Why Relationships Break Down in ABA Orgs (with Damona Hoffman)

We treat communication like a soft skill. Or worse, like something you are simply born with. You either have it or you do not, end of story. And then we watch teams come apart one ignored conversation at a time. The RBT who stops showing up because she asked for a schedule change three times and no one answered. The BCBA who quits because nobody told her what was going on. The clinical disagreement that turned personal because the resentment sat and bubbled for months.

My guest today is bringing her keynote to ABA C.A.R.E.S., and she is back by popular demand. Damona Hoffman is a TV casting director turned relationship and communication expert. She is the official relationship expert on The Drew Barrymore Show, a regular on NPR and Access Daily, a columnist for the LA Times and the Washington Post, and the bestselling author of F the Fairy Tale. She has spent two decades studying how people actually communicate, in Hollywood casting rooms, in the early days of online dating, and inside the data of apps used by millions. Her keynote is called Empathetic Leadership and Courageous Conversations.

Here is what we get into:

• Why communication is a skill you can build, not a personality trait you are stuck with.
• What happens when you step into leadership but keep wearing the clothes of your old role, and why your team now hears you differently than you mean it.
• How the move to screens stripped the context out of how we talk, and left all of us more self-conscious and less connected.
• The always-on trap. Why your 10 p.m. email lands like an emergency, and the small guardrails that fix it.
• Building a communication code for your team across generations, cultures, and the Slack-versus-Teams of it all, so a single emoji does not start a cold war.
• The most empathetic thing a leader can do, which turns out to be plain clarity, and how it ties straight to retention.
• AI and authenticity. Why leaning on it for the words is one thing, but admitting you did, right now, can quietly cost you trust.
• Replacing assumption with articulation, and avoidance with accountability, instead of the block-and-delete reflex.

One thing to know before Boston. Damona's keynote is not a sit-back-and-take-notes talk. It is interactive, closer to improv, the kind where you get in the sandbox and practice the tools in the room. So come ready to play.

A few places to find more of her work:

Website: https://damonahoffman.com

Her book, F the Fairy Tale: https://damonahoffman.com/f-the-fairy-tale/

Her podcast, Dates & Mates: https://damonahoffman.com

Damona is returning to ABA C.A.R.E.S. by popular demand to deliver her keynote, Empathetic Leadership and Courageous Conversations, in Boston this August. Register here: https://behaviorlive.com/conferences/abacares2026/registration

We will see you in Boston August 4th through 7th, or live streaming from the other side of the screen.

Transcript

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SPEAKER_00 0:00

Welcome to Inside ABA Cares, your behind the scenes space where we lay the foundation and set expectations on who you'll meet this August. We treat communication as if it's a soft skill, or worse, like it's something that you're just born with. And some people have it and some people don't, and that's the end of the story. And then when we watch teams fall apart, one ignored conversation at a time, the RBTs who stopped showing up because they've advocated for change in their schedule or client and they're repeatedly ignored, or the BCBA who quit because there was no transparent communication and they didn't know what was going on, or clinical disagreements that turned personal because there was resentment just bubbling up over time. And so today, my guest is bringing their keynote to ABA Care's called Empathetic Leadership and Courageous Conversations. She is back with us by popular demand. Damona Hoffman is a TV casting director, turned the world's first relationship expert. She's the first official relationship expert on the Drew Barrymore show, a regular on NPR, and Access Daily, a columnist for the LA Times and Washington Post, and the best-selling author of F the Fairy Tale. She has consulted for OKCupid, Match, Bumble, J Date. She has spent two decades studying how people actually communicate in Hollywood casting rooms in the early days of online dating in data behind apps used by millions of people. And now she brings the work to corporate stages. Demona, welcome. Before we get into it, I want the audience to hear it from you. How does a TV casting director end up as a person companies go to when their teams just can't talk to each other anymore?

