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Beyond Positive Thinking (Part 4)

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Chris Cox and Riley Bass host the pAuDcast

On today’s show, Chris Cox Au.D., and Riley Bass Au.D. complete their 4 part review of Beyond Positive Thinking by Dr. Robert Anthony!

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CHRIS COX: All right, we’re back for our fourth installment– and final installment– of–

RILEY BASS: Beyond Positive Thinking.

CHRIS COX: Our review of it, anyway, by–

RILEY BASS: Dr. Robert Anthony.

CHRIS COX: This has been a fun one. It’s a treat to be able to go through a book like this and talk some things out, and we always enjoy your feedback on these as well. So we’ve only got a few more chapters that we want to cover here. We haven’t really been going chapter-by-chapter, really, but just keeping with the themes and the order of the book. So today we’ll be finishing all that off, and trying to bring a little more discussion to the relevancy to our own profession, and how this can relate– as we’ve been trying to do throughout the whole time.

RILEY BASS: Chris, what’s stopping you?

CHRIS COX: What is stopping me from what? Anything?

RILEY BASS: From achieving your truest potential.

CHRIS COX: Netflix marathons.

RILEY BASS: True ‘dat.

CHRIS COX: Gets me every time.

RILEY BASS: Every time you think you’re going to go out and do something awesome, you just watch Battlestar Galactica all day.

CHRIS COX: All day– all seasons for two weeks in a row. Yeah. You know, there’s a lot of things productivity-wise that stop me, I guess you could say. Why do you ask?

RILEY BASS: Well, I want to talk about it, because really, no one is stopping you or should be stopping you from achieving your goals. And if you’re worried about that, then you should fix it.

CHRIS COX: OK. That easy, huh?

RILEY BASS: That easy.

CHRIS COX: I should just not worry about it, just–

RILEY BASS: Say, hmm, no.

CHRIS COX: I’m good.

RILEY BASS: Basically, yeah.

CHRIS COX: So what we’re talking about, then, is what is stopping us from achieving happiness in our life?

RILEY BASS: Ourselves.

CHRIS COX: Ourselves.

RILEY BASS: Yeah.

CHRIS COX: Pretty much. Anybody else?

RILEY BASS: No. You control your own happiness. So if you are ever feeling in a place where you are not achieving your goals and you’re not happy, then you need to take a step back and say, what is causing this? What is causing me to be like this? And being worried about things and just constantly living and day-by-day worrying about the next thing is going to do nothing but make the situation worse.

CHRIS COX: Cool thing that he brings up is talking about worry. I think we all worry, right? We all have–

RILEY BASS: Oh, yeah.

CHRIS COX: –we all have our fretful days when we’re not really sure how things are going to work out. But he says that worry comes from the belief that you’re powerless. But the truth is that you’re never powerless unless you think you’re powerless.

RILEY BASS: Interesting point.

CHRIS COX: Interesting point. The power is in your hands. It always is. My grandma used to say, nobody can make you feel the way you do. You’re in charge of that.

RILEY BASS: You know what my grandma used to say?

CHRIS COX: What did she used to say?

RILEY BASS: Get your hand out of the cookie jar, Riley. You’ve already had 12.

[LAUGHTER]

CHRIS COX: Your grandma sounds like a pretty tough grandma.

RILEY BASS: She was. She was a mean grandma. She made me stop at 12 cookies.

CHRIS COX: Oh. God rest her soul.

RILEY BASS: Apparently she was worried about me. [LAUGHS]

CHRIS COX: Is your grandma dead?

RILEY BASS: No.

CHRIS COX: OK. I said God rest her soul, so that implied that she is.

RILEY BASS: She’s not dead, no. She’s like 68.

CHRIS COX: We are really in charge of her own feelings, though, and how we behave. There’s people that can affect us on a day-to-day life, and situations can affect us on a day-to-day life, but we are in control of ourselves and how we react to those things.

RILEY BASS: And sometimes if you’re worried about something, it can be for a good reason. Maybe you need to make a change, and you need to realize that. Or maybe you’re just worrying because of fear, because you’re afraid that something is going to fail, you’re afraid you’re going to be rejected, you’re afraid that whatever you thought you wanted is not going to work out that way. So we just worry about it constantly.

CHRIS COX: Like you said, I think there’s a time to worry and do it the right way, and there’s other times whenever you worry, and it just consumes you–

RILEY BASS: Right.

CHRIS COX: –and keeps you from being able to move forward. And I think we all know people that are like that, that are just paralyzed by worry, and they can’t do anything because they’re just too worried about something.

RILEY BASS: Well, and when you think about where we are, with a lot of students thinking, I’d like to open my own practice someday, but I’m worried it’s going to fail. What’s that going to do for your practice, if you’re already worried it’s going to fail before you even open the doors?

CHRIS COX: Right.

RILEY BASS: It’s going to fail. But worry is just an illusion, and it doesn’t exist unless you give it the ability, and you give it the power to exist. If you tell yourself that those worries are unjust, then they’ll disappear, and you can move forward in a positive way.

