some data actually published by the BACB and this is I think from 2021 and these are passing rates of the BCBA exam by master's program, right? And it's actually force ranked in it. I'm going to put a link in the show notes, but let me just review some of this data. So of the top 15 master's programs, three of those programs, graduate students who pass. in the 30 percent range, they get 30 percent passing. Two of the top 15 by volume are in the 40 percent range as they pass at first time exam taking, uh, 40 percent of them pass. Four of them are in the 50 percent pass range. Three are in the 60%. Two are in the 70 percent and only one is in the 80 percent pass range and none are in the 90%. So if I were to assign letter grades, against these. More than half of these programs literally get a failing grade. One gets a B and the rest gets C's and D's. So I don't know. Here's the cynical side of me, Dana. This is where I need help. Here's my question. Like it appears at universities, these master's programs are happily taking students tuition while providing an extraordinarily inferior product. What the hell's going on?

Dana Meller: 11:44

I think about this a lot, obviously, because when that pass rate came out, um, and that, that was several years back that they started to actually publish that data. it definitely was shocking, but it didn't surprise me because I was meeting the students and I was seeing major gaps in people's knowledge. And in the other pieces, people were claiming to be getting straight A's. They were surprised that they weren't passing the test because the feedback they were receiving from the schools is that, you know, they're successful and they know their stuff. Um, uh, even if they're getting B's, even if they're getting C's, they should be passing cause the pass rate is 76%. So that's, you know, that's a C plus. but here's where my problem with this data is. Um. This is a group design. When you have group designs, you have outliers. So I don't think it's completely fair that, you know, the university gets blamed exclusively. Um, but... It's certainly somewhat like for me, it's not something that I would measure with these pass rates because again, We don't know how many outliers. It is so much about the student behavior, just like any grad school. Grad school is independent. they're not following you around. They're not forcing you to do things And if they're not inciting buy in from the students to want to learn more or engaging them in such a way that they become behavior analytic thinkers, then I guess, you know, that would be problematic for me. But I would expect this kind of variability and certainly with bigger numbers, there's Going to be more variability. So that part, makes sense to me. What I don't understand is something less measurable and just more, I'm sorry to be mentalistic, but it's more just the gut feeling that I have. between programs, what I sense more is that, what's not being, facilitated is that, the idea that behaviorism is, it's, it's science, obviously, but it's a way of life. It's, it's philosophical. It's who you are. You're either behaviorally minded or you're not. You either look at the world behavior analytically or you don't. And so if you're going to have a master's in behavior analysis, then. You should be that thing if that's what you're planning to continue on. So like, you know, when I was studying theater, I was an actress. I lived and breathed it. It was everything that I was. My friends who are in the legal profession, they look at the checks and balances of life, the fairness, the unfairness. So I think if you're graduating and you're not behavior analytic in the way that you look at the world, you're going to struggle. You did not get the point. so for me, it's why isn't that being, why isn't that being facilitated? Why isn't that sort of buy in happening? And why are people able to get, you know, certain grades if just philosophically this is not how they view the world? And that's just how I see it. if you don't see behavioral analysis as you walk out the door in everything that you do, you're not going to be able to generalize anything to anything. And that's just part of it. You're gonna get scenarios you've never heard of on the exam. You can take all the prep course, you're not going to be prepared for all the possibilities. Unless, unless you have an objective view of how the environment affects behavior in every possible way. And I hear that from my students all the time, I don't like experimental design, and ethics is so hard, and, you know, I thought ethics would be easy because I'm ethical. and what's so funny about that is those things are built into every other section. You, you don't get out easy. You can't be great at section, you know, A and D, but not at everything else. It all impacts everything. So it's a puzzle piece, and if it doesn't all come together, um, globally like that... I don't see success. So I don't know what the schools could do to change that, except make sure that when they accept students, they see behavior analysts, you know, the, or future behavior analysts. And I, I know that's kind of abstract to look at it this way. but to your other point. It is a business, and of course they're going to take people's money and, um, of course in these programs they're small, they don't have large enrollment compared to other departments in most schools, so they are going to take whoever they can get. With, I'm sure, the hope that they can transform anybody, um, and plus don't forget the high level of need. So, it's like we ignore the need and really discriminate who we accept and also who we hire. Or, or do we just try to make it work with who we have?