SPEAKER_01 1:52

Well, as you said in the intro, in the fabulous, well-written intro, thank you so much, Holly Beth. It's been a long journey. I've been on this path for nearly two decades. But what I found when I originally was a casting director, I used to teach classes for actors in marketing and audition techniques. And this was before anyone was talking about personal branding, before social media was the thing. And I found that there was a disconnect between what people thought they were saying in their headshots that they were submitting for roles. And then once they got in the room, there was so much that happened before they even went to their audition. There was an exchange that happened that sometimes was losing people jobs. And so when I was doing that, at the same time, I was online dating. And I said, Well, this is the same thing. A dating profile photo is a headshot. A first date is always an audition. So once I started applying what I was learning professionally to my online dating experience, I ended up meeting the man who's still my husband today. And people started coming to me for my secrets with online dating. And what I realized is that it's all storytelling. It's all in both the nonverbal storytelling, like your picture is speaking a thousand words. We've all heard that adage a million times. And then in the room, the communication that you have that builds that initial connection is really important. So after doing the online dating coaching for 15 years, I started to realize that these challenges of communication. And we're going to get into also the way that digital communication shifted this. And that was my deep learning as the official expert at OKCupid and creating content for match and all of the apps that I work behind the scenes at. I realized that there's just so much disconnection and lack of clarity on the way that we are communicating, that this was something that I had to start offering to companies, to teams, to organizations that were really feeling that disconnect in a painful and often costly way.

SPEAKER_00 4:06

So many different use cases for this, for interviewing. A lot of interviews are now happening over Zoom or for team meetings, and everybody is so focused on all the minute things that you might miss when you're in person, but on camera, a camera doesn't really lie, it catches everything. And so I'm so excited to dive in and we'll get into all of that later. Something I picked up on reading your book was this idea that the actors who booked the job aren't the ones trying to be someone else. The authenticity really beats perfection. And so I wanted to hear a little bit more about how that shows up when you're watching and observing a team leader to give them feedback.

SPEAKER_01 4:49

Well, it's interesting because a lot of team leaders were once employees, practitioners. They were in a different role. So many times we wear the clothes, not literally, but figuratively. Sometimes literally, but we wear the clothes of our prior role. And then we do not realize as we've stepped into this leadership role, that the way that we present ourselves, the perception that others have of us, changes just by nature of the fact that you now have that title of leader, owner, operator, CEO. That adds a level of intimidation. It adds a level of disconnection. And it sometimes is not in alignment with the self-image that you had when you were wearing a different.

SPEAKER_00 5:39

I have noticed that myself. And I always thought maybe it was from having autism that every level I moved up in a role came with a different communication roles. And so if I'm hearing you right, that is not just autistic specific, that it does happen in communication in general. Is that is that what you're saying?

SPEAKER_01 6:01

Thank you for bringing up that layer of neurodiversity because sometimes we also forget that our employees, our teams are coming to the table with so many different experiences and so many different lenses that they're perceiving through. So I'm really excited to be at this ABA care summit because we can really dive into the nuances of how to use that understanding when you are trying to reach someone on your team.

SPEAKER_00 6:33

I got really excited when you sent the abstract because I do hear this being a pain point for everyone. And you've reframed yourself from a dating coach to communication futurist. What were you watching that told you that the work was bigger than dating and that expanded?

SPEAKER_01 6:52

Well, I found that a lot of people became frustrated with online dating about, let's call it five years ago, when that other little thing happened that forced us all inside of our homes. And I realized that the dating app was the tool, and people were getting really frustrated with the tool because it wasn't bringing them the result that they had wanted or maybe that they experienced in the past. And as I began to look at the data and dive deeper in, I realized that it really wasn't about the tool. It was that people were feeling this massive sense of disconnection. And that disconnection, it was coming through because we all of a sudden had to go from face-to-face communication, which is what most of our training and most of our experience had been about for all of our lives. All of a sudden, now 90% of our communication has moved digital. And that's the written word, which our bodies, our minds did not evolve to only understand the written word. So we lost context. And then you mentioned this a moment ago with being on camera. People were not used to being on camera. Suddenly, we are not only looking at another human through a lens and trying to connect with them, but what's happening right now, Holly Beth, as I'm sitting here talking to you, I'm trying to focus on you, but here I am on the other side of the screen. And so we also became very self-conscious. When you're so hyper-aware of yourself, that changes the way that you are presenting information and your ability to connect with someone on the other side of the screen. So that's where the nugget started. ABA Cares is one of the organizations where I saw how this was happening in practice with a lot of the uh leaders that I spoke with there. And I've spoken with so many organizations and realized that this problem is universal. It is not related to dating, it is not related to one industry. It is something that is really plaguing people worldwide.

