How Working with Veterans Lead to Specializing in Dog Reactivity w/ Lisa Corcoran

This week I have a chat with Lisa Corcoran of The Confident Hound located in Waco,TX.

Before Lisa was a dog trainer, she worked with veterans at the VA, specifically with trauma therapy, after completing her masters in Psychology. In this episode we discuss how her background and former career working with veterans and trauma, has really helped her in leaning into focusing on reactivity and behavior cases, how she approaches those cases, and where she really notices the overlap between both careers.

Lisa, like many of us was diagnosed with ADHD later in her adult life so we also share how she's learned to work with ADHD as a business owner and new mom.

Ways to connect with Lisa:
The Confident Hound Instagram
The Confident Hound, facebook

Transcript

0:05

Hey, welcome back to The Leashed, Mind podcast, mental Health and Dog Training. I'm your host, Mandy Boutelle. On today's episode, I speak with Lisa Cochran from The Confident Hound, located in Waco, Texas, so Lisa studied psychology. She worked at the VA in Texas for a while, and so we talk about how her former career and, you know, I like to call that people's, uh, past lives. So we talk about how her former career kind of more or less, Has rippled into her current career with dogs and, you know, uh, handling reactivity and behavior and approaching the ADHD and the anxiety portion of being a business owner. And what's that like? How does she set herself up within her business also as a new mom? So let's get into the episode. Welcome back to the Leashed Mind podcast. I have Lisa here with me. Lisa, I am so excited to talk about mental health with you and A D H D and being a dog pro. I'm just, we've been connected on social media for so long. I feel like I know you, but I feel like this is gonna be a way to just like crack it all open. So can you give us a little bit of an intro and your background of. You know, before dog training, cuz um, you do have a background in mental health and I think our listeners would love to hear how that kind of crossed over into dog training. It's very long opening. Yeah. So, I have always been interested in, behavior, you know, how we think, how we act, how we feel, all of those things. And when I was a kid that really. Manifested itself in doing theater and like getting to the mind of a character. And, I ended up deciding in college to focus in psychology because I just like immediately gravitated toward it. Um, and, Decided that that was gonna be my career path. I went to grad school, and got my master's degree and I was planning to go back again and, get my PhD so that I could, treat, people specifically focusing in, um, trauma, P T S D, depression, anxiety, that kind of thing. Um, and my population of interest was the military, and veterans. So, That was where I was headed. And, you know, this time five years ago, I had just moved here to Waco to take a job at the VA doing mental health research with the, with veterans, and that was still my plan. in that job I just kind of got a really better sense of who I am. What I can handle in a job. and sort of at the same time I was realizing I was falling in love with how dogs think, act, and feel as well. And so I decided to make that career pivot after my four year term at the VA was over. And instead of going back from my PhD, I got a PhD from Victoria Stonewall Academy and, uh, decided to pivot to being the dog trainer. That's really awesome. I feel like, so you have ADHD as well and I feel like, I don't know what it is about us, I think it's just our brains, but we are drawn to like, I wanna know how it works. I wanna get in there, like, tell me all the things I wanna, like, we just get. Fascinated with mental health and like all of high school, I was in psychology and sociology classes. I wanted to go down the route of mental health too, but I didn't have the grades for it for college. Um, but I, I think that's interesting that you, did you know you had ADHD then either? No. So that's interesting. I diagnosis as an adult. I got it just a few years ago. But like many people who are diagnosed as adults say, looking back, they're like, their whole life makes more sense. You see it. Yeah, it like opens up and you're like, oh, that yeah, was adhd. And no one noticed that back then, that 16. Yeah. Yeah. So that's awesome. So when you were, um, doing your time at the va, when did you decide like, you know, I wanna get more into the animal behavior, in the animal mental kind of side of that. When did that little shift happen? it was, or anything in particular that ignited that. Well, um, my initial interest in dogs was really sparked by what a lot of dog trainers are sparked by, which is sort of a, a baptism by fire with that dog that they got that had a lot of issues. And being someone who's like, oh yeah, I wanna learn how to fix it. I wanna learn how