Guest: Rebecca Moore
Topic: KAUM Enterprises, leadership, expensive mistakes, personal growth, and community support
Note: Lightly reformatted for readability from the raw timed transcript. Speaker labels were not included in the source, so the conversation is grouped by topic and timestamp.
OPENING, SAVVION RELAUNCH, AND REBECCA MOORE INTRODUCTION
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[0:02] Show Me Yours. Where failure speaks volumes. Jason and getting real drop. Brutal business truths. No sugar. Only raw lessons shared. Tuning out on your mistakes. Show Me Yours. Hello and welcome to Show Me Yours. We took a little bit of a hiatus, Jason. We did. We took a couple weeks off. We launched the new brand of Savvion. Had a ton of exciting things going on around here. So yeah, a little bit of a break, but we're back. We're back. Actually, this is our very first recording where we can say the name Savvion. Exactly. Savvion. Savvion. Savvion. After not being able to say it for months, it's the only thing for a year. We came up with the name Savvion a year ago today. That's true.
[0:48] A year ago today was a [expletive] show. It was. The hurricane hit my house. You started. This is Jason's one-year work anniversary. Congratulations. and we came up with the name Savvion. So, momentous occasion and here to celebrate this momentous occasion is my dear and delightful friend, confidant and I don't know general badassery lift you up champion cheerleader Rebecca Moore. Thank you. Rebecca, did you know this Jason? Rebecca is probably I think by now our oldest client. Maybe one or two other clients I feel privileged who beat you, but there's not many there's not many from like the old days like when we first started HR branches like way way back. We've we've been working together I think we picked up the comm account 2018 2019 I was going to say there yeah in that neighborhood. Yeah. So we have been supporting you
[1:50] and your team and have had the pleasure of watching you guys grow. I think when we started working with you guys, you had maybe 20 probably maybe 20 employees. How many employees are you up to now? That requires me to count math. And I'm thinking I Oh, goodness. I know we're definitely well over 20. Wow. So, I mean, it's just been exponential growth. It has been and it's been so beautiful. It really is. I mean, especially with the organization, you in the leadership role and, you know, James there by your side and watching you grow and develop your leadership team has been just so inspiring for not just me, but for I think our whole entire team to watch and just champion you and I don't know, just be kind of like your little sidekicks as
[2:38] you just kick ass. You guys have been such a huge support system to us and honestly it's been journey. It really has. and we've had bumps in the road, which I think everybody should have in order to learn and grow effectively. So, you got to kind of game plan that it's going to going to be fun and a little interesting and a little quirky from time to time to make it right. Yeah, absolutely. Well, here's my favorite thing about Rebecca and her team is they're probably the most vulnerable open team in all of the land. Like, you guys deal with really hard business. You guys have a really tough business model. Both, you know, I mean, structurally it's a tough business model, which we'll probably get into, but also the heaviness of what your team
[3:22] carries and how you guys all rally around each other and just lift each other up and care for each other just at that core level. And it's all built through trust and vulnerability and being who you are and saying, "You're welcome to come in and bring who you are to the table and we're going to celebrate you." That's what we want. We want people to feel comfortable and and honest and open and and understand that life is a series of ups and downs and you have our
WHAT KAUM ENTERPRISES DOES
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[3:47] support. Yeah. So, tell us a little bit about what COM does. Kind of clue everybody in that doesn't know. How gracious. We're a program approved service agency. So, we're Medicaid providers for adults and children as well that have developmental and intellectual disabilities. And so, we're med with a Medicaid provider. That means that Medicaid actually pays us directly to do this. It's based off of primarily a waiver system with Medicaid, which is definitely one of those things that has been up for grabs as far as different funding. Currently, it's been a hot topic. but it is such a wonderful, wonderful community that we work with. We're just very, very blessed. So, we do residential placement, we do community activities, job coaching and supported employment.
[4:34] It's it's a good thing. like it's a lot of fun. So, we get to be involved in the day-to-day, which is amazing. I mean, you really at the core of it, you take adults and children with developmental disabilities and give them an opportunity to experience life as at its fullest. Absolutely. However that looks for them. Yeah. It doesn't have to look like you and I would want. it doesn't have to be traditional. It doesn't have to be something that we've kind of been programmed that people have to act a certain way. Whatever works best for them is what we want for them. Yeah. Without violating HIPAA,
FAVORITE CLIENT STORY AND REBECCA’S SON
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[5:08] tell us about your most favorite client story. Oh goodness, that's a hard one. That is a real hard one. I mean, I can tell you I have favorite stories that end in success. I have favorite stories that end in the tragedy. I have favorite stories everywhere in between. But I I would honestly say that my son is my favorite story. Oh, of course. He's just he's so much fun and he's he's definitely one of the impetus of why we even started Comm and just to see him thriving for the past three years since he's been in a host home with very dear friend of ours and how he's grown and how much he's able to do now in comparison to what he did when he was living at home with parents because you're going to operate
[6:00] differently when you're with parents versus when you're not. I think that's been been very very very comforting to us to know that we have that we built a model that we can see that immediate success in our own family. I think that's incredible that he was able to you trusted enough for him to go and live in someone else's home and experience adulthood on his own terms. Yes. That's and just imagine I'm sure you've seen it just that strength and that confidence that he he's gained. Well, he wanted to be like his brothers and his sisters and and just be able to go out and explore and be an adult as much as he was capable of doing. That is a big deal like not to have that
[6:45] dependency on your parents. And it's scary as a parent, especially one that has a child that has a diagnosis to let that go. But the one thing that both James and I know personally is that life is not forever. We will pass one day and hopefully before our kids do. And with that being said, we want them to have the skills and the ability and the strength and support network to be able to move forward without us at least our physical presence. So absolutely big deal. It is a big deal. And you're doing it for your son. Actually, all your kids. Thank you. You are. I am. I'm enjoying. And and tell us a little bit how long have you been doing this? I know we've been supporting you guys since 18, but when did comm get started?