Jonathan: 15:58

Hmm. Yeah, I don't know. I think you pinpoint something really critical if a university is passing people with A's, B's, even to your point C's, um, then they are doing them a disservice if they can't ultimately then pass the exam because here's what totally resonates with me. I mean, think about like my, I call it my rickety MBA, right? I went to get a master's, but I didn't have to test for something. I didn't have to take a bar exam. Did I gain more knowledge? Yeah, I tend to think so. Did I meet some great people? Yes, absolutely. Did I get to travel the world? It was great. It was awesome. But that's right. That's my rickety MBA. Whereas a master's in ABA means you are able to achieve this credential that gives you like lifelong job security, the ability to help kids, adults, anyone else, all of these other things. It's like master's programs. I would think the bar should be Getting their students to pass, but instead of me, just like griping about this, let's think about like proactive solutions. So one thing that's interesting is like accreditation of university programs. I know ABAI, um, has one APBA recently announced that it was going to be developing a university program accreditation, which I am thrilled about. and I think the BACB has indicated that by 2032, every master's program is going to have to be accredited. Sort of like having an American psychologist and APA accredited program for, for psychology students and, and, and grad programs. Do you think accreditation is going to move the needle on, on these metrics?

Dana Meller: 17:18

Well, it certainly should. Um, I'll be honest with you. I've recently been investigating this a little bit because it's not something I really pay much attention to because I deal with what happens after they're in school. not that I shouldn't care about that, but, um, so I was thinking about, what are the pros and cons and, if you're following any, APBA, um, thing, then you probably would notice that, there's some controversy surrounding it. for me, I don't have a problem with it. I think it's great when one organization doesn't sort of have ownership over an entire, um, an entire process. So I think with APBA joining there, there's the potential for more, diverse processes, there's just, you don't know, whatever has been happening now is obviously not. Perfect and effective. You can't ignore the pass rates, and you certainly can't, um, keep doing as most people are doing. Blame the BACB for absolutely everything that goes wrong in our field. That's, that's just not fair. right down to people saying they make the test too hard. They don't want us to pass. They want to take our money. That's just a crazy, that's a crazy, you know, thing to say. So, I think it will move the needle. Yeah, I think so. I think having multiple processes and, you know, different processes to meet different types of needs, I think is important.

Jonathan: 18:31

Um,

Dana Meller: 18:32

You know, I don't, I don't know if there's ever anything wrong with people having choices.

Jonathan: 18:41

Absolutely. So well, Dana, how's, how will pass the big exam, as test prep, as an organization evolve, as we hopefully see pass rates improving over time?

Dana Meller: 18:51

You know, look, if universities improve, right, it will be interesting to see how that affects what the exam does, because if you look at most professional exams, they deliberately. keep pass rates at a certain place. Like, they're not trying to have everybody pass. So, that's why I was saying earlier that I'm really less concerned about the university pass rates as I'm more concerned about some of the people that I meet in the process of prep where I'm confused as to how they did as well as they did in graduate school. So, not everybody should pass just because they have a master's. Um, but not everybody should get their master's. If they are not ready to sit for an exam or not have the grades that they have. So I don't anticipate pass rates are going to change. And to be honest with you, I had a conversation years ago. I went up to the BACB table. Um, it was back when we were testing monthly and it was in May. It was an ABAI, actually. And I just said hello and introduced myself and, you know, admitted that I had I was part of past the big ABA exam. Back then, I didn't know if it was something that was welcomed into the profession and And I said, how's the exam going? You know I've got some students that are sitting right now and the person that I spoke to said same Just like you know Just like always and it had been after a really low pass rate the previous February and I responded with ah, man Oh, no. And he goes, why? That's what we want. and it wasn't because he was uncaring or unfeeling, but because it seemed to be like a standard for professional exams. Everybody can't pass.