it works. And my husband's an engineer, so he's kind of the same way. My response to having that dog was. Let's go, let's go learn how to, how to do it. And so we just sort of started self studying and that was before I had even moved to Texas for the VA job. Um, and had started volunteering and we were like, Hey, we're not that, we're pretty good at this and doing it with shelter dogs and stuff. And then, by the time I was at the va, I sort of started to realize I was like, I, I love this, this type of work. I think I would be very good at it. Uh, this type of work being, uh, uh, trauma, therapy. I think I would be very good at it. I think it would take a lot out of me. Yeah, I think that, and, and just even, you know, with the way that it is in mental health, you spend. Basically a decade in school and internships and just being such a junior level psychologist that it feels like you're, like in your thirties and forties before you even really start your career. Oh, wow. And yeah. And so, and, and the pressure just seemed. A lot that I knew, I knew it would end up getting to me. And so I kind of just had to make a decision that even though I'm great for this, it's not great for me. that was around the time that I was like really diving more into the dog training and getting so interested in it and decided to apply to VSA that I was like, I think I could love this as a career and have the flexibility to not let it burn me out. Which sometimes is still that spot, but still that is immense. That you were able to notice that and just be like, I love this, but it's not gonna be good for me. And yeah. You know, that just, it bleeds into your work cuz you're not gonna love it as much if it starts burning you out. Yeah. Yeah. And I think it was helpful to have a very realistic view of the people who were higher up in their career around me. Mm-hmm. Um, and see what their life looks like. And, and they, they loved it and they thrived in it, but I was just able to be like, okay, yeah, no, I. I want to be able to clock out at five. Truly, and I know I'm the kind of person that will struggle with that boundary if there is pressure to perform, if there is pressure to do well, especially if there's pressure to serve someone who's in a very tough situation and needs your help. And so I was just, You know, I can just say, yeah, that's what that career looks like and that's not gonna end well for me. So that's so healthy that you were just able to be like, I'm gonna remove myself out of this and find something where it's like, it's the same realm, but like your mental health can, like your bucket will keep replenishing. Hopefully. Yeah. And my goal was eventually to marry them back together, you know? Yes. I was just gonna ask to eventually, You know, really get some specialization in service dog training for P T S D uhhuh. Um, and I would love to one day again, be connected with that community and provide both the dog training side of things and get them connected with, you know, quality mental health care and kind of. Attack the problem from multiple directions. So I love that. And just, I, I, you, you know, there's so many studies and research out there of how the benefits of, you know, animal therapy and, and coming in with that too. So I'm sure that's a way to like cross that in there. Yeah. I, I'm curious how you've kind of maybe noticed the overlap between the two or where you've kind of pulled from that background while you're doing dog training. Oh yeah. A lot. Um, really, uh, yeah. cause you know, when it comes down to it, it's all just still psychology and learning and behavior change, emotion change and everything. And, um, I was very, Privileged, during my time at the VA to help on a study, that was, administering prolonged exposure therapy, which is one of like the gold standard therapies for P T S D, to veterans. And I got to serve as like a secondary therapist on that study for a couple of clients. Oh, and I got to learn a lot about that type of therapy. And, and one thing that. Always stuck out to me when years later I was doing my reactivity work with dogs, was the way that, we tried to get the veteran to, interact more with things that do trigger them. Something that may seem as simple and as innocuous to us as going to the grocery store, right. Um, and, but interacting with it at a low enough. Level and building skills of working through stress in those moments, in those situations, and building those skills up so then they can tackle even more difficult situations and triggers. the particular, system that the therapy uses is called suds, subjective units of distress. And so we have the veterans rate like basically from like zero to a hundred. Their like most stressful situation possible, lowest situations possible. And these could be things like driving under an overpass because when they were right, you know, they get ambushed or you know, seeing trash on the