The Speech Source

S2E10: Innovation and Authenticity with SLP Barbara Fernandes

• Mary and Kim

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This episode will have you captivated, motivated and in awe!  Kim and Mary feature Barbara Fernandes, an SLP, author, CEO of Smarty Ears and Smarty Symbols, advocate, and educator.  To say she has taken her business and created something so unique and on her own terms is an understatement.  She is a testament that staying true to who you are and on the path that you believe in will create a life full of joy and meaning.  

Barbara's educational journey began in Brazil, where she pursued speech-language pathology. She moved to the US as part of an exchange program at Temple University, focusing on Augmentative and Alternative Communication (AAC), and completed her education in Philadelphia. During this time she mastered learning Spanish and English simultaneously as she was finishing her graduate studies.  She then relocated to Texas for a master's program emphasizing bilingual education, setting the stage for her later entrepreneurial ventures.

Barbara started her professional career in Texas public schools, catering mainly to Spanish-speaking students. This job was particularly challenging as she had not experienced the American school system as a child in Brazil. Her transition into entrepreneurship was sparked by a practical need to improve her teaching tools, leading to the development of her first app. This initiative grew into Smarty Ears, a company that now offers over 70 educational products. She managed to cover her initial app development through personal savings and gradually expanded her business without a formal marketing team, relying on direct educational efforts and word of mouth.

Initially interested in focusing on voice therapy in Brazil and working with famous singers, Barbara's career path took a significant turn when she moved to the US and landed in the world of AAC. Throughout the episode, she shares insights into the organic growth of her business, from solving immediate practical needs with basic apps to developing a comprehensive web platform integrating all her apps. She also discusses the process of creating an app, highlighting the increasing complexity and the different elements involved as her business expands.

Barbara's entrepreneurial philosophy emphasizes authenticity and aligning business practices with personal values. She advocates for the use of high-quality, modern visual aids in special education, which led her to start her second company, Smarty Symbols, to provide updated visual resources for SLPs. Her story highlights the importance of adapting and innovating in response to market needs and personal experiences, including her perspective on why the special education industry seems to be lagging behind in technology.

She also shares her views on how SLPs should be using AI, stressing the importance of understanding its capabilities and limitations to enhance their practices effectively. Barbara's approach to business and decision-making often involves taking steps without fully knowing the process, a reflection of her dynamic and intuitive management style. This has also influenced how she organizes her teams, deciding when to bring people on based on the evolving needs of her projects.

Barbara believes strongly in the value of self-awareness and authenticity, encouraging others to learn who t

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Barbara:

I think the combination of doing educational effort that was very natural to me. Then my products existed and it was solving a real need. I never had a marketing person consistently. I would build my own website, maintain it myself and just word of mouth people are using and then they liked the product. And then, once you fall into the Smarty, the smart ears apps, they got familiar with how it worked. And then, 70 products later, they would rather come back for another one of our 70 than pick a separate one that they don't know about. Or is this good?

Mary:

Welcome to the Speech Source Podcast. My name is Mary Brezik.

Kim :

And I'm Kim Dillon. We are two pediatric speech-language pathologists with a combined 25 years of experience.

Mary:

We are your source for speech, language feeding, play and much more in between. Language feeding, play and much more in between. This season, on the Speed Source Podcast, we are going to be interviewing 12 incredible SLP entrepreneurs who have all built their own businesses. Some of these women are app designers, content and digital course creators. Some are podcast hosts, speakers, coaches, business owners so much more. These women are going to give us all the inside scoop on how it's done as a speech pathologist, going off and building your own business. So join us each week as we hear their journey and how they built their SLP business.

Kim :

On today's episode we have Barbara Fernandes. She is an SLP best-selling author, CEO and founder of Smarty Ears and Smarty Symbols, and she's also an advocate and educator, and we are so excited to have her on today to talk about her journey as an entrepreneur and how she got started. So welcome, Barbara. Thank you so much for being here. Thanks for inviting me. This is fun. So if you'll just tell us a little bit about you, how you became a speech therapist and just into this, whole world as an entrepreneur.

Barbara:

I am originally from Brazil, so I actually grew up there until I was 21. And that's where I started my journey. I went to university there for my undergraduate and I was 17 years old. Anything that I say now to give any kind of emotional, inspiring reason to become an SLP is just fake. Because I was 17 years old, I went into. No, I don't like blood or medical things. I'm not good with visual, spatial things. I want to be within healthcare. I do not want to be a PT let's see what speech therapy is about. So that's how I got started and luckily I found a way to continue being myself and doing the things I like within this field.

Mary:

So then, after 21, where did you get your master's degree? And then, when you came over to the States, where did you land?

Barbara:

In Brazil we have publicly funded universities and that's. We also have private ones, but we are really proud of our publicly funded universities as the top ones. Exchange student program to bring four students from Brazil, with all expenses paid, to do an. It's not an internship, but it was a program right, and I was one of these four students that they basically paid for everything, housing, and I ended up at Temple University in Philadelphia and the focus was AAC. The concept of this project was to bring some students to learn how the US is doing AAC and bring it back to Brazil after the six months and then have American students go and learn. How are you guys managing this with nothing? Because there's a lot to be learned when we really have nothing. You have to be creative with solutions just to help people communicate. We don't have access to a printer when you have software that is not in your language and you don't speak that language. You still need to figure this out. So I think, for the students who did end up going to Brazil, they also learned a lot, so I ended up coming. Students who did end up going to Brazil they also learned a lot, so I ended up coming here. Obviously, I didn't go back for the six months I went back but then ended up returning after I finished a project and I ended up finishing my undergraduate in Philadelphia at Temple University Long crazy story with transferring credits.