Jonathan: 20:24

Oh, no, I totally get that. Let's just pinpoint this for listeners. What I think I'll play it back for you and gut check me on this, but let's say everyone got more proficient at taking the exam. It just means the bar will move up to still the same percentage of people will pass, right? 76 percent will always pass, right? It's just, it's a, it's a grade. Uh, what do you call it? Scaling grades, a

Dana Meller: 20:45

Yeah, the scaled scores will

Jonathan: 20:47

I get that. My question, again, just comes back to why would a university keep passing, giving A's to a student, right? Semester to semester, quarter to quarter, um, and telling them you're doing great, but then when they get to the ultimate metric, which is passing the exam. They're like these programs that where 30 percent of first time exam takers graduate successfully from program, but then don't pass the exam. That's the one that really, I just haven't been able to get my head around.

Dana Meller: 21:18

You know, I think that's unfortunate, but I think in humanity, there are, a few different types of people and there are people that, um, no matter what's going on, have a stake in the game and that could be your Starbucks barista wanting you to have the best cup of coffee or the one that just can't wait to clock out. And so, you and I both have been through a lot of schooling, so we've had those professors that, that. The word care doesn't do enough justice. it's that they had an investment. It was as if it was as important to them as to you. They were naturally or intrinsically motivated and reinforced by the success of their students. And that's true for all of us in every business that we're in. If your intrinsic motivation is the success of your consumer or whatever, then you are going to provide better quality. You are going to better education better all of it. So, there's probably a combination of, you know, University programs, professors, whoever, is in charge that don't have that sort of intrinsic motivation. It's a job for them. They've got, you know, other things that they're doing that are more important. And it's just normal human behavior. And then there are, of course, those people that are intrinsically motivated by the success of other people. And then there's also those people having to be intrinsically motivated by their own success. And I think when those stars align, you have these... Uh, leadership, BCBAs who are impressive and who are at conferences and who we all want to meet and you know, we all know who they are and that's when the stars align and that's true for doctors and there's bad doctors too, right? There's doctors who've had to take their boards a bazillion times. Even my, you know, ex boyfriend, John F. Kennedy Jr. did not pass. He's not really my ex boyfriend, but

Jonathan: 22:52

Well,

Dana Meller: 22:53

he's my biggest crush ever. I'm, I'm sad he's gone. Um, but, um, no, but he took the bar like a, an unreasonable amount of times, if I remember that correctly. So I think everything has to be just right. You've got to meet the right people and you've got to be the right person for, you know, that certificate to land. But also for you to now take that and generalize it to being effective at whether or not you're a professor, a clinician, a prep course teacher, you know, whatever it is. And that's probably true for what you do. It's true for the administrators at my company. It's true for every secretary, every waiter, you know.

Jonathan: 23:30

well said Dana. Let me throw a crazy idea out there. We haven't talked about this ahead of time, just to be clear listeners, like, and you're going to re and you have to react to it. What if like, I love now that there is publicly available data around these pass rates and certain institutions that tend to have higher pass rates on the exam than others. What if. As a field, ABA providers made the choice. Hey, if we provide any tuition reimbursement or we have a field work, like, you know, supervision residency type program, we will only reimburse you if you go to one of the. Universities that has over a 70, 80, 90 percent whatever pass rate. Would that change things? What do you think?

Dana Meller: 24:11

Well, guess what? No, because they're not going to pay for the most expensive school, for example. I mean, some of these higher enrollment schools are the ones that are online or hybrid or affordable. or they don't take up a lot of your time. Most people are not going into their masters when they're 23 years old. Most people are doing it as a, uh, not, I don't want to say career transition, but they might not have necessarily been on that path, right, to end up being. You know, being a management level, uh, behaviorist. So I don't see any company being like choose the highest pass rate at the risk of it being the most expensive school.

Jonathan: 24:47

Yeah, I gotcha.