side of the highway, things like that. Right? And that subjective unit of distress was a really helpful. Model for me to also think about thresholds. Yes. For reactivity and jocks. Oh, that had to be amazing when you just like had that like haha, like connection. Yeah, so it was like, okay, if, if the dog is reactive in a lot of different scenarios, but say their reactivity is less intense with inside the car or on a balcony compared to unleash, right? Well, why don't we try to unpack and unearth some of those deep reactive feelings and responses in those situations where their threshold or their tolerance is better. And then that will be able to be leveraged in those more difficult situations. So we don't have to start immediately on leash and start hundred of yards away. Right. And start to meet other situations and then work up to that. Have you noticed that like your reactivity cases have just kind of. I, I don't wanna say that, like they're amazing, but just you've noticed like a great amount of improvement and your clients have been able to see with your approach to that, the improvement with that? Yeah, definitely. Um, reactivity cases pretty much make up about 50% of my caseload. in my particular area. It's sort of my niche and, and what. People said it's a good niche. Yeah. And I love it. I truly love it because I see, I see, I look at these, these dogs and I see very much that veteran, you know what I mean? Like I see, I see a lot. You're thinking of their mental state. Exactly like I, it's, I see them both struggling, them both reacting with the skills that they were given or even trained to do previously. Mm-hmm. And now they're in, in an environment where that's no longer adaptive and they have to completely re reprogram their brain. And that's hard. That's a hard thing to do. And so, Especially when they don't have words like they, they can't talk. Yes. Like, Yeah. So I definitely feel like having that background in trauma and stress and in anxiety, um, has, has definitely helped me see reactive situations from the dog's point of view better. That's awesome. I love that you're able to just kind of have those connect cuz I feel like Yes. You know, we learn so much about reactivity from all the courses and webinars we can do and it's a fun thing to train and I don't wanna say fun, but it, it is, it's fun because it makes your brain turn on and you have to like, Yeah, get in the weeds and be like, okay, what's going on here? Why are they feeling this way here? And it's awesome to hear how that you just, that overlap. It's, I think we could get into this way longer than we would need to, but it's just, it's so cool to hear how you're able to apply that and just, you know, you got all these degrees in this topic, but they, they're not all for nothing. Not, yeah, no, exactly. I'm curious how that's carried over with conversations with clients. Has that kind of helped in your communication and empathy? you mean like, like say them background? Yeah. Well, or just like, um, they're having a rough time with a, their reactive dog and just you're able to kind of come in and and smooth it over and, and reassure them without making them feel like you're a bad dog parent. Totally. And for that, I even think that, What's helpful there is having been that dog parent mm-hmm. Having been that person, we've all been there Yeah. Almost 15 years ago. Who, who, yeah. Who was embarrassed by their dog, who was, just felt like a failure and Yeah. Helpless and hopeless and, yeah. And so I remind them that I've been doing this for a decade and that. They've been doing this for four sessions and it's okay. And yes, they'll get there. They don't get that. Yeah, they need to hear that. That's awesome. Yeah. Yeah. Oh my God. Best you can with what we have. Yes. And I think that's a great reminder that you have that background so that you can kind of just bring your clients back down to earth of like, yeah, we're gonna get through this. It's okay. Yeah, it's good that you have that skillset. That's awesome. With that, like how has it been as far as helping, um, like coping skills, uh, whether, let's start with you and your business. Have you noticed your mental health background and that's helped you with, you know, the stressors of running a business, starting a business, getting everything executed and not drowning in it? Cuz I know you were also a fairly new mom too. Yeah, so I, I haven't. 19 month old. I pivoted to the business almost immediately after coming out of maternity leave with him. Um Oh really? Yeah. And so that was interesting cuz we had just sort of basically come off a, well, so let me back up. Mm-hmm. So my husband and I started our business back in 2020. In January of 2020 before we coming. Right at that time, you know, we intended it for to be. A side hustle for, for lack of a better term, we were both full-time employed. And so we were, we had the blessing of