SPEAKER_00 8:58

There's not a lot of data that is out there in the world that focuses on communication and relationships. And so I'm curious what data points you were looking at that showed that disconnect.

SPEAKER_01 9:09

Well, the benefit of working behind the scenes at OKCupid, which honestly, we know it today as a dating app. What I actually look at it as is the most comprehensive study in human behavior that's ever been completed. Because OKCupid celebrated their, I think they're now on 12 years. And no, no, no, that can't be right. 22 years. There we go. But they don't look a day over 12. So uh OKCupid originally started out with these data nerds that were like, let's see what people think, let's see what people believe, and we'll put out these questions that assess people's thoughts. So OKCupid was built on these matching questions where we could ask anything that they could have an opinion on and use that as a filter for matching. And so we could see over the last 20 years how people had changing attitudes around politics, how people had changing attitudes around what they were looking for, what they were open to. And so that is something that as I was writing F the Fairy Tale, I was really steeped in that data. But I started to see more of a divide around many of these social issues and also around how people were interacting with the app. And that's a big thing that we haven't yet discussed is how the speed of communication changed so dramatically. So people started optimizing for efficiency. And then, of course, now also AI entered the chat. And it has been a big disruptor, not just in how people get their job done, but how people are communicating. So people started using AI to write their messages for them. People started hedging their bets, cutting and pasting, because we could also see how many keystrokes go into somebody's message back. And so there were changes in the way that people were connecting and also in what they believed at the same time. And then the rise of social media as well, which is a factor in any workplace. We can't ignore that we are getting pummeled with content, with information, with hacks, with just any kind of distractions all day long. And then that is layered on top of your inbox is full, your Slack messages are pinging all the time. Also text messages. Now we also have communication happening on multiple channels. And that is something that we can't roll the clock back on. So we have to figure out how to harness it to our benefit before it swallows us alive.

SPEAKER_00 11:53

I was having a conversation about when did influencers start dictating how we feel about our job or about the science or what we work in and how we react to things. And as I'm processing through that and I'm processing through hearing what you just said, I wonder if we're at some sort of stage where we're depleted of thinking and making decisions. And so we rely on other things to tell us how we're supposed to feel with relationships, including AI and how we respond. So where do we go from here, Demona?

SPEAKER_01 12:24

It's a really astute observation, Holly Beth. You're absolutely right. We are in a critical communication burnout. I call it the communication crisis. That's what I spoke on last time. And the challenge is that Prince Charming is not coming to save us, or our political leaders, or anyone, that we have to do this ourselves. And I know there's a lot of pressure on the leaders that are going to be at ABA Care's summit. And there are a lot of decisions that have to be made. And so the more efficient we can get with decision making, and the more that we can empower people to take ownership of their sphere of genius, the less we have to overfunction and push through burnout to get to a place of feeling productive, feeling satisfied, feeling connected. And, you know, a lot of it, I actually think starts with building moments of presence for yourself and your team, like moments where you're not doing 10 things at once. Even with social media, there was some recent data that came out that said people are on social media, they're not doing one thing. They're not just on social media. They're scrolling and watching TV, they're scrolling and working, they're scrolling and driving, God forbid. And so we're constantly distracted. So we have to create those moments of presence and we have to create space for empathetic leadership and listening. And then we also have to figure out how we best communicate. What is our communication code? Because a lot of times we're having to code switch our communication to meet someone else, especially in intergenerational workforces, uh cross-cultural workforces, hybrid. Some people are virtual, some people are in person, certain days of the week. And all of that has created a massive amount of of work to just have communication. And the underlying force beneath all of that is building a sense of community. That is truly why we all feel so burnout, because we are seeking community in going to all of these apps that are telling us how we should feel.