BUSINESS GROWTH, OTHER VENTURES, AND ENTREPRENEUR IDEAS
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[7:25] 2014. Okay, so you guys over a decade of doing this work. And after a decade, you're now at 120 employees. Pretty crazy growth is, right? We we'll throw the ish out there. Who's counting? We're not counting. That's a lot. You pass 100 and you're like, I'm done counting. Definitely over hundred. We definitely over hundred. Yeah. So I mean that just even that arc is a lot of just effort and pushing and building and business processes and systems and so much learning in that. Is comm the main thing that you have done from a business perspective or are there other kind of projects or things that you've been involved with as well? Definitely other projects and things that we've been involved with for sure. comm has been the main support system for us. , not only has it been a
[8:14] business that has thrived and been able to move forward throughout the years and that we've really been able to fall back on, but it's given us the freedom to also explore other avenues that we're interested in. And I think that's been a wonderful opportunity for us as individuals, both my husband and I, to explore other things. But honestly, calm is really our heart. It really is. But you guys do have other ventures. We do. We do. Like cupcakes. I mean, I was teeing that. I've had some of the best cupcakes from you time and again that you've enjoyed my mind. Icing on the cake is definitely one of the ones that I I really love. So that's the bakery. and then we also have tangent organics which is my husband's side venture of basically recreational marijuana grow
[9:02] and that is going to come to an end in the near future so that we can keep expanding calm but at the same time just having the opportunity for him to go explore that. I think that's a big deal. You need to have that growth that individual growth in order to find what you like, what you love. Yeah. I know. James turned into Farmer James for a few years. That was amazing. It was so cute. And the camo and his little car hearts. It was adorable. I imagine overalls. Please tell me he wore overalls. Absolutely. Are you kidding? You got to have overalls if you're a farmer. That's just a thing. I love it. I love it. That's fun. So little bit of serial entrepreneurism as well kind of in there of what you guys have been doing on that front which is
[9:47] and we're always on the hunt for something else like if there is something else if we want to look into we're always tossing around ideas about different business ventures but we come back to calm over and over again because we love it. Do you guys have a business venture book? No, but that's a great idea. I didn't know that was a thing. Brian and I have a business venture notebook where we one of our favorite pastimes during the summer is sitting out on our back patio and we just talk about the what if and it always leads to different business ventures, you know, and so we have this notebook of all of these different business venture ideas of like, okay, well, when it comes time to figure out
[10:24] the next, what is the next? So, we've got a whole list of different I mean, it's everything from like RV storage to thought of ice cream shop. We have thought of that. Oh my goodness. We thought of bars. We thought of liquor stores. We thought of Oh my goodness. We actually did rabbit hole. go down this idea and we we were really close to actually pulling the trigger on it of a FedEx route like the not just the route but like the hub. Yeah. And we went that for a while and then oh gracious we invested we've invested in a few different things too. A lot of them have been cannabis related, but we're in Colorado and most definitely a thing. Brian and I looked at buying a motel out in what what is it? , not Sadelia. It's not Salida. It's out east.
[11:15] Okay. , east. Simla. Simla. Yeah. I don't even know where that's at. Right. And he's like past Falcon and all of that. It's in the middle of nowhere. There was this little motel that was for sale and we thought about actually purchasing them and then we quickly realized that sounds like a pain in the ass, doesn't it, though? I mean, who's going to manage that? Just the dirty sheets alone. Yeah. Yeah. Now I see why they don't change them often. Just kidding. And you wonder why we get bed bugs. Not us, right? Yes. I promise. I' I have yet to deal with that. A long trip to change out 20 beds. Could you imagine? Yuck. Yuck. Yuck. Yeah. All right. Well, Jason, what do
THE SHOW ME YOURS BUCKET
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[11:58] you say we transition over to the our third host? As Jason explained before we got on camera, this is our third host. This is the Show Me Yours bucket. All right. Bucket of Show Me Yours. Yes, exactly. Me, too. Sorry. I so sweaty. So, count that. Essentially is is you're going to pull out a question and we're going to have a conversation about it. It's not just going to be Rebecca answering the question and you know everything. We're going to have a full-on conversation about it. And if you pass on a question, which it may not be relevant or you may not just want to answer it, that's okay. You're more than welcome to pass. Two passes. I got to sing the song. You got to sing
[12:40] the song. We're not We're going to try not to sing the song. I don't know. We've already got your song picked out, so you Oh, yeah. We do. Okay. I'm gonna answer whatever I get at this point. So, I get to pick it out. You get to pick it out. Okay. Well, all right. Let's No pressure. Pick the perfect one. Okay. You want one? What do we got? What do we got?
COMPETITOR COMPLIMENT AND LEADERSHIP ADVICE
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[13:08] Oh, okay. This is a fun one. If you could give your biggest competitor one honest compliment, what would it be? And what's one thing you would tell them to change? Okay. Well, I'm not going to name who I think our biggest competitor is because I don't think that's polite. , but I would definitely say that if I was to give them a compliment, I I really want to thank them for the model that they had for their day program because that is really what we modeled our original day program after. and really great, really excellent very solid model of inclusivity and ensuring that people are active and and getting out there and having fun and incorporating people that do have a diagnosis into the community. Excellent job at that. I'm so happy that we had an agency that we could look at
[14:04] and say that's what we want to do. So, there was somebody out there that was doing something really really good that we would have been happy to even put our own son into at the time if he had been old enough. Yeah. , as the years have have ch have gone by, I mean, it's been 10 years 11 years now that we've been in business and I was to make any kind of suggestion to them, I would say that you you might want to consider your leadership. , that is one thing that I've had to take a very strong look at over the years as far as leadership and how we're doing this and how plastic are they, how willing are they to change, be willing to change and adjust. And sometimes that
[14:43] really has to start with your leadership. , and that's pretty much what I would I would give them is just keep an eye out on that. currently one of the things that I've noticed about one of the people in leadership for that particular competitor is at least in my opinion a need for external validation when we are in public settings in the same place and I don't think that that's that doesn't show confidence and so I think that showing that confidence having the confidence to to be a little bit different and and and stretch I think is very very important and I think that keeps people going and and sustains your team. I couldn't agree more. I mean that shifting especially in what you guys do it's it's not a plugandplay environment. There's constant changes. There's constant
[15:39] evolution and the human element. I mean every person you serve is very different from the next. Absolutely. So one Yeah. Yeah. Right. One size does not fit all. So being able to shift and adapt and you're right. We've talked about this so many times privately when it comes to leadership. You set the culture. You set the tone. So if leadership's not willing to change and evolve and adapt and move with the moment and the time and the needs, then it's just going to go so stagnant. I know. I agree. So in that vein, I'm curious, how have
LEADERSHIP GROWTH, BOOKS, AND PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT
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[16:16] you as a leader grown and evolved? like what have you learned or what practices do you bring to yourself to kind of have that nimble ability to shift and change? Constant personal growth. Constant personal growth. I think that's that's a hallmark of something that I've had to not even had to, I wanted to incorporate into my own life and make sure that I was learning everything I could about leadership, about people, about human behavior. what are the what are the changes? Science and theoretical behavioral construct is changing constantly. I think that it's really important to keep up with that and understand why do people act the way they do? Why do I act the way I do and really be introspective? I take things personally to the extent that I always think what what could I have done differently in order to have a
[17:11] different outcome or the desired outcome if if I didn't get that. , I really want everyone to take ownership over their actions, but understand just like, and I I pull from being a parent quite a bit, and I've told my kids, if you tell me the truth the first time, I may not be happy with it, but I would really appreciate knowing the truth first and instead of hearing the story that you fabricated and then hearing the truth after the fact, because that's just going to compound and and make it more difficult for me to help you. , that's what I want from them. If you make a mistake, it's okay. We all do. I make mistakes constantly. Let's see what we can do to fix it. What can What can we do to help?
[17:55] It has to be about that. It has to be about leading by example. It has to be about loving people through the hard stuff. What I'm always curious about this because I love it. I think a lot of leaders and people that listen in are very kind of I think we're all in that kind of journey of how are we growing and evolving. What have you found that's been really supportive to your personal growth within the last few years? Like is there anything that's kind of emerged or something that you've invested in that's really kind of pushed you into that in some deeper ways or something that you really like around personal growth? Wow, there's a combination of so many different things. , oh gracious, hopefully I'm going to get these names right. Robert Greene, , his books have been incredible.