Dana Meller: 24:49

Um, but here's the other piece. Does school, even the best school translate to. Being awesome on the front line that for me as a person who runs an ABA company, that's what I would want to know more than pass rates. Like, is this person going to actually be good at their job? Um, and of course the pass rate is also important because if they don't have those letters, I can't bill. And there's all those other things, but I think we spend way more money training people who are already certified or registered, right, than anything else.

Jonathan: 25:23

You know, that's such, that's such a beautiful point. I mean, yes, it's, you have to get a certification in order to be able to be hired and get reimbursed by Medicaid and commercial insurance. But more importantly, that is one of many different skills and behavioral repertoires that have to be developed to be as BCBA. And we can't like just lose the forest right for the trees on this. Um, so, all right, Dana, your homework is going to be to find out what that other metric would be that would say that someone's well prepared.

Dana Meller: 25:53

mean, there's just, there's so much, there's so many components and, um, I don't remember who I was talking to about this, but it's almost like there should be different tiers, right? Like different interests, because I would bet there's a lot of people who don't do well in school, who don't pass the exam immediately. I mean, I've heard people up to six. 16 times, I think was the highest number I'd ever heard. I know, um, but what if they're like really amazing clinicians? the chances are slim that that's true, but what if they are or what if somebody was failing to pass? it's almost like there's a, there's a discrepancy between the exam and what some people do day to day. and I say that nervously because I, I do think the exam is important and I do think that you need to have an academic foundation, even if you throw it away as soon as you would sort of like, you know. Is this an American hit the slopes? I don't ski. I don't even know if that's a thing, but you know what I mean? Like if you do anything, you're not thinking about the technique, right? You're just doing the thing, but the technique certainly keeps you solid, keeps you less likely to be injured, right? Things like that. So like as a singer, I have had a lot of vocal training. I'm not thinking about the theory behind producing sound. When I'm up there, you know, singing a song. so I do think it's important, but I don't know, tiers there's so many problems with the whole system that are not anybody's fault. I mean, it's like intentions versus, the impact, somebody else said that to me recently, which I just loved. I don't know. I don't think this is an easy solve. We could, we can do this weekly and see if we come up with,

Jonathan: 27:28

You're right. And you know what? Here's the reality is that our field is still in the first couple few innings of this ball game of triumph of maturing. Right? And so, I think this comes to, a question I wanted to ask you that I'm really excited to hear that the Pass the Big ABA exam does, but you have a provider partnership program. Is that right? Like, I'd love to hear more about that. And for listeners who are like, Ooh, how do I figure out, you know, how do I get my, you know, residency folks involved, what can you do there?