Barbara:

In Brazil, you actually are both an SLP and an audiologist. I was on my last semester, so I have a whole background in audiology, speech pathology. I was already in internship doing audiology testing, all those fancy machines back from 2004. And I had to end up choosing being an SLP. That was the route I decided to do. Then ended up in Texas because I got a scholarship for my master's and no student debt there on that aspect of tuition and an emphasis in bilingual, since I ended up learning Spanish, even though a lot of people think, oh, you're Brazilian, you speak Spanish, brazilians speak Portuguese. So I ended up learning Spanish in the process of learning English, because I didn't know English either at the time and then got my master's, learned Spanish and that's in that period of four years. I finished my undergraduate, learned English, spanish and got the master's. Wow.

Mary:

Wow. And this is not when you're five. This is when you are a young adult, you're learning English.

Barbara:

Yes, I was 21.

Mary:

Yes, that must give you so much compassion for the children that you work with, who are learning the crazy nuances of English. It is nothing like Spanish and Portuguese.

Barbara:

Not only that, actually it adds a lot of perspective for the kids that we are supporting too. A lot of people see individuals who come and they don't speak the language that is spoken by the majority as less than, and you start even having things attached to cognition, right, smart, because you talk like this. And so when you think of our own students right, how much they get judged when people blending, how well they communicate to, how well they can perform on so many different tasks of us as we have as human beings, so it does open up that perspective that I did not have before 21.

Kim :

I think back about that grad school experience and everything you're trying to learn and process for this field in general, and then, on top of that, you're learning two languages, changing your complete environment. That's a lot happening at one time.

Barbara:

Yeah, but I think the cool thing here is that, because the program in Brazil is actually a combined master's and undergrad, I felt that I was coming in with a lot of our content, information, and I was learning the language and the nuances of, for example, specifics on assessment of bilingual students, for example, right, and even though I had a training, we don't have a lot of bilingual kids in Brazil, so it's not something that I would even think about that. It's needed because the culture and the population is so different and unique. Or phonetics yes, I had taken phonetics and Portuguese, so you know already the concept. You're just translating some of this knowledge as you're picking out the language.

Mary:

So it helped. That probably was a good match for AAC. When you're really thinking more conceptually versus specific language, the grammar, yeah, yeah, I really want to get to all the amazing things you've created. But just so we understand your story, where was your first job working with students? Were you ever in the schools or hospitals, or what kind of settings have you been in?

Barbara:

Yeah, so I actually worked here in Texas at public school and the interesting thing of that first job is that you throw in into a system that you didn't go through. So this is actually much harder, I feel. For me, even learning the nuances of what first, second grade and all of that is involved and how teachers move around the culture of the workplace as an SLP, it was harder than actual roles of an SLP, which is something we don't think often when people are coming from different cultures. Didn't grow up. He didn't go to school here. Yes, I worked in pre-k servancy, primarily 100 percent spanish-speaking students in the schools, and then I started my business when I was working in the schools and in the transition into the business full-time. I did home health evaluations so I was doing a lot of bilingual vows for a couple companies at the time when I was transitioning to the full-time. I did home health evaluations, so I was doing a lot of by the new vows for a couple of companies at the time when I was transitioning to the full-time in the business.

Kim :

So you had the background in AAC from the program that you were in, and is that something that you felt developed naturally a passion for that or was it something you just felt knowledgeable about and there was something missing here when you started working with kids that you wanted to implement? Or how did you stick to that one area?

Barbara:

Actually it is a bunch of 360s In Brazil. I wanted to be a voice therapist. All my books, all the extra things that you don't have, and it was on voice. I was like fan of this SLP in Brazil that had tons of voice books. I had a book signed by her. This was what I was going to be as an SLP. In Brazil we have Carnival, have all these singers. I was going to be the SLP working on top of one I don't know if you've seen some of these trucks. I was going to work with those people, those singers, as an SLP on voice therapy. That was going to be my job.

Barbara:

So from that to AAC is like massive transition. Right, because from there, when I came here and started learning Spanish, not only I wasn't doing technology, aac or voice, I was actually working with bilingual students, which is very different from all the other two options. I was doing almost no AAC. I was doing nothing related to voice. It's something I wouldn't even work and do in the schools to begin with. So the transition into doing a lot of technology I'm doing today it is actually on the other end of technology, where technology meets our field as opposed to where AAC is, I end up going to AAC, but it's later on in this path. That's how it brings me in.

Mary:

Okay, that's interesting. Tell us what was the start of your business. I'm picturing you in that preschool classroom and I can tell you have so much knowledge and experience that is really fresh and a total different perspective. Like you said, coming into a system that gosh the public school systems, you probably saw lots of opportunities that could be improved. So what did you do with that and how did that become a business, mary?

Barbara:

I'm loving your questions because you really you have so much active listening, but not only active listening, but you listen and you go back to the why on a lot of the things, and I've loved your angle. It is nice to be able to look back because you don't see this at the moment and when people are starting and thinking about business, they think that they already see the future. I don't know what other powers people have. I know I didn't, and I think our personalities, on how we are, structures a human structure human beings being diverse allows us to function and see these problems in different ways, Not only how we're structured, our neurodiversity, but our experiences. And for me, I am somebody who tends to take steps before I know where I'm going. I know it's really hard for planners I don't know if I'm going to trip. If I even know how to walk, I'll try anyways, and I've been doing this since 2009. There was no iPad in 2009.