SPEAKER_00 14:36

The leaders who are throwing the parties and trying to get people who don't get along in the same room together to go bowling or paint or whatever are on the right track of knowing there's a disconnect and that there's a fracture. But beyond being able to say, let's just take a break and have fun, um, they don't really know how to really start mending the relationships and setting it up for better clarity or better belonging. And so what would you recommend to somebody who is kind of stuck in that loop and doesn't know what else to do?

SPEAKER_01 15:08

I love a good bowling party as much as the next gal. However, there are unspoken rules in a professional environment that prevent us from feeling like we can just have fun. So in a work environment, you have to create some guardrails to guide people on what is the outcome of the experience they're having. People have so many things, as we just said, that are vying for their time and attention. They're like, why would I go bowling with my coworkers if I could go bowling with my friends? What is the point? So making sure that anytime you gather community, there's a goal. The goal is not just let's connect, but there is a clear and defined goal. I don't have to tell you this. Some people are not great in a group setting. Some people, I'm married to an introvert and I'm like, hi, extrovert, and we'll go to a party together. I come home and I'm like, I'm totally wired. I cannot go to sleep. He is completely drained because and it's not like he doesn't like people, but all of those interactions affect him very differently, right? So if he goes in with the intention of I'm having one or two one-on-one conversations, he likes to have a few deep conversations. I like to work the room, and we both know our communication style and our communication codes, then we can both leave feeling successful. I mean, he's still gonna go immediately to sleep and I'm still gonna stay up and do a million things. But at least then we don't feel like we've gone beyond where our comfort zone is, and we also get that need for community met.

SPEAKER_00 16:51

I think I would be hanging out with Seth afterwards. We'd both be facing different ways and not communicating to each other and be perfectly happy because I'm I'm in that boat and just thinking about you being a butterfly and uh working the room makes me anxious. Don't worry, I'm fine. Um, because you are you are going to a few parties at care. So I just want to make sure we're we're you check with you afterwards. But no, I I hear what you're saying and I and I respect I respect how you're setting that up. And it leads me to think about what you said earlier. We all need this kind of communication code. And when you originally said it, I was thinking we need an organizational communication code, and maybe you still do mean that, but how does the company take into the fact all these different individuals who are there?

SPEAKER_01 17:35

Yeah, you're exactly right that you do need a code of conduct for the company. Like, are you a company that uses Slack? Are you a company that uses Teams? Let's let's hope not. So, you know, the the tech stack is one element of it. And then also the culture around how it is used. The other thing that happened in the last 15 or so years is this always on, as everyone got phones in their pocket. Then the workday bled into every other part of our day. And so that's where we get the disconnection, we get the distraction because it's never off. So it's really important for leaders to also consider that and create that container. Like you may say, oh, well, I got through my my day and I saw all my clients. And so eight o'clock at night is when I have time to do all of this follow-up or ask questions of my team. And you're you're firing off emails at eight and nine and 10. And then how that is being received by your team, because remember, you're wearing a different suit now. You're in a different role. So now they receive that at 10 p.m. and think, wait, do I need to respond to that? So even just putting in small safeguards like no emails after this time and use schedulers to set your communication for the next time so that you don't give someone a heart attack as they're going to bed thinking that they need to respond to something. And that's the sort of overall umbrella. But then when you're in connection with individuals, it's everyone's responsibility to know how they communicate best. It doesn't necessarily mean that you're always going to modulate to their communication style. And when I say style, I mean verbal, nonverbal, and digital. But you can at least be aware of how they are communicating and you can have moments of clarification built in. I see this a lot with intergenerational workspaces. Quite literally, we are speaking different languages. And so an emoji might mean something to one person and it means something completely different to someone younger, someone of a different cultural background. So getting agreement on how even emojis are used or which platforms are most effective for your communication can really save you a lot of strife down the road.