being able to build it slowly, build it carefully, nice, and not relying on that income. So I will say that when I transitioned out of my full-time job at the VA and into a full-time business owner, it was smoother. And I will say if anyone has the ability to basically do that, have a full-time steady job, take this on as a part-time endeavor. It was very helpful for me. So if you have that ability and then you can pivot, I recommend it. but I will say that while my mental health background does often help me recognize when I'm struggling, Work through a lot of issues. At the end of the day, it still means that I have to sort of be my own. Boss. Right. And that's hard. That's why we have therapists, right? Like, yes. That's why therapists have therapists. And I saw a really funny thing on the internet recently that said something like, self-discipline is hard because I'm the, you know, I'm the captain and that guy runs a really loose, I really resonated with that. Because, yeah, it's, it's hard to be your own manager, and to be the person who needs to watch their own mental health, but like your resources, your mental resources to do that are already zapped. Yes. So the skills are there and I probably am able to tap into them a little more often than maybe others. But it's, it's definitely, it's still a struggle at times. You're human still. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's funny, I'm a human and I have a, a different type of brain and I have a child who zaps that brain as well, so. Yeah. Yeah. I applaud you for that as another human that is neurodivergent and you are raising another human. I do not. I, I tell Josh all the time and you, you know my husband, you guys work together plenty. Yeah, but I tell him all the time cuz we are both neurodivergent and I'm just like, I don't know. How people do this with a child because I can barely take care of us and the animals. Like I don't give me a human baby. I can't right now. And he's just like, I don't know either. I don't get it. So we just applaud you and anyone else there that is neuro divergent and has a kid cuz you guys are doing the damn thing. And it is, I imagine it is freaking hard, just balancing your brain out and accommodating everybody. It can be. Uh, and, and you know, something that definitely a lot of ADHD people, uh, tend to struggle with is that, overstimulation and that's something that parents in general can really struggle with, whether they're, you know, ADHD or not. And that's one of those areas where you can really see. The mental health background, the dog trainer background, and the parent like all conversed. I'm curious how that intersects for you. It's great that my husband is also. a dog trainer, right. You know, by, by training. And so I can communicate to him with those terms because a recent example was I was getting my son ready for the bath. it would been a long day and just there was a lot going on and I just, Blurted out. I said, I am at threshold. Let me take over. Yeah. And so you know, that's, I'd say more than anything if you can just work on the skill of being able to recognize when you're approaching threshold in that threshold, that's, that's life changing there alone. And that's hard. That is something I've worked on for many, many years. Cause I would go from looking perfectly fine, dead face to like explosive. And so now I listen more to my body and, and yeah. So that, that, oh, I wanna get into that more because that is, that's a huge one cuz especially for those of us that, you know, we, something I have been working on over the last few years, uh, with my own trauma and everything is learning to. Voice when I am overstimulated and articulate. Not react because my thing for years was I, and I didn't realize I was ADHD, first of all. And second of all, I didn't realize I was getting overstimulated from sound. Yeah. Heat senses everything. Yeah. And so I would just explode and react and take it out on my husband. And then I finally started learning like, oh. I need to recognize what's going on in here and then I need to find the nice words to articulate that. And I think using the dog training lingo helps so much because we get it. It does like I, it really, I'll always say like, I'm getting trigger stacked, or I am feeling like I love the, like I'm at threshold. That is so good. That's perfect. I should use that more. We use that one a lot. And, you know, being a parent, or at least what I'm starting to learn about trying to be as good of a parent as you can is really about trying to be a very good model adult. Mm-hmm. And so being able to voice that out loud and to say, I am feeling stressed, I'm feeling overwhelmed. Amazing example. It's the same thing that I try to get my toddler to do and go over him and say, Hey, I can tell you're getting frustrated. Do you need some help? And you know, I've been modeling a lot of breathing lately for him, cuz I know