Barbara:

I am sitting in a classroom with the most expensive piece of equipment I've ever owned in my life, which was an iPhone 3, maybe it was actually my first purchase when I signed up for that job. Maybe it was actually my first purchase when I signed up for that job and I started using my phone, downloading Google pictures on it and started using with the students for simple tasks like vocabulary, picture identification. But really it's from the photos because we had nothing. But really it's from the photos because we had nothing. And I decide that I was going to put an ad on Craigslist. I don't know how old you guys are, but I meet with this guy at a coffee shop and I say, hey, buttons, I want a button for correct, incorrect and I want an approximate button. And this guy said, okay, I can do this for you. Which technology do you want? And we agreed on a price which was $4,000. He said pay me 50% now and 50% when it's done. I used my salary, which is around probably $4,500 a year, a month, if I had to guess. So basically it was set for my salary.

Barbara:

I had just bought a house and it's okay. I had no references. I had just bought a house and it's okay. I had no references. I had no resume. I literally just met a random guy online and the crazy thing is I went back home. I started figuring out how to license pictures to organize in an Excel file. Then I'm emailing him the folder full of pictures, by folders, by sounds. Then I'm on PowerPoint creating the screens I wanted for the iPhone app. Ipad didn't exist and sometime later he says OK, here is a prototype. What do you think? We made some adjustments. I learned how to upload this very first app on the App Store and that was the very first articulation app on the app store before the iPad was out.

Barbara:

So you see, it's not related to AC, but it brings together some parts of who I am trusting and just jumping on it. This guy could have run away with my $2,000. We had no contract, with nothing. This is how it all started. A Craigslist ad.

Mary:

Wow, and you just jumped, like you said. You just went forward, you saw a need and thought I need this for myself, I need this for my own patients, and so if I need it, then probably other people might need it.

Barbara:

Yeah and, honestly, I know that other people and now that I've been in business for I don't know 15 years, I know that there's tons of other ways that people do this. Let's write a business plan, maybe raise some money and go through all this, bring in more people. But in the end, it's trying to figure out what works for you with your personality, with things, and how you envision how you're going to work with other people. And I'm very much a spontaneous person, not much of a planner, and so all that worked for me and I just got lucky. I found a developer who was trustworthy and he delivered for me.

Kim :

So it worked. It's just amazing to me that so early on, for you to see how an app could work in that way where a lot of people it takes a long time to even accept or understand what an app is and what it does and to pull it in on your phone and that you jumped on that before it was even popular, is really incredible to me. And have you always felt comfortable with technology and being able to see ahead of where it's going?

Barbara:

Yes, again, I did not major in any field related to technology whatsoever. The reason why I actually got some English like two semesters of English is because I learned how to create websites back in Brazil. So I was bartering English class at night for creating that English schools website. So when I was in Brazil I was already building some websites just to be able to go learn English. So I already had a little bit of that in there.

Barbara:

But when it comes to the technology on iPhone, it's not only wasn't popular. When I had my first booth at Tisha, I also had no clue what I was was doing. This is something that I'm really bad and probably reason why I didn't stay as a clinician in the schools or any other setting is I'm not very crafty, I don't have a lot of manual type of planning, very disorganized, all those toys and all that is a bit overwhelming at the end for me. Even the idea of putting back those flashcards and backup cards. It doesn't match with who I am.

Barbara:

Probably if I was still in the field, all of my flashcards would be on a table case mixed with bees and chaos. But my first booth at Tisha, I would show people that they could use this app on their phone to track their data. Actually, by the time I had my first booth, I had five apps out. People are like you're crazy, this costs too much. There's no way I'm going to let a kid touch my phone and I'm like I get it because it wasn't expensive. I mean, it still is right to be used for therapy. And then the iPad came out and things really shifted for me there.

Mary:

So yeah. So how did you go from having one app to five just in the marketing? Because that's something that is really hard Coming up with an idea. You have a wonderful idea, you have a great product, but then how do you get the word out there?

Barbara:

This is something that over the decade I've seen that it's really hard for everybody, but I think particularly for SLPs. I can't count how many times I've got emails from SLPs who hire John Doe and they didn't spend $4,000. They spent $40,000, right, $50,000, $100,000. I've seen some numbers that were crazy. People like mortgage their homes to develop one app and they've made $ thousand dollars on it. So your question is huge, especially when you start thinking of back when I started. Probably 2013 was the peak of, especially for ipad apps development, because you know, the ipad came out in 2010. People, people started to develop these 2011, 2012, 2013. And then everybody wants to jump on this with RSLP background or a parent. There's tons of parents back in that 2012, 2013 time and today, probably if I had to estimate 5% of those people their app don't exist anymore. They are no longer a business, not only because it cost them a lot, but because of the marketing aspect and getting the word out and things like this.