[18:38] He does 48 Laws of Power on Seduction. , oh goodness, there's so many the books that he's done I think have really spoken to me and that's where I started and then I kind of evolved from there and gracious me what is the one that really spoke to my heart it was in regards to Adlerian psychology and it was the courage to be disliked. Oh, if you have not read that I need to read that. You've got to read it. It is it to me it was a game changer. I think that after reading everything else that I read when I read that it just started to click a lot faster. there comes with that Larry psychology the construct of either playing like the victim and the hero and the villain and how we kind of subscribe to these different roles when we really don't
[19:33] have to. I mean playing one or the other or that we have to be any of the three is ridiculous. It's like there's so many different areas in between. It's just a label. It's just a label. We do love labels as humans, don't we? Yes, we do. Makes things easier on some levels. And then the followup is the courage to be happy. You know how many people in life don't want to be happy? They're so comfortable in chaos and misery. It's amazing. That's why I have my career. Amazing. Yes, it is. Yes, it is. Absolutely. It really is. Human behavior. Yes. Fascinating stuff. In addition to that, like just even your own self-development, but you're also growing through getting your MBA right now, which I mean is huge. I remember going through my MBA. It's no easy. No joke.
[20:20] It's a huge amount of dedication. I could not imagine going through my graduate course work while running a business. Like there for a little while, I thought about going back to law school and I was like, "No. Maybe not so much. I don't know if I had the time or the bandwidth, but here you are. You're growing a successful business, working on your MBA, and then in your spare time, you do these master classes. Oh, it it's so much fun. I love learning. Like the more I can grow, the the better I feel. It also keeps me out of trouble. It's true. Yeah, I'm a trouble magnet. I love it. I like to be a little wild. I am a little wild. I think everybody needs to get out there
[21:06] and just kind of shake it off somehow. However that looks for you. I think trouble leads to an interesting life if that. I like stories. I have stories for days. Yeah, you do. Oh goodness. Like if there's something weird, I've probably done it. Yeah. And I'm okay with that. Yeah. I don't know. I always tell my kids normal is boring. Oh yeah. Don't ever try to be normal. Be unique, dynamic. And oftentimes that goes against the grain, which in society's perspective, that's trouble, right? Because it's different. Yeah. What did they say? , well behaved women rarely make history. Yes, exactly. Well, I can never be accused of being well behaved. So, I'm okay with We're making history. We're going to make history. I'd rather make history. Oh, so true. So, I want to pull this question back in for that competition that we were
[22:02] talking about for your greatest competitor. What book would you recommend they read? What book are you going to send them in the mail tomorrow? Gracious. Okay. I I would say The Art of Seduction would be a good one. Okay. Everything. Tell me how. Everything is seduction. Yeah. you know, politics would probably be the first thing on my list. , because you're seducing an audience to ensure that you that they're buying into you. Seduction is about finding what people want most in their lives, what their motivation is, and then capitalizing on that, adjusting your strategy and how you handle or communicate or operate with these people or this this population or whatever it is that you're you're handling. and then maneuvering in a way that's going to be conducive to them to get their buy in.
[23:00] Some some people do it naturally and I I'm not I promise I'm not trying to toot my own horn. I feel like this is something that I adapted many many years ago. just trying to fit in, just trying to whatever it is, friendships, intimate relationships, whatever it could be. And so I found a lot of parallels in my life to some of the stories that Robert Greene had in his book, The Artist. And I highly, highly recommend that. I think that in business it's very, very applicable. It just you can see getting people's buy in and trust and gaining their confidence is so important to a successful business. Oh goodness. Yes. Absolutely. It also keeps you very self-aware, too because you're monitoring your own behavior in order to mirror or
[23:48] meet the needs of others. Meet the needs of others. I was going to say manipulate. And manipulation doesn't have to be a bad thing, right? I mean, we manipulate all kinds of things in life daytoday in order to make our our lives easier or have the outcome that we want. So, it's true. It's true. Yeah. That's what I'd recommend. It's a good one. That is a great one. That is a great one. I'm excited to go read it. You should totally highly recommend. Have you read it? I have not read that one, though.
THE $80,000 METH-HOUSE LESSON
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[24:10] Oh, gracious. Read them all. All right. They're all worth it. Yeah. Okay, cool. Let's dive back in. That was a fun one, but let's me again. Yeah. Okay. I feel like I need a big one. Maybe I need a little one. I went with kind of like a medium size. Let's see. This is a fun one. This might be a story for you. What's the most expensive mistake you've ever made in your business and what was the ripple effect? Oh boy. Oh goodness. Okay. So, we of course you know we do these services for our specifically with the adult sector and we had a guy great guy we rented a house for him and in town in Colorado Springs and he his biggest desire was basically to be a free spirit. he just want to go around and do his own thing and enjoy
[25:10] whatever substance he was enjoying at the time. Well, he gets into the house and then he had some friends that were they didn't have a place to live. They all came in the house and they decided to essentially cook meth. Oh goodness. Now, here's the fun part. Me having been a former insurance agent, forgot to get renters insurance, which I don't think would have done a whole lot of help. But $80,000 later, we are basically paying for an entire home to be gutted and redone. Oh, for the or the person who actually own the home. Yeah. So, note to self, be a lot more conscientious about, you know, the people that are coming in, what's going on, monitoring. He had an awful lot of alone time, too. Yeah, I think that people avoided him because he was kind of prickly.
[26:05] Things weren't happening the way they were supposed to. And this was years ago, thank goodness. We definitely learned our lesson, but $80,000, that's a huge mistake to make. That's a big one for something that you're never going to get anything out of. I mean, we're never going to recoup that cost. And also, , get renters insurance. Just saying. That's the thing. How long was he in this house? Two months. That's how much damage you can do because they have to get all of the the vents and the furnace and air conditioning. drywall, the insulation. Yeah, because it's so toxic. Don't Well, okay. So, I guess first lesson, don't cook meth. Yeah, that's a good in your home. That's a great one. Let's try that first. I mean, if you're going to do that, do an open air facility. I'm
[26:48] kidding. or an RV like Breaking Bad. Well, yeah, that you can buy an RV for 80,000. And a really nice one. So yeah, spent 9,000. Totally suitable. And the Breaking Bad RV is probably at 1,000. Exactly. I think it was junkyard or something. We just get rid of that and get another one if you really want to do it. So yeah, it's that was fun. So good times. Okay, let's talk about the series of events. So you want What prompted you to lease this house for him? And did you have like an interview process or can you guys drug test your clients? No. Is that a thing? No. Okay. I didn't think so, but I thought I'd throw it up. I think it's a very interesting world that I work in because while
[27:37] the powers that be require us to treat and operate as if everybody's a fully functioning adult. We also have to put different safeguards in place to understand that there are certain behaviors that need to be monitored and watched out for a lot of oversight. , however, if somebody is their own guardian, because that is something that can be changed. I mean, like for example, I'm my son's guardian. , but that just makes sense because he doesn't have the functioning capacity to understand like medication or or financials and things like that. , so it starts with that. We start with like they're their own guardian. They're going to make these choices. We operate like an adult. If they say they don't want you to come see them, we have to
[28:24] honor that and say, "Okay." Even though the state might say you have to visit them every so many hours or days, if they still refuse, like any kind of patient, I guess you could say, cuz there border lines on that healthc care part, even though we're not healthcare, that we have to be conscientious of that and honor what their request is. , we had had him in an apartment and then that transitioned over to the house because we wanted to it's less expensive for the agency to have other people living with him. Yeah, I could see that. So, there's more money going into that location instead of just one person's money going into one location. So, we got the house with the intention of having other people living there, too. We did have one more person come in that may have made the individual