I find box breathing really helpful. Yes. and he just stares at me while I'm doing like, totally captivated. And so I'm like, okay, well that helps. that's so cool. But yeah, I mean it's, it just, you know, anything you can do to kind of. Better your own emotional wellbeing, um, will carry forward in how you help your clients, how you help dogs, and if you have any, you know, people in your household that you, care for them as well. Um, let me add, lemme add one more thing cuz you made me think about it. that came from my time working at the va. One of the other main things that I worked on was a project where we were administering something called acceptance and commitment therapy. Ooh. And. I'll just say that that's another type of therapy that I have taken those skills from in learning how it's, you know, administered mm-hmm. Taken those skills from, it's a lot of mindfulness space. and that's been really helpful, in recognizing those early cues, those early sort of body language signals, if you will. Mm-hmm. Um, That you are approaching threshold, that your at threshold, that kind of thing. And so if anyone is intrigued by any part of this discussion, I would recommend looking into that type of therapy. Say that again one more time. What type of therapy? So it's. It's called ACT acceptance and Commitment therapy. Thank you for sharing that. It's, it, it's interesting to see how people have shifted in their businesses. Because of their diagnosis, which I find fascinating because I know, um, and I'm curious to hear if you've done this as well, but for me, I've, I've finally learned, you know, I have my whiteboard behind me and I talk about this in pretty much every damn episode, but it's, I, I kind of just have a funnel on my whiteboard and it's. Just, you know, I have my year, quarter, week, day, and it funnels down to what I need to do this day. Mm-hmm. So that I am not thinking of all the things, because with our lovely noggins, we think of everything and then I get Yep. Just frozen and then I can't do anything. So I have a whiteboard by over here. It helps like the visual in applying and doing it. It's so helpful. Yeah. And for me it's similar to your arrangement. I wanted it to be near enough to me that if I am staring blankly, like what am I going disa associating? Yeah. I can, yeah, I can turn back to it, but at the same time it really has a lot of my like, Bigger project plans, things that I wanna do. And so I also needed it partially out of sight, out of mind because you're noting, because then I would get distracted by it and I'd be like, why wanna do that instead for fun, you know? I definitely make use of that and it is carefully placed based on the way I know my brain works. I like that. I wanna know. Just how it's been kind of being a dog pro with a D H D in an industry that we don't talk about mental health. We do not talk about, you know, prioritizing it within our businesses ever until now. Yeah. And I'm curious, if you noticed that early on in your career when you noticed that and. Where you kind of just were like, okay, I need to set things up better so that I'm not gonna be burnt out. Yeah. So, you know, it was interesting because the, the transition to being an entrepreneur, which I feel like that term is so trendy now, but being an entre and being an entrepreneur, being a business owner, Was something that I knew was going to do wonders for my mental health in many ways, because the freedom, the freedom, the flexibility. It was especially something that with a young child, I wanted to have that there. I wanted to have the ability that. If he's homesick for a day, you know, I can be like, okay, well I only know these things around. Yeah. Couple things, I can move it around. That kind of stuff. Like we wanted that flexibility and we, we, we've benefited from it. that, and then I realized, you know, especially because of my ADHD diagnosis and when I dove into that to learn more about what that really is, because fun facts, ADHD is, Not just about not being able to focus, it's really not about that at all. And um, it's so many things. Yeah. Yeah. It's like the worst marketed disorder ever. I dove into learning about it and that really helped me, you know, build my business around that. Oh, interesting. But I need to be creative. I need, I needed that outlet. Yes. Um, and actually that was one thing that when I was starting, I was actually given the opportunity an offer to join an existing company, um, uh, that is fantastic. And I ultimately made the decision to strike out on my own instead because I, was so excited about all of the ideas and the brand I wanted to build, and I knew that that, That ability to be creative and that that ability to live my passion every single day was what was going to help me get up in the morning and push through the motivation problems, the distraction issues, and all of that. So in a way, becoming my own boss and