Dana Meller: 27:55

I really love it. I am, I'm most excited about it. So, the partnership, there's no terms, nobody has to pay for a partnership, it's an informal handshake with a few formal processes, but basically it started because, as a clinician, as a leader at an ABA agency, um, my staff passing is something that's important for me and I liked the idea that somebody could potentially take that on for me. So, yes, we're your partner. Give this to your staff and we'll take care of the rest. And basically what we promise and, um, my team calls it a turnkey process, which I never heard that used outside of real estate. but basically the idea is that if you partner with us, we'll obviously provide discounts for your team. Um, you know, there's no like you have to give us a minimum number of students. It's nothing like that. It's just let us take that on because we know that the clinical leadership in most agencies has way bigger fish to fry day to day than making sure their staff get to the right place for the right exam prep. And so a lot of, the organizations that we've partnered with range from really, really large companies that, you know, sort of spread the word across all their different regions to just smaller mom pop local agencies who have, maybe one candidate every couple of years. and they send them to us and we, by virtue of the partnership, we hold their hand a little bit through that process. Um, for the agencies that pay for their staff, we reward them, um, obviously because we think that's amazing and not everybody can do that. But we share the metrics if they're interested to see if their staff are participating, showing up. We also, I will spend extra time if it's needed, although I'll be honest, I'll do that for anybody. I mean, if you were like Dana, there's this person I know and they're having a hard time passing. Can you hop on a call? A hundred percent. Is it something I'm really passionate about? And I just like talking about it. And I like to be served a problem. Um, like somebody telling me, I can't pass in sort of operationalizing what that is and figuring out for them. when I can, what it's going to take. And it's very rarely as my suggestion, go buy prep materials, because that's really not the answer as much as I want to say that, you know, taking our workshop is helpful, it is, and there's accountability and there's community, and there's a lot of elements that are helpful at the end of the day, people do pass without that stuff. Um, and you know, I personally. Probably couldn't because I didn't have the discipline and so I built a program that I thought I would need. but at the end of the day, it still doesn't change that the person has to do the work and I love to figure out how they need to sort of shift their study methods for themselves because it's individualized. I don't think there's one answer for everybody. Um, But the partnership, so it's, we're starting to partner with universities, which I think is also a, um, response to the pass rate published, being published. I think they're motivated now, just even from a business standpoint. Um, but agencies, a couple of schools that, um, that have, you know, clinical teams, definitely partner with organizations like LABA and BABA and WEBA, um, and make sure that student members, um, I like to promote. Not to make this another long story. I'm so sorry. but, you know what I love? I love when we're going to agencies or universities. Promote going to conferences and promote that community piece because I think if you don't have that and you're just on your own little island doing ABA day to day, you really miss out on some of the, the fun, the more social stuff that I think will offset burnout because if you experience community twice a year at a conference or even once a year. It does give you an extra boost. And just to hear that there's people out there going through what you're going through and just all that kind of stuff. So one of the reasons we started to reach out to, um, conferences was that we really wanted to facilitate helping them grow their student membership because it aligned with our value of helping students organically contact ABA. content in a community setting. our first organization that we partnered with was Weba. because again, women in behavior analysis, we're a women owned business. And then after June, 2020, I really. Identified being part of the systemic problem by not seeing my own privilege in my life and thinking, well, I'm not these things. They're not talking about me after the whole, George Floyd, thing. And I was really bummed that we were still. Having that conversation and that nothing had changed and, you know, I'm not a young lady, so I've been around for several, moments in history like that. And so, um, that's when I reached out to, BABA and also LABA at that time, which is Black Applied Behavior Analysts or Latino Applied Behavior Analysis. and I just wanted to say, how can we... We can help on the education end. what can we do to make your organization, reach students and promote education to some underrepresented communities? and then we started to partner with those organizations. So I'm starting to do more, uh, prep, uh, events at conferences, which that's pretty new. Calaba. I just did one. Um, and that was amazing. It was a three hour workshop and that there were as many students that showed up as they did with very little advertising, We'll do better next year if they want me back. Um, I do one annually at the Baba conference. Um, and now I'm actually submitting it to other conferences. I just didn't think anybody wanted it until we had. I think we had probably one of the highest attendance for any symposium at the BABA conference. And BABA, I believe, had like 40 percent student attendance of their entire attendance. Which, that was really inspiring to me because that's what it's about.

Jonathan: 33:13

that's beautiful. I mean, I love, I love how you're thinking about this from an equity perspective, right? That feels super important and that you proactively reached out. I am such a huge fan of. I'm not going to say test prep, but like with most things we do in life, if we want to perfect our craft, we have to engage in it and practice it intentionally. Right. I don't care what your craft is. In fact, going back, I'm showing my age, but I remember for the SATs Dana, I had literally 25 VHS tapes of like words. And I think there was some, there's math stuff in there too. And I was watching these, these test tapes and it was by myself, but it was awesome. But this idea of Practice with intention and recognize that it doesn't matter what station you are at life. You can always get better at something that feels really important, especially when you wrap it around a community. Um, I think missing out on community is missing out on being able to fully engage in whatever your craft is that feels super important.

Dana Meller: 34:10

Yeah. And then also people are, I mean, not the SAT, you're still in high school, so it's a little less, but these are professionals and their families. And, and, you know, like I said, we're not putting it in their brain. We're making it easier to access. We're organizing it. And it's like having a pocket BCB explained to you. So you have to do a little less searching. But you still have to understand it. You still have to memorize it and you still have to build those application skills. It's just a little less scary when it's being somewhat spoon fed, you know? and I think that's fair. taking a prep course does not make you less than. Passing that test is, everyone's on an even playing field. So I agree with you and I did all the SAT prep. I did it for the GRE, um, you know, and I liked it. It kept me on course. I knew I had a goal. I'm trying to get a certain score on these tests and you know, why not? it's not something everybody needs, but it's nothing wrong with needing it.