Barbara:

I know that for me it was one of these things of right timing, right place, right action, right time. A lot of people started learning about smart ears and I'm also doing a lot of traveling around the country doing presentations on technology implementation, special ed departments and SLPs. So I would do an entire day training where I'm teaching them. Look, you can use Angry Birds for therapy and this is how you, if you have a group session, this is how you'd manage one device for five kids and I think the combination of doing educational effort that was very natural to me. Then my products existed and it was solving a real need. I never had a marketing person consistently. I would build my own website, maintain it myself and just word of mouth people are using and then they liked the product. And then, once you fall into the Smarty Years apps, they got familiar with how it worked. And then, 70 products later, they would rather come back for another one of our 70 than pick a separate one that they don't know about or is as good.

Kim :

That data collection piece within all of those is huge when you have a big caseload, especially in the schools, and to be able to have one place to just keep track and use and let parents be a part and let parents be a part, I could see why you'd want to stay across that same company because you know how it works and you're familiar.

Barbara:

I think this became even more important as time went on and people who would come in with an app three or four years later the app had no support. Now things are a lot more stable because it's a more mature market, right. But if somebody emails me today and says, barbara, I have an idea for an app, I don't know what is not there yet. But now it's much harder. You can't just hire a $4,000 guy on Craigslist to create an app and hope they even make $10 on it, because it takes a lot more effort, because there's a ton more out there, a lot of quality.

Kim :

How did that transition from that one person who created that one app to how it's being created now in a team? Where did that change and how did that change so?

Barbara:

that first developer never created a second app for me, went on and he took a job. He continued on his daytime job. He had a full-time job working for verizon, I think and I still have contact with him. Sometimes he messaged and he says my biggest regret of my life was not tell you I'll do it for free, but we'll partner. And sometimes it comes up with ideas of things he wants to create, but that that transition there is.

Barbara:

I needed to find a way to streamline. Every time I had a second idea and, by the way, when I created that first app, I did not think I want to have 70 apps one day. I want to have all this stuff. I'm a very minimalistic person but I ended up hiring somebody and with this personality, I didn't have a business plan and my goal was, if I sell one a day, it was $30 the app. Okay, I can have vacation money for my summers off in the schools. That was all my vision. Right, there was no big vision of nothing. So, from just being glad that I paid back, I got back my four thousand dollars. I was just happy. There. Anything is like positive, it's like games. Now I'm like okay, I made my money back. Let me get this money, see if I can make a second app. And then I made a wh questions app and as you start building and you start having, that was was, let's say, my second developer. He did four apps right, and then all of a sudden, we have iPad and then we need a developer with a little more experience and now I have more budget to hire somebody with a little more quality.

Barbara:

And then apps aren't just development. You have to create content, you have to create illustrations, you have a voiceover artist. So, as you can see, it takes a special kind of people to appreciate this accent and they cannot be in speech therapy products, especially back in 2009. So I had to hire voiceover actors. These, basically, are people who read your question and display on the app. So for every single one of these new projects, I need to hire several people. And then the iPad came out with a camera. So then, next thing, you know you start meeting more people because your apps become more complex. You have student management, but it also depends on the technology coming in and out.

Barbara:

So over the years it's been just navigating bringing in new people, letting go of people that don't have that resource that I need for where we're going. For example, three or four years ago we realized the web is much more secure to where we can have a massive system for special education SLPs to use for special education SLPs to use. So instead of having 70 apps now we ported all those 70 apps into a bigger platform, smart Years Online. So now they don't have to just use it on the iPad, they can use it on a computer, they can use it on Google Chrome and now they don't have to buy individual apps. They don't have to say which app is for our tech again, what is it called? I have our tech, language, literacy, social skills.

Barbara:

All of the content we developed is on this new platform. But the developer for iPhones they can't create web apps. It's a whole new team of seven people that I knew nothing about and I still feel like I'm struggling Today. I was right. Before I joined, I was on a call to try to hire somebody who was a developer for systems. Ios apps, ipad apps didn't need this specialized person. So this whole hiring and identifying and managing all of this is the hard part here, but it's evolved over time.

Mary:

That must be really hard to keep up with children, just in the sense that children are so used to very advanced animations. Now Everything is so good and the quality is so amazing on just Disney Plus at your fingertips that must be very difficult to keep up with that level of creator.

Barbara:

One of the things that frustrated me always within materials for special education in general is that I felt like the it still is. The industry is 20 years behind when you look at pictures used on some AAC devices. For some reason, we still think that using outline images just because this used to be great 40 years ago and people are struggling with the change because this is not so good. We're still using outline images with no colors, when this is not the expectation, or a lot of the graphics that we're using for AAC or for creating visual support, which is why I ended up creating my second company.

Barbara:

Right is exactly to address this need to have something that looks fresh. So, not only in the terms of the visuals but the technology, you can see a lot of the technology that we use as clinicians that that special education uses. It's not up to par to like math programs Not at all, and it drives me bonkers when I look at this and I know how big these companies are, with a lot more resources than smart ears. Why are we not bringing this industry forward, both in terms of image quality and technology that we are offering to SLPs?

Mary:

and the kids. You really got the timing right. Like you said, timing was everything for your apps and for really navigating, like you said, the first in the field. So if we're thinking today, you're right, that would be a really hard game to get into. But the new game is AI and I wanted to talk about that because I know that you have given a talk on AI and assessments intervention. How should SLPs be using AI or just thinking about it? If you're an entrepreneur, can you share a little bit about your thoughts on that? The cool thing.