a business owner has helped my mental health in many ways, but it has also revealed. New challenges of of course having to be my own boss. Right. and I think I'm lucky enough that I entered the dog training community when people were starting to talk a little bit about burnout and mental health and self-care. So I have benefited from walking into a community where it's slightly present. And over the years have gotten to be exposed to it becoming more front and center. so I've had a lot of voices out there saying to me, it's okay to hold boundaries. It's okay to say no. and all of those things, it's okay to say, you know, you can turn clients down, you can refer out. Yeah, all of those things. and so I've just been very blessed that with those new challenges that were presented, I've been surrounded by what I need to hear. Good. And it took some time. You gotta hear it many times before you ask. Oh, of course, of course. That's a big thing I've noticed is like you have to let it. And you sit, sit in the head and then like a year later you'll like confidently blurt it out to someone else and then it'll tinker down through them. but yeah, so it's been a, it's been a bit of good bit of bad, I'd say mixed bag. That's, that's such a good way to just think of it and, and look at it in that light, because I feel like many of us, myself included, I. It's so easy to get overwhelmed in here and stay in here and just fester and then beat yourself up. Um, and it, with social media, it's so hard because I mean, it's, and it's something I have. Fought very hard to work through, is the comparison and the imposter syndrome and, and not feeling like I'm doing enough or I'm not saying enough or I'm not. Providing enough for what people want to see. You know, there's so many people out there putting out all these amazing, you know, tip videos and, and quick kind of training videos. And I see so many other trainers that are friends of mine as well that are just like, oh, they put this out there. Like, I don't have the energy to film. I don't have the energy to do that. That's fine because you don't need to be like everyone else. And I feel like that is something that we need to hear. Constantly. And I have had to hear that Yes. Constantly for the last four years to finally understand this is my business. I can make it what I want. I get to side. Yeah. Yes. and I definitely think that when it comes to burnout, as indicated by my side, social media is the aspect of my business that. I have to be the most careful with in protecting myself from burnout, because I am a recovering perfectionist. over the last year or so, I've become better at appreciating the iterative process of. You know, getting better and better at things. But social media is one of those things that, man, I swear every time I make a reel, I go into it with like, I'm gonna be able to, I'm gonna make a 15 second reel. How long could it possibly take for year? Oh my God, this year. Right. Um, and, you know, and, and then especially adding the layer of, it's, despite being detail oriented, it's. hard for d h, D people to paint. Condense a big idea and split it into this tiny little microscopic, because I wanna give you all the information right now because I don't wanna miss anything. But you might miss it. You might overlook it. It's like, oh. So, yeah, just trying to get myself to, I know what I'm supposed to do in order to make it easier, to make it less likely to create burnout. But knowing for human not, but I don't have the skills for you. I know. I don't have the skills. Well, I think it's hard, especially when majority of, um, you know, the trainers, our age range were, were millennials. I, I, I think there might be some Gen Z coming in here barely, but yeah. You know, we grew up on MySpace. Aim., that's, it's just we are conditioned to, you know, Hey, I gotta check my phone The other day I was going to just check something really quick Really quick. It was like a, to make a memo and then all of a sudden I'm like, well, I'm gonna check Instagram. And then I'm scrolling for like 20 minutes and I'm just like, I was supposed to be working on a project. What am I doing? Yeah, it's so. Bad and half the time I don't even notice I'm doing it. That's why I have, I put my phone in work mode. I don't have social media notifications. If you listen to the Boundaries episode, you guys, you will know that I do not have any notifications like that on my phone. I hardly have notifications on my phone cuz I just hate them. They're, they're overstimulating for me. Yeah. yes, because I, and I listened to that episode. I like, you need like a, a zeroed out everything. You were the first person to actually say that. No one else is like that with me. it needs, everything needs to be at homeostasis. That, yes, that calms me. I don't wanna see any. No red badges, no alerts, no red numbers, nothing. I don't wanna say anything bolded. No. yeah, I literally did that this morning where I was working on something and I do have work related things on my phone because in terms of work life balance, I actually feel like sometimes it helps me because I'm not the kind of person