SPEAKER_00 20:12

I want to touch on the clarity part of this. We are in a work environment and in communication often comes requests. And so if you are getting a request, sometimes an email, sometimes it lives on Teams, or sometimes it lives in a quick text. It is hard to track all of those communications and clarity, I feel like gets lost in some way. Do you advise certain parameters around what certain channels are used for?

SPEAKER_01 20:44

Yeah, I do recommend that. And again, it is dependent on your own cultural code of conduct within the organization, but having that universal understanding is really important for people to know how to operate within it. And it's funny because speaking at CARES, I know a lot of people there know this. And we know it, we practice it a lot in our face-to-face conversations because that's where we learned it and that's where we have the most practice in it. But then sometimes we forget as we move to the digital space. Well, the same is also true. Like I need agreement, I need confirmation that you understand me. I need you to repeat back that this means the same thing to both of us. I need to have clarity on when things are being completed. And so having that code developed in whether it's an another app that you use or whether it's just a certain kind of agreement, that is what makes people feel supported and successful. Because no one wants to feel like they're failing at a job. No one wants to feel like they're not meeting your expectations. And that doesn't get the most motivated individual on your team. And I know there's also challenges. You and other leaders I spoke to when I was here a couple of years ago said that retention is a really big challenge in this industry, right? So that's why bringing that empathetic piece to leadership and one of the most empathetic and compassionate things you can do is to make yourself clear and make sure that you have mutual understanding so that when you're communicating to someone, it's really clear what they can do to be successful and to be on the same page as you.

SPEAKER_00 22:31

Have you ever been to a party where you're talking to somebody and you know that they're hearing your words so they can somewhat respond, but it's almost like they're scanning the room to see who else they need to talk to those people. I kind of feel like that's what is happening with AI when you ask when you're communicating with your colleagues and you get a response back and it's clearly AI, you're like, are you present with me? I don't know where you're at. Pretty sure you weren't here. So Claude or chat might be clear, but it still creates problems in the communication. It's interesting.

SPEAKER_01 23:04

AI has been obviously the biggest disruptor in many aspects of the last few years, but definitely in communication. Unpopular opinion I actually believe that AI, when integrated ethically, can reduce a lot of friction and eliminate that static, that constant distraction and overwhelm from your team. So ultimately it depends on what the communication is about, but if it's the kind of communication that doesn't necessarily require a emotional undercurrent to it, if it is logistical communication, I wonder, Holly Beth, I'm going to turn it around on you, I wonder if it's just the fact that you feel it came from AI, or is it the fact that you don't trust it? What is missing in that communication for you when that happens?

SPEAKER_00 24:03

So I'm a user of AI, but as a reader of AI, I feel like there's more words. And because it's so much for me to decipher already in terms of communication, some of it is easier, right? It's not as emotional. So it takes care of that for me, but it does add extra words that I have to use to process. So when I'm working with AI, I will also let it know some things I know about the reader. This reader has oppositional defiance. This this reader need has autism and needs it to be clearly steps and visually appealing and things like that. And so when I use AI, I kind of cater to that, but as a reader I'm not sure that other people are catering to how my brain works. It's just a wall of words. And so I feel disconnected through the wall of words of AI. So it's more of that not necessarily distrust but more of the fact that I'm feeling like I'm being talked at if that makes sense.

SPEAKER_01 24:58

So what would happen in that context if you turned it into a dialogue where it wasn't just that one message but then you can give feedback like clarify this can you can you simplify this for me? And instead of having the reaction which is totally normal to have that reaction of like speak English to me, then it becomes an opportunity for dialogue about your communication code because that's really what you describe to me is your your personal communication code. And then that person has the opportunity to learn you better and to learn your communication code more clearly.