Barbara:

I had an encounter at ATIA just last month. It was somebody from an organization and she asked Barbara, I'm afraid the SLPs are using AI all wrong and there is so much that it's misused. And I think it was in the context of translating resources for bilingual students. And I said the way we always need to look at some of the potential problems. Is this currently replacing a better system or is this currently replacing something worse? We always tend to think of, oh, but the translator is not as good as the translator. No, it's not. If they had one, we're not going to take a translator and put chat GPT, but the reality is, how many have translators, right? So, as far as this question of how SLPs are using AI is obviously per situation, but in general, I think I love it. I already integrated it on my systems. It creates automated reports.

Barbara:

So, to give an idea, I created an assessment for articulation back in 2010,. Right, it is, to this day, my most favorite work. It's you assess the child, there's a phonetic transcription at the top, you tap on the sound and it calculates everything automatically. It generates a report automatically. This has been in existence since 2010. Now this report. Barbara had to think of the flow of what am I going to show at the top? These are the sounds we already know age of acquisition, and it's very similar to what every clinician will use. Even though it's awesome the report is done automatically, it doesn't have the nuances of combining all of that data, because we didn't have this technology in 2010.

Barbara:

When I integrate ChatGBT now or the AI system on SmartEars Online, it can look at the data.

Barbara:

It can say look, mary has had an articulation therapy for the last eight months and she was working on these sounds. She seems to be making progress on your B's, p's and M's, but for some reason, these other sounds are not working. And then I can also tell the system the person who will read the report will be a parent, so that report will come up with the correct language that is appropriate that we all should be using with parents. Now, if this report is for another SLP at another clinic, you look at the same data, but the output language will be different because it's assuming a level of knowledge that it's different. Yes, maybe it'd be better if we had the human capacity to have an SLP. Look at eight months of data, which would take her an entire day to make some of these observations, versus no effort whatsoever on the clinician part to still have maybe 90% correct information. Versus nothing, because right now we're overwhelmed and we aren't going to do it anyways.

Kim :

So I think that's a really great way to look at it. The way that you are thinking about things and everything that you have going on. What systems do you have in place for yourself on how you're organizing what you're doing day to day.

Barbara:

That's a hard question because I think I go back to where we started. It's very unique, right? So I have been diagnosed with ADHD since I was a teenager. I wrote in my book that was published less than three years ago that it was my superpower and that's what allows me to do all that I do. I can get things done fast. I have massive drive to actually do it, even though I'm constantly alternating intention. My husband used to joke that he would go to sleep and he would wake up and I build a new website or I had a new business. He still tells this to people and in this process, if I was somebody, if I took the time to plan, I don't think I'd ever get to it. For example, the book I wrote it in 30 days.

Barbara:

I had an intense drive for an event at a national convention in 2022. I believe it was very strong emotional situation. I started writing there, but I didn't know that I was going to write a book. I thought it was going to write a blog post about the situation. I made a video. Hey, this happened. Can was going to write a blog post about the situation. I made a video. Hey, this happened. Can you believe this? What can we do about this? And then I start writing.

Barbara:

I come home I go wow, I have a lot of things written. I don't know how I'm going to do this. Maybe I'll write a book. I look at my shelf and I see I want a book this thick. I want how long it would take. I looked up on Google. It was the alchemist. How long is it going to take to write a book with 30,000 words? Which was the alchemist, the amount of words? And I calculated. If I wrote a thousand words a day for 30 days straight, I would finish in 30 days.

Barbara:

Now if I had gone and felt overwhelmed, or how the heck am I going to publish a book? Do I need to have to go to a company to have an editor? I was going to create my cover, all these things. I had no clue because I didn't know any of this information. Instead of getting stuck on the how, I'll do what I can right now. Yes, I could open a document I can type. I don't know how this is going to end. I don't know if I'm going to finish, quite honestly, but I will do what I can right now. What I don't know yet, if I have time I'll look it up, or eventually it will come to me. Maybe I'll meet somebody who will tell me how to do this, but I think doing what I can at the moment it has worked for me, but it might not work for other people, so I don't know if this answered the question there.

Kim :

It definitely does, because I think back to even when Mary and I started. So I don't know if this answered the question there. It definitely does, because I think back to even when Mary and I started the podcast and we probably tried to plan. But then you start doing it and you learn along the way and I think if we had tried to figure all of that out ahead of time, we would have never started. We wouldn't have known where to start. I think that's really great advice for anybody who's wanting to just start something, because you can get caught up on all of the details, for anybody who's wanting to just start something, because you can get caught up on all of the details and I think in every field and everything we do, I just I love doing home DIY project.

Barbara:

We just did our garage floor with this epoxy polyurethane I just learned this term like last week, and my husband does get overwhelmed when he knows like I want to tackle the garage floor because he knows it's not going to end on. Let's just adjust the shelves. But the next thing I know I'm researching what kind of clear coat is this, but I won't do it until it's time to put the clear coat on, like first, we'll research how to clean this floor. Whenever the clear coat time comes, we'll figure this out. There's plenty of information online, but cleaners can't do this, though, when it's okay, because it's how they're structured.

Kim :

But I think you're right in the sense that's why they get stuck sometimes is because it's hard to get started when you're trying to think to the end already.

Mary:

Yeah, I am so impressed that you wrote a book in 30 days and was able to actually execute that many words a day. So I want to shift for a second to talk about you as a person, as a wife, a mom. You're doing things like redoing your garage floor, so lots of hobbies and I'm going to read a quote that I saw on your website that I thought was really amazing. It says we don't have to run a company like others. We can be moms, have hobbies, be empathetic with others and still be a boss. Authenticity is our strength. That. Tell us more about that. What do you mean? That authenticity is our strength and how has that really served you? Well, to be authentic to who you are, what strengths you have and what you have to give and how your brain works.