[29:14] uncomfortable. He made choices. Here we are. Wow. So, how did you discover the meth cooking? We didn't. Oh, we didn't until we tried to get out of the lease. Oh. And then when he left because we're like there comes a point where you have to let somebody go and just be like, "Hey, we can't fix this anymore." And so we decided to let him move on to a different agency. Okay. And then we start looking at the house, realizing that there's some problems. There's that weird smell that I guess is associated with meth. And then the owners came in. They're like, "No, this isn't there's something definitely wrong." They they asked us to get it tested, which is about, just so you know, about five grand to get a home tested for meth because they have to take samples
[30:01] of different parts of the home and have that tested in a secure or like a like maybe like some sort of biohazard kind of good comes back positive, you know. Oh, here we are. It's fun. Wow. I learned so much. I'm sure you did. It was expensive mistake. Yeah. Yeah, but we learned something and now I know more than the average human on what happens when you have a meth house. Valuable, isn't it? It also goes on a registry, just so you know. Does it really? The house goes on a registry. Sure does. So, these poor home owners now have a house that's on a meth registry. It goes on a registry, but it also will show if it's been mitigated. Gotcha. So, if it's been mitigated and you're cleared, that's good. But I guess
[30:49] there's the red flag, of course, if you're gonna leave it that way. Heck yeah. Because you can't rent it, right? Legally. Yeah. Wow. Good story. I got nothing. Like, drop the mic. Wow. I'm blown away that that happened. You definitely made mistakes in the past that have been, you know, unique or different, but that that's probably the most significant one. So, out of all of that, like you can't control humans. You probably had no clue what he was doing even until the to the point that he left. You had no clue to what extent. No. So in your mind, what was that mistake? He needed more oversight and check-ins and just basic human interaction from people that had his best interest in mind than what we were understanding he needed. even though we'd probably had
[31:41] him for a couple of years prior to that, we needed to step up our game. We needed to do better. We needed renters insurance. , right. , we really we needed to pay more attention and you you kind of get lazy in business sometimes thinking no news is good news. He seems like he's doing fine. Whatever it is, everybody needs equal amount of attention. One thing I know about you, it's not lazy. Maybe comfortable not lazy. You are not lazy. I don't think I've ever been accused of that a day in my life. But at the same time, you know, there's things that get overlooked. Yeah. Because other things you think are more important. Yeah, absolutely. But okay, so like regular check-ins, stuff like that. It sounds like you weren't granted that luxury to go in and
[32:34] check on him as you probably would have wanted. he had to pretty much invite you or allow you to come in, right? We did have a key to the home. Okay. And I think that having better providers, which the provider that we did have at the time for him is no longer somebody who contracts with us. , so now we know that's part of the puzzle that we need to make sure we have somebody who's going to be actively participating in his life too and building the rapport with the individual to the extent that they want you to be part of their life, inviting you in. So when you're judging people, it doesn't matter what their their intellectual capacity is. People feel judged. They don't they feel like you're you're not loving. Yeah. And judgment is well it can come from a
[33:26] place of love. I think it really it truly can. But at the same time you don't want it around fun. It's not comfortable. So how you approach people in an appropriate manner and and get to their level so that you can be part of their lives and also see these things reporting back asking for help. I think that was another thing too. The provider didn't really ask for help in what could have been seen earlier. Oh my goodness. I have another story, too. But same provider. Really? But we won't go down that road. It's a much more recent story, too. Little scary. Wow. Yeah. Good story. Renters insurance. Actually, insurance as a whole, it's a thing. Yeah, you got to do it. It's amazing. You know, the hope is is that you pay gobs and gobs of money to
[34:14] never use a product. I think that's the only time you make a purchase in hopes of never having to use it. But goodness, when it's there, you need it. Yeah. Well, we've had situations where we've been sued. , and that happens, I think, to quite a few business owners. Having insurance really helps. Absolutely. Brian and I joke oftentimes that you're not a real business until you've been sued. It is. I mean, really, it's like, okay, when you put on your big boy pants is when you get served for the very first suit. When we got served for our very first suit, it was like, okay, well, we just put on big boy pants. We just transitioned out of the tiny whiteies. I am. It can be painful. It's definitely a
[34:59] learning experience, but I really I really think that is something that if you go through it, you can definitely say when you come out the other side, you rabbit. It forces a mirror, you know, a good look in the mirror. It forces whether it's warranted or not warranted. That's, you know, that's irrelevant. It does, it does force you to look at your processes, your documentation, your best practices, whatever it is. Absolutely. And oftentimes that's a good reflection. I agree. Yeah. Re, can you think of an expensive mistake you've made?
RE’S EXPENSIVE LESSON: THE WRONG CLIENT
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[35:31] Yeah, that was a reflection. I have a good one if you need a moment to think. But a good one for her. No, for for my mistakes that I've made in the past. Yeah. , for me it was really taking on the wrong client. It was kind of I mean similar but different in many regards. this client and and eggs in a basket. This client came to us. We were still supporting, you know, a lot of smaller businesses. And this was a big fish for us. A really, really, really big fish for us. And I probably jumped in to this account way more enthusiastic than I should have. , but you know, I mean, being a small business and seeing those type of dollars in front of you and also knowing you can do it, like I knew we could
[36:30] execute with vigor, with excellence, and we were going to knock it out of the park. And quite frankly, that's what our team did. We knocked it out of the park. I mean, we gave them exceptional support. We did all the right things. Even went over and beyond. But unfortunately, and I think that's kind of where our services find the most misalignment is when it comes to cultural discrepancy when the leaders don't value employees and best practices and having good structure to their employment practices and it's a toxic culture. It's just, you know, no matter how many times we have the conversations and try and help, we found ourselves I I know I saw my team. I was in there working with them side by side. We did an exceptional job. But no matter how south their culture went
[37:21] because of their leadership, the finger was pointed at us and it was constantly, well, you're you're not doing your job. You're not doing your job. We're like, I'm we're actually doing our jobs really well. You're just not executing our recommendations. And so eventually, I had actually hired an employee to service this account. Mhm. So, it was this employees salary and it got so bad they beat up this employee so bad I ended up terminating this client mid-contract and they had paid me up front and so I had to refund all that money and then absorb the salary for that employee. I would say it was probably about kind of close $800,000 lesson when all was said and done. It was brutal. It took us three years to
[38:08] make it all back up and get back out of the rud. Like it took us years to make that one up. It was painful. Yeah. Yeah. So, not only did it like really hurt the business, but it also what I think the hardest part was is what it did to that employee, like that team member. It's amazing how much someone else's c culture can bleed into yours. Culture is a big deal. It is. It really is. I don't think I really understood culture until you guys came around and I I was able to kind of pick apart and realize what the problems were because it's not something that was talked about in any other place of business that I had ever worked. So comm was the first business that I've ever been owner of. Well, co-owner, however you want to, but any any ownership responsibility,
[38:55] honestly, I'd never managed. I'd never supervised. , which is common. Yeah. And here I am doing all of this and I had to draw from like I said parenting which I think is it's very similar. It is very similar. Absolutely. but culture is a big deal and I'm sorry because that that had to be painful for you. It was really painful. It was just kind of watching it all implode and also seeing that client and what they did to their own internal staff. Like if that's what they did to my team member, their external staff who was looked at as their the reliable expert, you know, their advisor with seeing what they did to their own internal staff was even worse cuz we had to leave that account knowing that we're no longer able to even try to
[39:47] make it a little bit better for those team members and they were miserable. Are they still in business? Yeah. Yeah. Thank you. won't say who they are but got they're there live and yeah I see them quite a bit and it's just sucks. Yeah. Good luck to them. Yes. Yeah. Exactly. We'll send them the Art of Seduction. Do that. Seduce your team in the right HR manner. Right. Book.