Jonathan: 35:01

Yes, absolutely. Malcolm Gladwell has that. what book does he write where it's like 10, 000 hours is what leads to then like, like mastery of your craft that he cited the Beatles, like playing in, in Hamburg and in Germany for like for a year. And that's where they cut their teeth and got their 10, 000 hours into feedback from the crowd. I don't know. I, I don't know if that's evidence

Dana Meller: 35:21

Only 10, 000 hours?

Jonathan: 35:24

Only 10, 000 hours. well, look, I mean, I'm exhausted just like talking through all the work you've done to pass a big ABA exam. But, but Dana, hold on a second. You're also the CEO and founder of Behavioral Intervention Specialists of Los Angeles. So, whoo!

Dana Meller: 35:39

the founder. Not the founder, um, but CEO. Yeah,

Jonathan: 35:43

But CEO, okay, I got you, but so you're wearing a couple different hats, right? And I love, by the way, that you were like still engaged, right? In, in the practice of behavior analysis. So, so tell me about your journey as a services provider and CEO, what's been the most rewarding part of that journey? And also, what do you know now that you wish you knew when you started it? Or when, uh, when you started years ago?

Dana Meller: 36:04

I don't know as far as being a CEO, what I enjoy is obviously collaborating, um, with other clinicians and seeing those outcomes. I would, I'd have to kind of redefine c e o in my role here'cause it's not like I walk around looking at how much money we're making. I'm really more of a clinically based c e o and I'm responsible for the organizational training and just kind of making sure everything runs smoothly. I would say in the last four years, I've kind of stepped back from any frontline clinical stuff, from even going to a home. Um, but I. I enjoy getting people motivated and excited. And like we talked about at the beginning of this chat, helping them build their own sort of intrinsic motivation, like having them buy into the outcomes for the clients and keeping that, maintaining that, because you do get tired. It's like we were talking about when we first started in the field, you come home every day crying because you see sad things. And then eventually you don't even realize it anymore. It just becomes like nothing. You become immune to some of the difficulties. And what I would love to help students and staff maintain is how it felt that first day when you thought, my God, this is so important before we became sort of desensitized to how people's, it's not just another kid that you've, it's not your 10, 000th kid or parent or whatever, that this is that parent's first encounter with this. This is this kid's. lifelong struggle and it has nothing to do with how many struggles I have already witnessed. Um, and you know, checking my privilege. not even just, ethnic racial privilege, but privilege of not having to deal with some of the difficulties that the families deal with. Um, so just, you know, reminding myself, you know, why, why we do what we do and. Keeping that fresh despite being in the business for 20 years. As far as what I wish I'd known, not so much with the clinical stuff because I think I knew from day one that was going to be hard and you know, that was just hard, period. With PTB, I'm glad I knew nothing because I never would have done any of it. Ignorance is bliss. if I knew half of the difficulties we would have encountered or roadblocks... I would have been terrified. And so I think being ignorant gives you bravery. It's not always the best way to go, but if people say, what should I do? I want to start a business. And they're doing a lot of research and just like really planning and taking years. I, I almost want to say to them. Just start it. Just do it. Who cares? But that's not, um, responsible. So I try not to say that. We just got lucky that there weren't any fires, but there were cease and desist letters. There, there was stuff, you know, we learned the hard way with impact rather than good intentions, you know? Uh, yeah.

Jonathan: 38:36

Being ignorant gives you bravery. That is so, so freaking true. And any entrepreneur who would tell you, Oh yeah, it's all roses and everything's good. Run away from that person because they haven't truly experienced entrepreneurship and the highs and the lows, right? That come with that.