SPEAKER_00 25:34

This is really cool to be in a one-on-one coaching experience with Dimona. Is this kind of the stuff that you go over and that you talk about because you are making me think about it in a different way and that's one thing but you're also making me think about what can I do on my side like what can I own and how can I change maybe my perception or my relationship with that in order to better connect with the person on the other side. And that's what I got out of your questions. And I'm not avoiding your questions but I I just wanted to call that out and and ask is this kind of part of the work that somebody has to do.

SPEAKER_01 26:10

A hundred percent and you didn't avoid my question and you leaned into that beautifully because I do see that AI itself brings up this fear of the unknown. It's not what AI is now I feel like that people are afraid of it's what AI is rapidly becoming or what it could become in the future. And we forget that we still have the human quotient to be able to still interact and we're we're in control of the AI still at this point. So we meet it where it's at and especially when it comes to communications with people on your team, people that you communicate with regularly because you have no control obviously over how someone communicates with you from outside and if this is a one-time interaction but I'm really interested in those deeper long-term relationships and how to rebuild that sense of trust in your communication there. Because AI we know is not going away and the thing is it's becoming even more integrated into how we communicate for example with the Apple update I think it was about a year ago they started doing these AI summaries of your text messages. And so when you get the text message and you can turn this feature off you may have noticed it'll try to shortcut for you and tell you this is what they're trying to say. And I found myself at the beginning getting really frustrated with the summary. I'd read the summary and I'd be like oh my gosh they said that I can't believe it. You know, and then I would actually open the message and look at the message and read it and that's not what the person was actually saying at all. But it's that first response to the communication that we have that then colors how we interact with that person next and how we perceive what they've said. So if we're in a heightened state and even here's a tangible exercise that everyone can do right now, you need to also have a code for when you are interacting with certain information. So maybe there's someone on your team that you always get activated when you're talking to them. If you are in between other meetings or you are about to go into a big a big presentation and you need to have upbeat energy and you have to be accessible and excited and empathetic and you know that every time that person has something to say to you, your energy drops. Don't open that email before you go into that meeting. So maybe you have a separate inbox for them, you have a separate tag for them, you have a way to filter or a time set aside where you can go through your text messages, your emails in a clean and clear state of mind because once you get a message and you're in an activated state, you're going to read that message and react to that message in the state that you're in without regard to the intent that the person sent the message with.

SPEAKER_00 29:24

I took so much out of that the first thing being calling my emotion an activation because it allows me to say hey something's happening and I should pay attention to that versus just yep, I'm angry, which is more of an acceptance than being more vulnerable looking at it. It's also great advice. And so I appreciate it. I'm I'm curious when somebody is activated by conversation, how much do you recommend that they are coached or not coached by AI to say, hey, how should I respond to this? Because when I'm and what I'm asking Damona just to be clear is like for the leader who has to give some uncomfortable feedback where there needs to be maybe some sensitivity and they need support, how does that end up working out for them?

SPEAKER_01 30:08

If you are using AI as a training tool for yourself or a sounding board it's important that you use the AI in in a way that's activating the same part of your brain. So what I mean by that is you will have a different experience if you are having a a dialogue like you are speaking and activating the speech centers of your brain you are speaking to the AI and having an auditory dialogue than if you are just typing it. That conversation may go differently if you are using the tool in the framework of how you're going to have that conversation later. And if you do use I had a client the other day who did use AI to dialogue and figure out how to communicate from a less activated place. She tended to sound very aggressive in the language and the tone that she was using. So she consulted with AI to find language that felt softer and more approachable but she made the mistake of telling the person she was speaking to that she had used AI to help her find the words and there is a a point in time coming where I think that it will be assumed that we are communicating through AI in a way like using AI integrated like with the text example even just responding in your email there's all of those canned responses just pick one yes thank you and that's becoming more integrated into our communication predictive text all of that but at this moment in time what it does if you disclose that is it makes you seem less authentic. And that's a really big piece of this empathetic leadership is that you have to present authenticity to receive authenticity back.