JASON’S EXPENSIVE LESSON: THE MOLDY SECOND LOCATION
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[40:18] Yep. Yep. But okay, Jason, what's yours? Oh man. So Tiffany and I, we I had just left my job. I was coming in to support her in her she owned a chiropractic clinic. We just brought on two business partners that had been working together and they've been working with us for about 6 months. So they were kind of doing that. I leave my job, come in, and now all of a sudden it's like growth time and we're really going to expand this clinic and we're going to grow it and had all these plans and we realized a lot of that was going to be a second location. So, our location was up north across from Chapel Hills Mall, had about 4,000 square feet, a pretty large clinic, especially just being chiropractic, and felt like we needed more for some reason to be able to
[41:01] expand. So, we found a location on South Nevada, , if you know where that Vasa is at, it's actually just across the street from the Vasa. There was a dentistry office there that had been sitting empty, and we came across it as like a great location, right? I mean, Broadmore money, all that kind of stuff. did all the market research really and there was like no real competition that was around there. It was a pretty ideal location to be able to come into. We had to gut out the entire building. We were going to bring in offices down there as well for some headquarters things cuz at the same time we were also working on a clinic in Las Vegas. So we're going to be like
[41:36] massive expansion because our partners lived in Las Vegas. We were here. So we were going to be doing this piece. They're going to be growing an office that just bought an office in Las Vegas. So, there was three locations that we were trying to expand into in about a three-month process, which is a lot of growth, a lot of expansion, very fast. And so, we brought in the investment to start building out this South location. And we got probably 3 months into the process, had them gutting things out, building it exactly the way kind of we wanted from a clinic standpoint, and then found mold halfway through the build. Oh, no. and all of and being, you know, a medical clinic, it's like, you know, mold's a thing. But then the landlord came and started fighting us on it and
[42:18] saying that it wasn't a thing and going back and forth and it kind of the whole deal ended up blowing up in our faces and we ended up losing a lot of money. I mean, maybe not as like tens of thousands of dollars. I don't know that we maybe were in the '8s, but it was such a like just instant like kind of hit the brakes, looking at all this expansion, had these dreams of opening up the second thing, just all died basically overnight whenever that was found cuz we weren't able to figure out a solution with the owners and they weren't willing to put the investment in that they needed because of the type of mold and right and obviously our perspective on mold was a little bit different than their perspective on mold
[42:56] and so it ended up we had to walk away from the deal and Were you able to get out of that lease? We got We did, but there was some battle there and we ended up having to pay I I want to say it was like 6 months or something. Part of it part of the lease. That's not too bad. It wasn't too bad, but still it limited our growth and the investment that we made down there compared to being able to reinvest that money and put it back into other things and definitely stretched us. And so that was an expensive mistake to absolutely to do due diligence on all of that. And yeah, just even the time and energy that you know, you lose that piece too, right? You think about the the money side, but also just the stress
[43:34] and the anxiety and all of the drama that goes into these situations and the wear and tear that that puts on you as a leader and then what it puts on your team, the deflation of the dream. Yes. Exactly. That's painful. It's that's all the cost that I think sometimes we don't take into factor, especially when we're trying to grow something, right? Oh, yeah. And you're putting your time and energy and your vision in. So yeah, that was a tough lesson. That is a tough one. Yeah. Gosh, just to see it come to a halt and just all of a sudden you're like, "Oh." So you guys got out of the leash. You guys, you know, stopped. Yes. And basically it. Yeah. Walked away from it. And then I
[44:10] think they came after us. They were trying to battle and at that point our co the people that we had been business partners with basically put the kibos on it and shut him down. Was like, "Yeah, we're not doing this. Good for them. you can try, but this there's you have no precedence. You have mold, we're a medical clinic, this isn't going to work. And so once we kind of threw that up, they realized there wasn't much and they were going to they were out money, too, right? I mean, as the owners, they had invested some money into the rebuild and everything that we had been wanting to kind of get it up to speed because had been like a a dentist office from like the 80s. It hadn't been touched. Yeah, it was a little it was a little
[44:45] rough. You got to wonder why why didn't they do preliminary testing prior to even putting it on the market for rent? Yeah, exactly. especially with an older building like but sometimes the mold stuff just doesn't get paid attention to in the same way. Well, I think in this state because we don't have the the levels of humidity that they have in other states, we don't really consider that, but it's still it's still very real. It is. So, yeah, but it's not as prevalent. It's probably more of an afterthought here than it is down, you know, sea level. Exactly. Did you have insurance? Yes, we did. We did have insurance. Thank goodness. You're winning. Yes. That's a good thing. I don't think there is an insurance
[45:21] though for for certain things. Yeah. No. Yeah. I don't know that insurance really gave us much support on that front. That was more just our our stuff that we had to work through. So, yeah. Yeah. I would have thought like maybe you could have leveraged off a general liability. That probably would have been more of the property owner, too. Didn't work. Yeah. Right. Yeah. Out of pocket. Out of pocket. Woohoo. Bye. I know. It's like those moments where you just see the money in the toilet. Oh, I know. That's the hardest part is just the waste of it. The all the hard effort of bringing that in and then just watching it disappear. But that's real life. Yeah. Is is making these mistakes and having these stories and the cautionary tales and hopefully somebody else doesn't go down that road
[46:03] and then somebody else is going to share their story and you'll learn from that. Well, that's exactly thing like everybody sitting here listening today, they're going to take our stories and heed them, but then they're going to make their own story. Totally. It's just the inevitable. And as Brian says all the time, he's like, "Yeah, the numbers just get bigger. The more you grow, the bigger they get." Oh, yes. Yes. Yes, they do. And they're scary, but they can be. They are. They can be very daunting. -huh. Yeah. But Okay, one more. Let's do one more. One more. Okay. Land the plane. So, I did I No, it takes a lot honestly. Or maybe it doesn't. Depends on the day. , let's see. We got You got two there. Okay.
PERSONAL FEARS IN THE ENTREPRENEURIAL JOURNEY
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[46:54] Okay. So, this is a fun one. What's the biggest personal fear you had to confront and overcome directly because of your entrepreneurial journey? That's a hard one to answer. It is. Oh, good. It's real. We all have them. Okay. like I'd mentioned before, you know, I had never done any kind of managerial or supervisory position before and leading people is is it's complex. It really is. not knowing what your capacity is to do that effectively. I thought I could do it. I really did. Like I had this intrinsic belief I can do this, you know, this is not going to be an issue. I can I can make everybody happy. Mistake number one all the time. Oh, mistake number two. I can I can be the cool boss. Oh, mistake three, right?