Barbara:

This is a really cool thing to always talk about, right, and we all want to be authentic. We all have been to where we're trying to fit in with other people, considering everything that I've done in my life, gone through my journey, when we try to fit in into doing things the way, even if the majority is 99% right, that's where we get stuck, and sometimes being okay with what is true to ourselves makes a lot more sense than what other people's definition of success is. So I'll give some concrete examples on things that are very recent, other than the last three or four years. Right, I was considering when I was transitioning from my iOS and web. I was struggling a lot emotionally with this transition, a lot of my plate, having to hire. I have a separate business called Smarty Symbols. We have 30,000, 40,000 images there. It's a whole separate entity, whole set of employees development team business. We do playground communication boards, all of that. Right, we haven't even gone there yet. But smart years I'm here, transitioning into a system that I'm familiar with to something that the industry needs and, honestly, the business needed to, because you see, apple and the iPad app wouldn't do a great job wrenching into the school, supporting people to deploy devices there.

Barbara:

And I said, no, I'm going to take this program, which is an accelerator. Maybe I'll get an investor, an advisor, somebody who knows more than I know about business, who can navigate me through all these other angel investors and all these big words. Right of the business industry. There are a lot of other companies, especially telehealth companies in our industry that are coming in with $100 million in investment $100 million. They come in. Imagine they can literally buy state associations. They can buy ads anywhere. They can send you material. They'll close their eye and they'll write a check like this they're creating platforms that are significantly inferior than the technology I have, but they have money to spend blindly. They can convince people that what they have is the most people can get. So I said you know what I think? Maybe I need to get more money. I need to get my company, our own 50 million and I started on that journey.

Barbara:

It was grueling, but what I realized as I'm going through this process there was a time I was in this meeting and my Zoom was an image of me in my office on Halloween with a cat outfit that pink cat from Alice in Wonderland. So I had a photo of my office working with that outfit as my started Zoom image photo and then, in private, my advisor said Barbara, you need to replace that image. It's not professional. I wasn't doing anything sexy. It's literally a freaking Alice in Wonderland cat costume that I wore my house for Halloween and a week or two later dropped off the program, not because of this comment but that comment was a reality check that I do not fit any rooms where there's tons of white men who run businesses off of a hundred million dollars with no regard to the end user's quality on the product, that they prefer to portray me in a suit in a certain way and manner. That is not who I am. It's not even how I enjoy running the business.

Barbara:

I feel that I need to have joy. I went to bed at 2 am last night. I was working and I was happy working. I woke up at six I I slept four hours, but I'm happy. I don't do this because I have to. I have the energy and drive because it still brings me joy.

Barbara:

If I was going to go on the path of getting that $100 million investment, it would take a lot of my freedom, a lot of the joy and decision making that works for me who I am. I just spent 30 days in Japan and Hong Kong and Korea with my kids in December. I took them out of school for a week and I spent a whole month in Asia with my kids. Yes, I worked a couple times in the month, but if I had somebody up my ass trying to tell me you really need to put in some time working, it would not have worked with my lifestyle and I know that's very different for each person. So that's the whole authenticity aspect. I'm not making the millions that maybe I could make if I went in the route of the traditional, out of business, but you take away a lot of the joy and the creative things that are very important to who I am as a person doing what I do today.

Mary:

And you're setting such a good example to your children of what that looks like, that you are showing them what it's like to be a mom who is very driven and is able to achieve her goals, but also that your family is a goal and that your family is very important and equally worth your time and energy.

Barbara:

Yeah, it's different for each person, right?

Kim :

Maybe other people, they just want to be able to work, I only want to work three days a week for my business, and that's what works for them. That's what's so great about our field, too, is we have so many different options to do things in different ways, and I know you mentioned the symbols that we didn't even talk about. I was reading about the playground boards, which we've seen going up in some of the parks around here too, and I think that's amazing. And one question I did have your teams. We were curious just how big your teams are, how you're managing that, how you find people.

Barbara:

Yeah, so honestly I would have to stop and count how many people I have. My teams are separate. I have Smarty Symbols has their own team. It's also a little bit interconnected. We have a development team and have customer support. Smarty Symbols is a lot easier to manage. It's a business. It's much more uniform. There's a lot less needs for development. The team there has an illustrator.

Barbara:

We're constantly creating illustrations. We, for example, when we started this, we did a color only and then we realized everybody wanted outline for certain aspects of creating resources. So we had to go back and redo all the outline, and now we want high contrast to be able to serve some of our students that have visual needs. So then I'm not going to necessarily need a team of two or three illustrators for three years. It's massive effort. Now Then maybe I'll have one person who has been my main person. He stays on board.

Barbara:

For example, we had a project of a communication board where we needed a cube. Apparently there is this thing you go inside this cube and we didn't have that word. I don't even know what the word is. They just sent me the pictures. I said, okay, go ahead and tell him to create it so that we can have that vocabulary edit. So he's available. Tell him to create it so that we can have that vocabulary edit. So he's available. He created the image. Then he's going to go on the website.