who's going to work from 9:00 AM to 5: 29:45

00 PM I work in three to four hour chunks, and sometimes that happens at night. And for my particular life. That's okay with me. Yeah, whatever. It works. I have something. Yeah. You know, real quick on my phone, then I will, but it also means that I'm working on something. I go, okay, let me look up this thing about my client for my notes here, and I brought that up. But hey, here's this. Here's this notification. And so I'm on Instagram and then 20 minutes later I'm like, wow, what was I supposed to be looking up? That's always how it is. So then I, I do my little trick, which is toss the phone to the other side of the couch, out of sight, out of mind, and then two hours later, I've accomplished so much and forgot I even. Had a phone. I think whether it comes to. the aspects of your business that you decide to take the lead on versus, uh, delegate or outsource to others, or which clients in cases you take on versus refer or which parts of social media you decide to engage in or leave alone, right. I have used. I have tried to get really good at knowing what fills my cup and what drains my cup and making the decisions to all of those things I just said around that. which is huge and it takes time. It takes, you know, we gotta learn it. It's a soul search. Trial and error. Yeah. Worth it. And I think it does end up coming down to giving yourself permission to put those boundaries there. Yes. And surrounding yourself with people who will support you in that and will remind you that it is the right decision when you doubt yourself. Yes, yes. That's community. And having others to refer out to and ask help for is so important. And several guests that I've had on have already touched on that too, is so important to have others to say, Hey, I had this issue with this client. Have you experienced this? How did you navigate it? It's, and it's not that when you take advice from someone else, you need to do it the exact way they did it, but just, you know, take it with a grain of salt and see how it might work for you. Which is something I've had to learn hard is just like, okay, someone gave me advice, but I don't need to do it to the tea. I just need to like think of how I might adjust it for myself, which is huge. Yeah. And. In order to grow your business, you're gonna have to do that. I'm curious, do you have any, you mentioned delegating, so I do wanna touch on this before I let you go. do you have any type of automations or things that you delegate out that have made it so much easier to run your business while keeping your mental health intact within your business? Yes. Yes, I do. Uh, the biggest player being digi woofs, clicks! System promotion. Um, but no, seriously, like I, I would, I, whether, even if I wasn't talking to Josh's wife, I would say it because, um, thank you. Because I love admin work because it's, It makes sense and it's something I can do very mindlessly. Yeah. But it's, and so I will always choose that over harder stuff. and so it's been beneficial to me to outsource that to a system that I can trust that I've built, to do it in the way that is up to my standard of professionalism and everything. Um, so that, I don't have the excuse to, oh, well I'm gonna, I'm gonna tinker with this, which I did yesterday anyway. But, um, yes, uh, clicks has been extremely invaluable for me, uh, when it comes to all of the onboarding processes, everything, communication wise, marketing, all that. Also, uh, not within clicks, but on the other side of digital, of the, the marketing stuff. I, I worked with them for website stuff and that's definitely something that. I appreciate marketing. I, I, I even think I've got a pretty good head for it, but I would just stare at a blank page trying to come up with words. Yes. Yeah. And so having them to really kind of create that for me and then me come in and be able to put my personal spin and touch on it, that was also something that was invaluable because I would've. I would've never had improvements made to my website for years if I had just let myself do it. and I would say that outsourcing and delegating is one of the biggest tips that I could give any business owner, really any person. Mm-hmm. Uh, that was something I learned when I became a mom, was getting ask for help. Yeah. With finding a passionate expert. Because they exist, right? There are people who love what they do, right, and want to come help you, and there's no need for you to struggle when there's someone that you can work with and they can help you get from point A to point Z 10 times faster than you would struggling to do it on your own. I didn't mean for it to be a digital wolf