[47:59] I can be the cool boss. I can create an environment in which everybody can just be themselves and a little wild and and you don't have to be politically correct. Mistake five. , and we can say what you want to say, be comfortable. Nobody's going to care. Mhm. Mistake 12. , so essentially I wanted to do everything different than the way I'd been managed and supervised over the years. I just I wanted to be I tried it. How'd it go? Sometimes it it worked for some people. Yeah. Overall, I realized that there's a reason why we have different systems and rules and ethics and morals and mores and norms and whatever you want to call them in place because they're best practices. There have been people that have come before us who have tried different methodology in management and to be
[48:54] perfectly honest. There are some that you just listen to the the people who have gone before you. Whether or not you take it to heart and you practice it, that's up to you. Yeah. But there's something valuable from everyone. Even the ones that have failed. And especially the ones that have failed. If you haven't failed, I don't really trust you very much. And that's so true. So many failures. But at the same time, I learned the value of composure, of silence, of listening, and not being over-the-top crazy, not doing what I wanted to do simply because my name was on the ownership list. Yeah. That I am equally as responsible for culture, for ensuring people feel safe and comfortable and appreciated in the appropriate way. M not just because we can curse or tell body jokes, you know. No, you you really
[49:56] do have to lead by example. It's a big deal. And having I was, as Rihanna knows, I was raised by an HR person. My mother was huge. She's amazing, by the way. And so I knew better. I really did. But I thought, no, it's not going to apply to me. We can be a little crazy. And I think we are we are definitely like you said very transparent, very vulnerable, which I love. And I I love that they feel that they can be and it's a safe place to have that vulnerability, but you also have to have that harmony with the the professionalism and bringing your agame. I feel like that's a little bit of like some parenting energy, too. Like when
[50:37] you want to be the cool parent and you like want that and then you realize, wait a minute, I can't always be the cool parent. Like sometimes I have to set the law. Sometimes I have to set the culture then the the parameters and the boundaries or whatever it is and that thread of like wanting to have that type of connection with your kids and then there's other times you're like yeah no but I'm also going to be the parent right now. Right. It's such as these things you have to morph in and out of. So that's so true. I mean all three of us I'm sure at some point when we were like teenagers were like yeah we're going to be the cool parents. We're going to be awesome parent. And then you grow up and
[51:13] you become parents. And I pride myself on being the mean parent, right? Like that's when you know you're doing your job, right? Yeah. Exactly. And I don't mean it to the tune of like I'm constantly scolding or disciplining my kids, but there have been many moments where I have to redirect their behaviors and say this is not acceptable. This is what you need to do. or I have to tell them the word no. And of course, inevitably that turns into why you always got to be so mean to me, right? Well, because sorry, Jason, didn't mean to step on you. , but I think that there's a part of that too in leadership as well is if you're not having those critical conversations and making sure that you're you're doing the hard stuff. You're
[52:04] you're doing your team a disservice really because the rest of your team is watching too. I was too fun. Yeah. I was too goofy. I was too lackadaisical and my professionalism and the culture followed suit. And we've It's taken years. Yeah. for us to get to a point now where I feel like we do have that. , we're definitely back on track. You guys are doing an amazing job. Sometimes we falter, but that's just natural human behavior. I think that sometimes we're going to be a little bit , you know, lacking on this side of things or too much on this side. Either way, we're definitely going down the right road for that. But like with parenting, I thought, hey, you know, if I do the cool stuff, everybody's going
[52:55] to love me. And I wanted to be liked and I I wanted to be accepted. Yeah. Even as the boss, there's that fear part. Yes. The desire to be accepted. What I wasn't understanding is that it doesn't matter if I'm liked or not. I'm still the boss. I'm still the person that has to be the one that's ultimately responsible for their behavior and how they act and whether or not they do get the job done. And how they show up influenced by you is determining the success of the business. Yeah. Absolutely. One way or another. Yeah. And your success is dependent on their success. And it got out of hand. Yeah. You know, when you don't pay attention to how your behavior is coming across to
[53:43] other people, it can get out of hand. And then like you do when you're a parent, you see your child acting foolish and you're like, I used to do that when I was a kid. and you're like what example did I was really a bad idea. So I think it's an HR branches now Savvon HQ has really helped with that change and not only recognizing the things that we did need to change but helping us facilitate that change and get us into the right direction. It's been a lot of fun. It has. It has. It has been painful sometimes but for the most part overall it's been fun. Yeah, it always turns out right because you always do the right thing though. And I think that's the important part and the vulnerability. Like
[54:28] you and I have a special relationship. I can't say I have this with every single client, but you and I have this relationship where I can come to the table and be like, "Damn it, Rebecca." And she l she's like, "Yeah, you're right." But you also do it to me, too. Like it goes both ways. She's like, "Okay, Rihanna, you're getting too compliancy on me. We got to get into the gray here. And we do because humans aren't black and white. They're every shade. Every single shade. And we have to be prepared for that. Yeah. And that's what I love that you embrace. And you challenge me sometimes, too. You definitely have challenged me because I'm I'm not the black and white kind of person. I really love to see the
[55:08] different colors and the different shades that we have out there. I don't want to ever feel like somebody has to fit a mold. I think the mold should fit the person. Absolutely. I agree. I agree. It's funny because, you know, when you brought up that question, I had the same fear in a but in a different way. So, my fear was not being liked and not being embraced. But it wasn't necessarily through the tone of leadership because I think I'd been exposed to leadership so much in my career. , but in the opposite way, in the tone of sales. I failed at sales. I sucked at sales because I was always afraid of that. No, I'm building this thing to meet people's needs and I want to make everybody happy with what I'm building. And it took me
[55:57] years and years and years of discovering like not everybody wants to buy your [expletive] re I get it. I get it. Some people do, some people don't. Actually, during our launch party, I wish you would have been here, but I'm sad you missed it. But you were celebrating your mom's 80th birthday. No big deal. Yeah. Not at all. , but during our toast and our speeches and stuff, Brian and I reflected on, you know, like old memories of building the business and stuff and there was this one memory I brought up that now Jason still gives me [expletive] on is that me and the old business or my old business partner Leah, we we knew we had been coached. We had been told we had to make sales calls. we had to make, you know, those cold calls and we had
[56:42] prepared like we had prepared to the point of preparing to avoid, right? And so we were preparing and preparing and we marked it on the calendar this day. We're actually going to sit down and we're going to make those cold calls. So we sit down at our desks and we look at each other and we look at the phone and we look at each other and Leah looks at me. She's like, "You want to take a shot?" It's great. Yes. Yeah. I know. I said the same thing. Yes. Brilliant. Yeah, liquid courage goes a long way. So, we took shots of vodka for every phone call we made. How was the 10th phone call? We didn't make it that far. That's got to be I think like by four we're like so we have HR service HR like good, right? Show Me Yours.