Barbara:

We have a technical and a year and a half ago I had this brilliant idea that I'm like I'm bored, I'm not doing anything. Let's create communication boards to public spaces and streamline this process. I already have my illustration team, I have my design team, and then I had to learn all materials. I already have my illustration team, I have my design team, and then I had to learn all what materials. I have three boards in my backyard for like an hour because I want to keep an eye on which materials are withstanding Texas weather.

Barbara:

Right, sometimes I've gone there to match your temperature. Is aluminum keeping the same temperature as my wood board, and then eventually we let go of the wood. So all of this to say is that managing this, the way the business looks today, looked very different a year ago, based on crazy ideas barbara has and crazy ideas barbara decides that she's going to actually do. And then I'm like, okay, who do I need to hire to get this done? And then I'm like, okay, who do I need to hire to get this done and then if that is a temporary need, then we handle it. So, managing all this or the way I function, my business is very fluid on needs and ideas and development needs for products and things like that.

Mary:

Chaotic. I have no doubt that we're going to continue seeing all of your crazy ideas come to fruition. I have seen the one at Dream Park the communication board. Yes, that was.

Barbara:

Yeah, it's great it is. It was so nice. I was really proud of that one because one was one of the very first more custom ones. That park is so custom. Yes, and a lot of these projects projects. We just did a baseball field. My designers are not slps. I have to come up with the vocabulary still, and I love who send me the images. Oh, I don't know. Move this. We need these nouns, they need to be this way. We still want to keep the integrity of a regular playground board, but still with news vocabulary. I also don't like how we're using the image for this word. Let's update to put some baseball shirts on these characters on this communication board. So it's a cool project. Uh, so sometimes I'll just say drop everything, I'm not going to do anything, I'll just do this one communication board design here and that's all I do for the day your vision for things in the future, the way you embrace it, are really encouraging.

Kim :

We have just a couple of fun questions. I know that you love to travel just by reading about you on your website, and then you also have a motorcycle, which I think is so neat that you ride. One of the questions was what do you do for just self care, time for you? What?

Barbara:

do you do for just self-care time for you? When I initially thought of this question, I was going to list things that I do for fun, which I can do that too. But I think the core of what is for me is I love what I do so much. Self-care sometimes is only needed when I'm in a mess of like right now there's a very stressful week but even then for me, getting things wrapped up helps me ease my stress. But on a day-to-day, I think whenever we're doing something we love and that it matches who we are and doing it authentically, we don't have as much of a need for all of that. Everything just falls in place. Seems a little surreal, but on that it's because I think in part of being authentically doing the things you like. You will allow yourself to float through these needs as you need. So, for example, I love to dance. I am a certified Zumba instructor and I love to go do Zumba. So sometimes Zumba's at 10 o'clock in the morning, I'm like you know what? I'm going to Zumba today and I put on my shoes and I'll go. I would go to the gym five to six times a week to dance and that worked for me.

Barbara:

I love to travel. I travel a lot only if it's international and it's long-term. I just like the process of traveling term. I just like the process of traveling airport, airplane, car ride, packing, all of that. So a lot of my trips are massively long term. I do six weeks. I spent six weeks in Croatia and I rented a car with my kids, traveled from Italy, took a boat and then I drove. So I'm the driver internationally in my house. I learned to drive manual cars in the last three or four years just so I could drive out there, and usually it's just my massive decompressed time. I'm not thinking much of work but, as you can imagine, I can't just say nobody, message me. When you own the business, you have that responsibility. I'm always available. Whether it is one o'clock in the morning, two o'clock in the morning, things go offline. I have to wake up. Even if it's not my fault, it's my business. I have to just do whatever it takes to handle it. So yeah, these are a few things that I enjoy to do.

Kim :

Those are great. What about cooking? Do you like to cook?

Barbara:

No, that's the greatest thing of having married somebody who also lives authentically. It doesn't necessarily need to fit the traditional male role. It's that he cooks for me, right, wonderful. And it's 1.41 here. He brought me breakfast in bed and he will probably eventually offer me lunch in bed. And he will probably eventually offer me lunch, and I usually don't eat. Uh, because I'm in the midst of this. We eat with my kids. When I get home, I only cook for pleasure. On special occasions my kids like oh, I want to eat x your lasagna and I'll go there, get the ingredients, so make it work, but not on the no, not on a on a regular, not my skill.

Kim :

You have some special requests from the kids sometimes.

Barbara:

And that's the only time, and we have some Brazilian dishes that I make and that they love, some dessert things that are quick and we just sit, watch movie and eat some dessert.

Kim :

My last question for you is if you were not a speech therapist, is there another dream job that you've ever thought you might want to have?

Barbara:

Nobody. If I ask you a question, return to that one. Sure. Do you think of yourselves actually both of you as speech therapists, in the roles that you are doing today with me? Right, all the questions you've given me? You've never asked me, barbara, what is the age acquisition? Now they are. How do you do an assessment of a bilingual student? What we are sitting and doing here today, it's so much more than you guys being slps.

Barbara:

So as far as another role that I would do, I'd obviously stay right where I'm at. I do have a background as an SLP we all do. I cannot envision doing other things, though I have always wanted to be an FBI agent. There'd be a lot more stress when I would need a lot more down time there. I wouldn't be doing exactly what I'm doing because I think us as a whole, we're already doing a lot more than being an SLP. And profession-wise, my background does support me because I do have all this knowledge of what is needed on the systems and for the kids. But when people ask me these days, what do you do? I still have not come up with an answer, because everybody loves to ask when you meet a stranger what do you do with an answer, because everybody loves to ask when you meet a stranger, what do you do?