SPEAKER_00 32:04

And it almost gives it almost gives permission to distrust essentially it is a huge signal of these aren't really my words and I was clearly struggling with communicating with you. Like I had to get help to talk to you. And so there's some vulnerability in that but I could see where it does not signal the right thing. And so I want to switch gears a little bit before we wrap up here to talk about something that you speak about which is replacing assumption with articulation avoidance with accountability. And so for the leader who knows that they're doing maybe the first half of both those things, what's your advice to them?

SPEAKER_01 32:43

Well, the first part of it is kind of what we were talking about earlier with getting clarity, not leaving it at the first message of I am overwhelmed by this and I don't understand any of it. Not taking it on to say now I have to decipher all of this myself and possibly come to the wrong conclusion or come back in a state of activation where I'm not going to respond from an empathetic place and to do that extra step of asking for clarification. If you're in a synchronous face-to-face or phone conversation. Like I want to make sure I'm being clear. Can you tell me what you heard from what I just said and then you have agreement because we are so we are so stretched to the optimization and speed breaking point that sometimes we don't take the time to do that. We think oh we have to get back with with patients and clients and we don't I've I'm just gonna let it go. And we don't name it, we don't address it. And then that disconnection gets amplified. So we're really seeking understanding and making sure we're clearly articulating and not just assuming that we understand. The second part of that is oh man avoidance. You got triggered earlier I kind of felt I started sweating when you said avoidance because this is kind of my soapbox right now. I'm very disappointed in the block and delete culture that we're in the I will just ignore and move on. I don't want to deal with the discomfort in this conversation. So I'll, you know what I'll just find another role. And then we go and repeat the same patterns somewhere else. So it's really important right now, especially with all the layers we've talked about with AI and the communication crisis and the volume and speed of connection for us to all take accountability. You're gonna say the wrong thing sometimes you're going to have conversations that make you feel activated and just starting out with owning that we are all learning even as behavioral health professionals we are also still learning how to communicate and connect. We're always learning. The minute I stop learning that I'm done I'm done I want to be learning this this is my life's work to learn how to be the best communicator and connector that I can be. And I feel like for anyone in this field, that should be a driver. Maybe it's not your number one driver but that should be a driver of why you're doing the work that you're doing to be the best communicator yourself and then to help your patients and your teams become the best communicator. And the best way for a leader to get everyone else on their team to get on board with that is to start with their own accountability for the areas that they need growth in.

SPEAKER_00 35:54

It's crucial because the job that we're doing in here is to help others learn how to connect with the world around them, right? And that's typically the hardest thing for autistics is to communicate and to connect. And if we're in an industry that has disconnected with each other, how are we going to begin to be able to manage the connections for others if we're simply just blocking and deleting and taking no accountability it becomes easy to get into that pattern. So I appreciate that call out because it is really important and it should be our focus. And so I really appreciate the fact that you're coming back into the ABA cares community as an outsider looking in what did you learn about the industry that others can't see wow.

SPEAKER_01 36:41

That is such a great question Hollybeth I learned that the ABA cares community is really ready to dive in my talks are very interactive. They're not like a sit back and listen and think about it and take notes. They're a let's get in the sandbox and let's play with it because the way that we get these tools into practice is by actually living them, putting them in our bodies putting them into practice. And so that's what you can come to expect from the next time I'm joining you in August. But I learned that even as someone who is a professional in this field, that there is growth that can be had around communication and connection. And who better to do that than someone that was driven into this field to be able to help people with communication and connection. So I'm ready to get back in the sandbox and play with all of you and and help us feel really re energized for that goal or whatever goal it was that drove you into this line of work.

SPEAKER_00 37:47

You bring a lot of improv and ways to connect just live and watching it and you feel it in the room. So thank you for your time today. I appreciate it and we'll see you in Boston or people will see you on the other side of the live stream. Thanks Damona I can't wait.

SPEAKER_01 38:01

Thanks for having me