Dana Meller: 38:50

Entrepreneurship is, you know, it sounds good and it's sexy right now because it's like this new thing. There's like actually degrees in it, but I think it's something you're born with. I mean, since I was a kid, I came from the former Soviet union. My parents brought back some of those like wooden matryoshka dolls and little painted eggs. And if I wanted a Barbie without even asking, I would sit outside my apartment building and sell things to, you know, people walking by. And you know, I, I was cute. So people bought stuff from me and I'd be like, mom, I got my 9. I'd like you to take. It wasn't Target, but wherever it was, they sold Barbies at the time. Uh, you know, so I, I think I was always spirited that way, but, it's not an easy life. It's exciting, but it's, and you know, it's, it's hard. your to do list never ends and you don't clock out. So when I'm laying in bed at night, I'm thinking about my responsibility to a lot of people, um, that have jobs because of me, you know, benefits because of me, insurance because of me, whatever it is they have because of me. Um, but then that's also what sort of drives me, like what can I do to do better? And it, it's creative.

Jonathan: 39:54

It's so, it's so, so true. I think there's, as an entrepreneur, there's this level of like, you know, um, acceptability of. Risk, because there's a lot of risk that comes with it. And there has to be this component of how good are you at bouncing back from all the mistakes that we know as entrepreneurs, we're going to make learning from those and just not repeating mistakes. That feels important.

Dana Meller: 40:15

You can't be too practical. You can't be too organized or too practical. You just kind of dive, you know, which is weird. I'm normally, I'm afraid of flying. I'm afraid of like everything, but for some reason I'll just up and start a business,

Jonathan: 40:30

Oh, I love it. Well, Dana, what's one thing every ABA business owner should start doing and one thing to stop doing.

Dana Meller: 40:37

Incentives and motivation. I mean, that's the thing they should, if they're not doing it, uh, they should do it. And if they. are doing it, they should do more of it. looking at training in a different way. Um, this is actually new for me. After this many years right now, I'm restructuring the training program for the company for BITSLA and, um, I'm really realizing like we've been doing it all wrong because it's not something people can sustain. my theme is recurring buy in, getting people's buy in to the science. Not, not treating it like clock in, clock out. And I would say the same thing to the manager at Starbucks. I would say, get your people excited about me having the best cup of coffee I ever had. And if you can get that, that intrinsic motivation piece, it changes everything. And most people don't have it. Most people work because they have to. And they start off saying, I want to help kids, and I want to study psychology, and that's how most people end up here. But then it's hard, and you're getting bitten, and yesterday one of my... Supervisors had toilet water thrown at her and those kinds of things are happening on the daily. You're getting hurt. You're getting abused. You're not getting a lot of thank yous. and if you haven't bought in, those are deal breakers as far as I'm concerned. Like, you know, I don't just let people throw toilet water on me or my staff, but I've bought in. And so that would be the thing to start doing. Stop doing not looking at staff behavior functionally. And we all do it. I do this at my own home, when my partner, when he doesn't put things away, I just think, Oh, he's doing bad things. But, but what's functionally going on is his back hurt that day. And so it was harder for him to like empty the dishwasher. And I think looking at the functional reason for behavior is, um, something nobody does. it's human to just somebody does something you don't like they're bad versus looking at, it, I guess, compassionately, which is also a big buzzword right now, an important word. But yeah, looking at staff behavior, and having contingencies, for good behavior and supportive ones for the behaviors that you don't want to see versus, you know, writing people up. What does that even do? Um, but also, ABA agencies are in a very bad predicament right now, which is staffing is so hard and so few people in any industry want to work outside the home. Same. I get it. that, there aren't, consequences for, inappropriate behaviors or not professional behaviors or however you want to define it. Um, because we don't want to lose the person. We need them to keep coming to work. And even though they're 30 minutes late every single day, but they're so good when they're with the kid, those kinds of things. And then, and more importantly, the positive consequences, the

Jonathan: 43:12

Hmm,

Dana Meller: 43:13

It has to be something because people aren't getting paid that much. They, these insurance rates make it hard and you can go work at Starbucks, get better benefits, have less pressure, not get wounded, um, or drive an Uber or so many other things. So motivation, incentives, facilitating buy in and, um, well, that's it.