and click's old pro there. Oops. Um, but, but I think with that, it's. Keeping you doing what you're good at doing because something with the admin work, it's not necessarily, some of us may be excellent at admin work and others, you know, we do it because it's easy, but it's not what we're good at. And so the creative process doesn't get to continue because we're stuck doing all the mundane admin stuff and then you lose, you get burnt out with your, in your business because you're not as passionate cause you're not doing what you're good So I, I've. Will say that, you know, even if you don't use clicks or work with dig, even though you know you probably should, um, but it's, it's a matter of asking for help, getting help and delegating the things that. You might be good at, but you're not great at, and you can have someone else that's really good at it, take it off of your plate so that you can focus on what you're good at. Yeah, I have truly seen though, that the people who want to work with you, uh, and I've worked with people across all ses, uh, The people that want to work with you, wanna work with you regardless of what it costs. Uh, if you, if you set your brand up properly yes. You communicate well, your ideal clients will come to you. Exactly, yes. And, and that was a big, big thing that I got better at over time in this business was figuring out how my ideal client is filling figur, figuring out who fills my cup. And being okay with saying no to others. Cuz I had to do the mental gymnastics to realize that even if I work 24 hours a day, I still would not be able to help every dog that is out there. So at some point I'm gonna have to say no to someone. Yes. Why don't I let the yeses be reserved for those people who are saying passionately Yes. Back at me. Oh my God. Yes, exactly. That's Well, and it's, it's funny because talking through it, I'm sure it's like, oh yeah, common sense. But we don't think about that when we are in the, like, I just need to get clients. I'm trying to build my business. I need people to refer to. I don't have a network. Maybe, you know, you just move somewhere. There's so many things, and I am someone that never said no to anything. I always took on extra projects. I always took on extra things, and then I'm like, why am I so run ragged? Yeah, I know, but it's not taking care of ourselves. And that is the best way to get burnt out when we say yes to everything, because then you're gonna have to start saying no when you are overwhelmed with all the yeses. Well, I think this was a great way to end this. Um, do you have any last minute advice to, you know, anyone starting a business? Anyone just, you know, thinking about getting into training or they're feeling stuck in their business? definitely the, the finding a community. You know, to get plugged into, um, finding ways that you can outsource, delegate, connect with experts, um, who can mentor you and, be okay with the iterative process. Uh, that's because setting, setting boundaries is not about defining what they are. It's about holding them. Accepting when you realize you've let it slip and recalibrating. Letting that being a learning moment and then either renegotiating what that boundary needs to be or putting it back in place and getting better at holding it. I'm speechless cuz that was just so perfect. Well, because none of us, If, if we don't enforce our boundaries or we slip up on it, we think, okay, that's it. We suck. And it's like, no, no, no. Okay, we're just gonna approach this again. Maybe we have more management strategies in place. Yeah. Uh, or just find better ways to communicate what the boundaries are, or respond to it when people ask, you know? Um, oh, can you train on weekends? And, you know, stuff like that. And that's one boundary that I've, that I've set. I need that reset time with my family and I've absolutely, when I hold it, I am reminded why I hold it. And it makes it easier to say, I'm sorry. No. In the future, yeah, it does get easier with time. It's very scary in the beginning, but it, it does get easier because you will gain more confidence the more you reinforce that boundary. Right. Awesome. Well this has been cool. Just such an amazing podcast episode. Lisa. I'm so grateful for you coming on and I hope that our listeners take any little bit of advice you shared cuz you shared so much. And I hope to have you on another episode in the future. Yeah. Thank you so much. I'm, I'm really glad that you started this podcast. I think it's a great thing to be out there. There's so many podcasts for dog owners, and to have one that's really for dog trainers, is it's a good space to exist on the internet and in in the world. Thank you. I am honored. And if you found this podcast helpful, you like what we're doing here at the leash mind, leave a comment, subscribe, like tag us on social media, just give us a little r plus we'll be back with another episode.