[57:35] Then I'll show you mine. Oh my. That's a marketing concept right there. I like this. So, yeah, but I think it was always the avoidance of putting myself out there in kind of that that sales platform and a lot of it was just fear of rejection and this baby that I had built and made and I didn't want anybody to tell my baby no or hurt my baby or turn my baby away. Special. -huh. Exactly. Yeah. So that was that was my fear. Very similar but kind of in a different tone. I can understand. And I can sell water to a drowning man. Like that is sales is not my problem. My problem is keeping you around. Like I'm so scared that people are going to leave. Yeah. That's probably a bigger conversation. This was that. But and I
[58:26] understand that. I see that. And I think that that was I just wanted to please everybody so much they'd never leave me. Yeah. And that's not realistic because people grow and their needs change and you have to be able to let that go so you can accept somebody else. Yeah, you always got me, girl. Thank you. Same. Good. Can't shake me. We'll hug later. Yes. Awkward with microphones and, you know, cameras. Just kidding. Yeah. I think my biggest fear, very similar. I think we all have these fears in business and in leadership, but for me it was listening to my intuition and trusting what I knew to be true and then having to fight those battles with either other leaders or having that get expressed or having the confidence to like make the move based on what my
[59:20] intuition was telling me. And having kind of been told so often like, well, how do you know that? And in that sense of like I don't have a lot of data. I don't have like the normal thing to back it up to like give you some sense of confidence that what I know is right. But I know it. Mhm. And I've seen the pattern enough in my life that when I knew it, I know it. And learning how to then just communicate it and then let it go and not be attached. So like when I was doing in in one business, I've done a lot of like coaching work and coming alongside people and observing things in their worlds and in their businesses and in their lives. And sometimes part of that coaching work is having enough
[1:00:00] confidence to talk tell the truth and to like call out the thing and to be able to have enough confidence that what you see and what your intuition is telling you is worthy of being said, even if it's a little bit hard to say it. And there was so long in my life I couldn't get across that threshold and that limited my ability to lead because I wasn't speaking the truth. And especially when you're working with someone who's paying you to tell them the truth. That was part of the what helped me get over the fear was, oh, somebody's actually going to give me money so that I can tell them the truth. Like [expletive] I better tell them the truth and like that's that's here we go. Let's see how this works. And then after enough times of some repetition of realizing,
[1:00:42] oh, I'm pretty good. Like, I'm pretty on point here and whatever that is. And then also learning when I'm not on point to just shut up. Yeah. And and to say, I don't really have clarity there right now. So, that's okay, too. And but that fear of putting yourself out there and saying the hard thing was a big one for me in my journey as a leader to kind of work through and get over. You know, isn't it interesting how we're all conditioned to not trust ourselves, to not trust our instincts? Like Jason, you probably have some of the most spot-on instincts I know of any human. You have like this honing radar like Yes. I love this for you. This is good. It is really good. You should get him in a room. He might scare you. We're in a
[1:01:28] room right now. It's true. Just saying. Not like oneon-one, right? But so but we're all conditioned in some way. Like I think even going back to grade school totally right like I remember in grade school I would talk to my teacher and be like well I think that the answer is this. And teacher would be like well where is that in the textbook? And I'd be like I don't really know but I think the answer is that. And the teacher would bicker with me about well where did you find? And ultimately I was [expletive] right. Exactly. I was right. And I'm like, why did you make me go through all of that if I instinctually knew like why didn't why wasn't I harnessed and and you know molded into trusting myself and my gut? oftentimes I think you know a lot of us
[1:02:16] are similar to you in the fact that our intuition is right on but we've been so conditioned to not trust it but then you know you take it one step further and say okay not only do I trust my instincts and my intuition but now because of that I'm empowered and trusted to say the tough stuff right say what is reality and put it on the table and embrace the messiness and say let's let's see what comes of that. Yeah. I think that's the powerful part of that intuition, too, because it's not all rainbows and butterflies. No. I ask myself often, what if the problem is actually the solution? Mhm. What if the fact that we are a little quirky, crazy, overly vulnerable is actually the right thing? What if maybe the mess is exactly the way it's
[1:03:09] supposed to be? Yeah. I always like like you said something about we were going through the management 101 training with you earlier today and something in the nature of is there can you just redelegate or adjust with what you already have without having to create a brand new position. That's what I try to think of things. What if this is the way it's supposed to be and I'm just trying to compare myself to something that is totally different and it's not even it doesn't make sense. Yes. So always think about what you have. Maybe what you have is perfect. Maybe your gut instinct is perfect. And to that point what you were talking about earlier of personal work and that personal growth
[1:03:50] of realizing sometimes where you can get into stories where if you're playing the victim or you're playing in these archetypes that really aren't serving you and your intuition's coming through that often it's going to get really weird. That's where your manipulation can come through and all sorts of different stuff. And we see that and we can see that sometimes in our leaders when we call out, you know, we see bad leadership or whatever. It's like, well, that was my intuition. And it's like, well, yeah, but it was also a story. And learning that discernment of like, how do you really lean into your intuition and done enough personal growth to then not be bought down bogged down by some story that's not serving you or maybe
[1:04:28] anchored in some sort of victimhood mentality or something that's not really speaking to your core self. It's a it's a distraction. And I think that's part of the hard parts about intuition is learning how to kind of discern those things and peel it apart and say, "Where is this intuition coming from?" Is it a story that I've been telling myself or is it actually something that's coming through that feels more in tune with who I am? And that's a process in of itself. Absolutely. Absolutely. Constant growth. Constant growth. Absolutely. That has to be a thing. The only person who's going to be with you for your entire life is yourself. You have to learn to trust yourself. Mhm. And forgive yourself and love yourself. And love yourself. Absolutely. Unconditionally. Yeah. All the different pieces and parts. Yeah. Absolutely. I mean, we are us.
KAUM’S CURRENT PROGRAMS, GROWTH, AND COMMUNITY NEEDS
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[1:05:14] Yeah. Pretty lucky to be us. Tell us about comm. How can people get involved? What are you guys doing? Well, we're growing. We're at least we're trying to grow. this particular time with Medicaid is obviously I'm sure if anybody is keeping up with different political changes, it's it's kind of volatile. Things are changing with Medicaid. We've got a decrease in federal funding for certain waiver programs. so that means the state has to make up the deficit, which is understandable. We want to keep people in services, people happy, healthy. But as Rihanna and I have talked before, Medicaid has decades worth of manipulation in a negative way. People have been on Medicaid that shouldn't be. There hasn't been enough checks and balances, and they're definitely working hard to eliminate the fraud and the
[1:06:06] waste. And I think that's very important. We're here now. We're just trying to keep things going. I am so proud to say that we've added on more programs. You know, we're doing supported employment. We have day program. We've got of course our residential and a residential is a very broad category because we can do anything between like somebody's living independently in their own apartment and we're coming in according to whatever their supervision needs or help needs whether it's for cleaning or taking to doctor's appointments or problem solving. Talking about sexual health, that's a thing. cooking, whatever the needs are. to families that are taking care of their children and their adults and their adult children, you know, whether they're minors or adults and and helping them ensuring that they have the tools and the resources needed. host homes, which is a beautiful thing. It's
[1:07:04] layman's terms, we can call it like adult foster care. So essentially, it'd be like you guys taking in somebody you're not related to that lives with you, rents a room out of the house, and you're giving them that support. which is what my son is in currently. It's it's a great program. we are expanding in Grand Junction, Adams County, Boulder County, gracious, Alamosa, I mean, we're all over the state. And just to watch that growth because there's such a need for people who genuinely care and want to be involved in someone's life and give back to these precious, precious, wonderful humans that we've been blessed with. I love that. Do you know how wonderful this population is that I serve? It it is so incredible. If you stink, they tell you
[1:07:53] you stink. If you don't, if you're beautiful, they're going to tell you that. But they mean it. Yeah. There's very little subterfuge. There's very little trying Well, there's manipulation. Everybody learns to manipulate, I think, at a very early age. Yeah. They're going to tell you when they love you. And when they love you, they actually do. They're not trying to get anything more out of you than your love. That's kind of great. Like, how many people can we say in our lives truly say that and do that for us? If only the the general population could embrace that a little bit more. And they get a good excuse to yell and scream in the middle of of of the store. Are you kidding? I would love to just start screaming and cursing at everybody that I see just because I I I feel
[1:08:40] overwhelmed when I see my son do that. It's like it's hard for me not to giggle like, "Yes, good for you. Good job. You go, boy." Oh goodness. And he's got this thing. I just have to tell the story. he loves to watch the show Cops. Okay. And he will script. So in scripting he's going to like repeat things that he has retained in his mind out loud. There's not like this filter where he just won't say it in certain he was with his provider at a local credit union and he he's not a quiet child or a 21-year-old and he's like get on your knees. Oh no. at the credit union. at the credit union. It was amazing. It was amazing. Whole place went into lockdown mode one or two years ago. It was it I of course she was mortified.