Jonathan: 43:34

I love that I stopped not looking at sta behavior functionally, I'm a economics undergrad and behavioral economics, that's called the, like the fundamental attribution error say, oh, they're lazy, but like, look, we know it. What is lazy, right? No, we are a product of our environment And so whether it's a hurt back, whatever, it's, it's just so well said. Dana um, Tell me where people can find you online.

Dana Meller: 43:56

Well, obviously, um, they can find me through past the big ABA exam, but. I am also my own person, and so you can find me on Instagram, just my name Dana Meller. Um, you can find me on LinkedIn, Dana Meller, and on Facebook, Dana Meller. Um, and I, I want followers. I want to be one of those cool people with thousands of followers. I don't know what for, it's not like I'm, uh, I thought my presence is so exciting, I'm working on it, but, um, but I want them, follow me.

Jonathan: 44:24

That's awesome. I'm going to drop all these in the show notes and listeners. So you're aware Dana first name is spelled DANA look her up, um, and follow her. I love that you're setting goals, um, some shaping goals towards your number of followers.

Dana Meller: 44:38

Yep.

Jonathan: 44:39

Um, well, uh, are you ready for the hot take questions? Dana

Dana Meller: 44:42

I guess so.

Jonathan: 44:45

here we go. You're on your deathbed. What's the one thing you want to be remembered for?

Dana Meller: 44:49

Uh, being a good friend.

Jonathan: 44:52

What's your most important self care practice?

Dana Meller: 44:55

I don't do it enough, but, um, reading fiction. Dumb fiction. Like, superficial, you know, girl meets boy.

Jonathan: 45:06

I love it. I love fiction as well. Um, all right. I normally ask favorite song and or music genre, but given your background as a singer, do you have like those singers that you just absolutely idolize?

Dana Meller: 45:19

I do they're probably not people that anyone knows. Like, if you're not a musical theater person, but the genre I love the most is singer, songwriters and, and, and female ones. Um, but I also love, I'm the worst with music, but like, people like James Morrison, um, I like Sarah Bares. I like Adele. I like that kind of. but in musical theater, my favorite voices, um, there's a performer called Jesse Mueller who I'm obsessed with, a Broadway star. Um, Shoshana Bean, that's another Broadway star. Uh, I mean, there's so many. It's not interesting. And I don't have a favorite song. I don't. It's the strangest thing, but I, I literally do not. I just, uh, I need more music in my life, believe it or not. Cause I sort of compartmentalized, you know, and when I'm doing music, I'm doing music when I'm doing behavior analysis, I've got to amalgamate the two. Cause I think there's something there.

Jonathan: 46:08

Oh, I like that. I like that challenge to yourself. Yes. Go get after that.

Dana Meller: 46:12

I've got so many goals. Thanks to you.

Jonathan: 46:15

But Dana, what's one thing you'd tell your 18 year old self?

Dana Meller: 46:19

I would tell myself not to settle for less. Um, because I would say in my life, I have settled for less and for since being 18, um, because I didn't necessarily think that I could. Get or do better from either from people, from myself, um, in general. Now I don't, because I believe that more is possible in any, in any capacity.

Jonathan: 46:43

All right. And you can only wear one style of footwear. What would it be?

Dana Meller: 46:47

Well, I was going to say just sneakers, but that wouldn't be completely honest. I'm going to have to own up to some of my bougie ness. Uh, designer sneakers. I mean, I have a few brands that I like, but I'm not going to do that because it's too embarrassing. It's too superficial. And I've already owned up to too many superficial things like wanting followers. I want to be an influencer.

Jonathan: 47:08

I love it. An ABA influencer, sneaker influencer, I don't know, singer songwriter, influencer, like group them all in together.

Dana Meller: 47:14

just influencing, just walking around town influencing.

Jonathan: 47:19

Well, Dana, thank you so much for coming on the pod. It was so much fun to talk to you.

Dana Meller: 47:24

Thank you. You too.