Barbara:

I think I stopped saying I'm an SLP five to six years ago. I still don't know exactly what I say.

Kim :

It varies depending on the context but I think we are much more encompassing in what we do in our professions. Definitely and that's been across the board with some people that we've interviewed that have been able to go out on their own is they're getting to tap into some of those other desires that they have within our field. Even doing this podcast, it's helped us realize some of the things that we love to do outside of just speech therapy.

Barbara:

And it is very uniquely who you guys are Like. I could never do a podcast. I'm an introvert. Even though you might think differently, people know me. They know that I didn't need to leave my house for anything for months on end. I can go to the gym. I don't even go to a grocery store. I hate malls. Conventions are very hard and stressful. Talking all day long I couldn't do talking to new people like this. What you guys are doing like so impressed not my skillset is so draining. I'm so low, individual on my day-to-day function. But it's all very uniquely. You guys writing the joy and doing this for other people.

Mary:

My last question for you is what advice do you have for women who might be in your position, where you say, yes, I was trained as a SLP, but I'm so much more than that. I have so many more skill sets. I've designed websites, I love Zumba, I love all these different things about me. I think so much of the burnout in our culture is when you aren't authentic and true to who you are and all the aspects of what you want to do. So what advice would you give to someone who wants to re-find that joy and passion and find who they are more than their profession?

Barbara:

I think people think they should change and even discover who you are, because a lot of us don't know who we are. I've became obsessed with personality tests for a while several years back and there's tons of free things online and sometimes that's something I even put it on my book. It's just go do tons of free personality tests. Sometimes it's questions of do you enjoy shopping online or shopping in your house? Sometimes people don't even stop to think, but they've set a routine of going to get groceries every day, even though they dislike being at the grocery. If they realize you know what, I can put everything on a cart on Target or Walmart and they will literally deliver everything to my door. Now, obviously, that became more popular with COVID, but everything in life that we do, sometimes day to day, there is an alternative way, but first you need to know what do you like. If I tell this to some people who love shopping, hate shopping, like what I need to go to the mall, look at every item and then pick the shirts, try it on, and then they don't have time to go to the mall. Maybe you're ordering on amazon and then they're unhappy when they got the clothes or whatever. I think the very first step is start questioning what things make you who you are. What do you like? For example, a lot of the consultants, when I had them consultant out there I said, said hey, slps, you want to become a consultant for smart ears? Your job is to email schools if they want to see the product, to do a demo, and then you teach them about this. And I had 150 applicants. Sifting through all of those SLPs was hard. There was clearly a lot of people who wanted to make a change. So let's say we picked 10 people and from those 10 people, several people were introverts and didn't feel comfortable talking to strangers on a meeting just for a product. But they applied for a job because they're looking for a change. But they didn't know about themselves that they're like Barbara. But they didn't know about themselves that they're like Barbara. Barbara cannot be doing demos for school districts. I would be miserable doing this every day. But then I have somebody who has been with me for two years selling the communication board. She loves to talk to people. She talks to city departments to explain to them the process. What is a communication board? She does outreach when people say hey, I want to see how many boards we need. Just let me hop on a call. My phone doesn't even ring. If you called me, my phone would be sorry, I don't like speaking on the phone. Send me a text message. That's literally my voicemail. But because of this, people need to know who they are so they can know what position they're going to apply for. Otherwise they're going to waste three months because these people who are introverts who did this with me, they wasted three to four months to figure out the no.

Barbara:

I like talking to strangers to sell a product If they knew that they could have applied for something else. I sometimes have needs for somebody who will just create Pinterest pins for something else. I sometimes have needs for somebody who will just create Pinterest pins If they knew that I might talk to people and they're good in graphics. Barbara, I'm going to help you with marketing Pinterest pins. Can you pay me for that? And you know what? I paid them for that, but they needed to know these about themselves first so they can fit and find things that fits them.

Kim :

So that they don't waste time. I love those personality tests too. My husband may go into work with another guy, and that was the very first thing he asked my husband to do was to take this personality test, and I thought that was so smart to see how they would work together. And then he used AI to print out a report on both of their outcomes and how they would work together in business, so it really is a great idea.

Barbara:

Yeah, and sometimes with the personality test. If you're doing this with people that are in your close circle, I tell this to everybody. I know so my nieces, everybody that is within my circle, has done one, and sometimes right next to me, and they'll be like what do I like to do on weekends? I don't know. Most people that I have them do the test and I watch them. They think all answers apply and I'm like I think we need to have other conversations because it's the self-discovery journey which is lifelong.

Kim :

And changing too. It's because your experiences change Absolutely. Thank you again, Barbara. We really do look forward to watch what you continue to do and enjoyed talking with you.

Barbara:

This is fun. Thank you so much for having me. You guys are clearly on the other end of this self-discovery journey because I can hear very empathetic listeners here. Obviously, I think, people who are doing things like what you guys podcast or even my presentation. It takes energy to do this that you're putting out for other people and I hope other people are seeing through this, because this is your energy that you're putting out there, that you're taking away from whatever else that I'm sure you guys have going on. So I appreciate that.

Kim :

Thanks for listening. Make sure you subscribe to our podcast and check out our website, thespeechsourcecom.

Mary:

Also check us out on Instagram for more ideas on speech, language, feeding and play.

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Mary Brezik and Kim Dillon

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