[1:09:32] I'm dying laughing when she's telling me the story. Like I wish you could have recorded that. That is so great. Could we have set that into that would have been wonderful. It's things like that. I mean like how many of us have just had those intrusive thoughts where we just want to do something crazy? I remember being little and I was raised Southern Baptist and I would I would fantasize in church about running down the aisle during the middle of whatever sermon was going on just like just being weird. Yeah. Of course I never did it. But my son would have and I would have applauded. I would have been like that is amazing. You created the child to be your outlet. Yeah. He's my little spirit animal. I'm like go do it.
[1:10:17] So people want to learn more website they can go to. Where can they commenterprises.com? So very very confusing because comm is is pronounced in a million different ways. I've I've heard it all but it's k a u m as Mary. That m didn't come out very well. And then enterprise is spelled out. Perfect.com. We'll put that in the show notes so people can link through to it and stuff down below. Great. Absolutely. Are there any particular needs that you guys have right now? Yes. Hiring, volunteering, participating within your community? What What kind of call to action can we throw out to our community for you? I need volunteer opportunities for my day program. I really really really do. I mean, anything. Yeah, we just we have all kinds of people that really enjoy getting out there and
[1:11:04] volunteering. I think giving back to the community is super super important. I want our guys to have that fulfillment, that feeling of giving back to to people that that they're going to be possibly connecting with in the future. free activities, inexpensive activities, anything that you and I would enjoy doing, they're going to enjoy doing most of the time. These day programs are going to run during daytime hours. So, anything that's during the day, if you need help with something or if you have a museum or you have a shop and you want to show them how you make something, that would be so big if people could just reach out and say, "Hey, I've got an idea." We are also doing supported employment,
[1:11:47] which is a pretty great program with a whole lot of tax credits if you hire somebody that is in qualifies as far as the the ID community. And I think that that would be something too like to contact us about if you're interested in having somebody to create a job or being flexible enough to have a job that somebody with a disability can be involved with. And also we need providers. We need people that are going to be loving and accepting and and want somebody in their home that they can include and be inclusive of in their family. , family caregivers, that's definitely a specialty of ours, too. We love family caregivers because we want somebody to be there. And if the family,
[1:12:32] if we can support the family that's taking care of their child or their adult, I mean, we need it. And then we also have another big need. I've always got needs. We always have needs. , we have houses. We have rotating staff in some of our houses with our more behaviorally challenged individuals. , goodness, we're looking for at least three people right now. All kinds of different shifts. So, we have the applications on our site on our website. Come in. We're happy to help. We want to employ people because we want people that truly care. Now, we do run background checks. The state is very particular about who can and who cannot care for people. , so as they should be, as they should be, very important. So,
[1:13:14] you have to have a fairly clean background check, but we can be fairly forgiving on some things. , but for the most part, you got to be a decent citizen. It doesn't have to be like, you know, you're stellar. You just have to be kind of fairly decent. A good person, though. Got to be good. You got to be a good person. A good person, please. Like, no. Decent is too low of a bar. Decent is too low of a bar. Okay. Yeah. Better than decent. Yeah. A better human. Yeah. It's just a good Let's avoid the math. Yeah. Perfect. It's kind of a thing. Well, okay. All of you business owners, I challenge you right now because that is who we're talking to. Business owners. Business owners, if you have
[1:13:57] actually I know of I'm thinking of a couple clients we can reach out to who have a facility who can offer a daytime activity, a program, an event. You know who you are. I'm thinking about you. You're probably going to get a call from me. , open up your arms to this great community and invite them in. And not to mention, I mean, this is great marketing and advertising for businesses, too. Yeah. And I'll tell you, I have actually seen the assisted employment services in action, not in just even from comm program alone. And it's amazing what this program does because I mean, you have the job coach who coaches the individual through like getting the job, but it doesn't stop there. It actually coaches them through having the job, coaches them on showing up on time if they have an
[1:14:49] interpersonal personality issue within, you know, it through. Yeah. They'll manage them through. They'll help them train and understand their tasks and help them practice. I mean, it's pretty impressive what they do for the this program. So, if you're interested and you have the, you know, have an opening, get in touch with Rebecca. It's a great opportunity and those tax credits are spectacular. They're huge. Like it will shave a huge amount of money off of your payroll which is really sexy. Huge. It is a very very big one. And we try to be very creative with how we do the support employment. I think one of the models that I've seen work the best so far is when we have let's say we have a a restaurant for example and you
[1:15:40] have somebody who's actively working at the restaurant right now. Well, we can get them trained and we can pay them to help your the person that has the diagnosis work there. So you you don't even have to have somebody who doesn't know the industry. We can utilize somebody that the business already has. Yeah. If that's helpful to them, I think that's great. And sometimes that makes more sense because maybe I don't know how to cook tortilla. I don't know how to cook tortillas. I really something I should probably learn. But, you know, things like that just somebody that knows the job already and we can help with that too if that's a better idea for them so they don't have u to add on another human that knows nothing. Because that was the thing when
[1:16:21] I first learned the supported employment part of the field. I was like, "Well, how would the job coach know how to cook the tortillas?" Yeah, that's a good point. I never really thought about that, but yeah, you're right. I would rather have your person be paid who knows already how to do the job and work with them. So, not only am I helping your employee out and that also helps with longevity and and them staying with that that I can talk, I promise, right? I was like, but I think we know where I'm going. We can be flexible. We got I didn't realize you could do that. We can do all kinds of things. That's awesome. Yeah, I think it's a big deal. Yeah, it is. Okay, we're going to go
CLOSING CHALLENGE AND WRAP-UP
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[1:17:01] ahead and land this plane. There we go. Let's do it. Land the plane. Well, thank you. Thank you guys. I appreciate it. This was a great conversation. It's a lot of fun. I'm looking forward to part two. Please. Let's get weirder. Oh, yeah. Just the beginning. All right, everybody. Again, heed my challenge. I challenge each and every single one of you. You'll probably see information in our newsletter as well. So Rihanna, Jason, we're here. Show Me Yours with Rebecca Moore. And I'll show you mine. Yeah, you just said loud. I'm sorry. You just did. Actually, did you know all of our guests get a Polaroid? And on the back it says, I showed mine on Show Me Yours. I want this. I'm getting it. You're
[1:17:41] about to. You're about to. All right, guys. Okay, I really have to wrap up. We'll see you later. Here's next time. Peace out. [Music]
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