CHRIS COX: The author says that you always know what to do. When it comes down to it, a lot of us– at the very core– know what to do in a situation, or at least have an idea of how to get started. It’s just whether or not we’re strong enough to actually start that process, or get the ball rolling, or believe in ourselves enough to know that we’re right.

Now, we all get in those situations where we need to go consult Google real quick about something. I know when I do repairs on my car and stuff, I go to YouTube to see how to do things. Sometimes you don’t know what to do procedurally, but you may know that something needs to happen. There’s something in your gut that tells you that you’ve got to do something, and you know what the outcome should be. We just have to listen to that.

And we also have to look at what the real problem is. We have to look at not just the symptoms of whatever is going on, but what the root cause is, and work towards treating that, so to speak. Once we see that root problem, then we can find the solution for it. And that’s really where we start this whole process of finding a solution. A lot of us are troubleshooters, right?

RILEY BASS: Mm-hmm.

CHRIS COX: We like to solve problems. We like to take hearing devices and troubleshoot what’s going on with them. Is it a mic? Is it a wax guard? Is it a battery? And I know that I personally find a lot of satisfaction in being able to turn a–

RILEY BASS: Oh, yeah.

CHRIS COX: –hearing device around, and make it go from not working to working, and then give it back–

RILEY BASS: Right.

CHRIS COX: –to the patient, and all of a sudden, I’m the miracle worker.

RILEY BASS: When they bring in a real dirty hearing aid, and you just clean it up a little bit, and they’re like, oh my gosh, you’re a miracle worker!

CHRIS COX: Yep. Love that. I love that.

RILEY BASS: Yes. Yes, I am.

CHRIS COX: So even in our personal lives, finding the solution for us is second-nature– for a lot of us, anyway, in the audiology hearing care world. But sometimes we are blind to it, and we don’t take the time to actually troubleshoot.

RILEY BASS: Chris, you were a Boy Scout, right?

CHRIS COX: I was.

RILEY BASS: I just always imagine you as the little boy on the movie Up, [INAUDIBLE] Boy Scout. [LAUGHS]

CHRIS COX: Why, out of everything, that?

RILEY BASS: I don’t know. You have the same personality as that little guy.

CHRIS COX: OK. That’s me on the inside, really.

RILEY BASS: Actually, you should imagine Chris as that little Boy Scout. So you probably had a compass, right? When were a Boy Scout?

CHRIS COX: I still do.

RILEY BASS: You still have a compass?

CHRIS COX: I actually have a watch that has a compass on it. No lie.

RILEY BASS: Yeah. You probably have an app that has a compass on it, because we’re so fancy with our cell phones these days.

CHRIS COX: Mm-hmm.

RILEY BASS: Whenever you shake a compass, the needle will spin and go all over the place. But whenever you stop shaking the compass, eventually the needle will level back out and point back to North. And I think that is a lot of how– sometimes how we feel is we get so bogged down, and so many things going on, and we can’t see the way out. If we would just take a step back and stop shaking, eventually things would– the would point itself out, and the solution would point itself out.

CHRIS COX: And that’s a great analogy that Robert puts in here in the book to help us figure out what are we doing to ourselves, and why can’t we find the right direction? And the next thing that he talks about is taking responsibility for change, and not blaming others for things that happen, but looking at yourself and really figuring out what can we control, and what can’t we control? And focus on that controllable piece and how we react to the situations out there.

RILEY BASS: Things are inevitably going to happen to us, and that’s just the way life works. But the way you react to these events, and the way you relate to other people is what’s going to change how your perspective is on it. Like we just talked about in the last couple of episodes, Riley luck is legit a real thing, I think. I laugh it off and approach life with as much humor as I can, so that I don’t get bogged down by the stress of– sometimes things just don’t go the way they should.

CHRIS COX: Hmm. Wah-wah. You were talking about relationships just there. I think one of the other parts that he talks about here is our emotional dependency on others, versus being self-reliant. We– especially those of us who’ve been in school for a really long time– we tend to become dependent on things like the syllabus, and textbooks, and so forth to get us through.

But once we get out, we don’t really have that. We have to create our own structure for our life, and that really means that we have to create self-reliance for ourselves. We have to rely on ourselves and not other people. And he talks about an emotional dependency, meaning that we tend to seek approval of those–

RILEY BASS: Mm-hmm.

CHRIS COX: –around us, and that can be unhealthy, because everything that we do then becomes some sort of performance for another person to get some approval from them, or that they like me, or that I can feel validated because of that. And he gets deep with that, as far as the relationships go, but what I want to point out about it is that we have to learn how to be self-reliant. We have to be able to take charge of our life, and be the pilot of our life, and not let other people– or not think that other people have that ability to control that.

And this is what we’re talking about for this whole portion here, is taking responsibility for yourself and realizing that you have the control. So we deal with rejection, we deal with the possibility of offending somebody or making somebody upset with us if we try to do something on our own. But I think what that comes down to is just being sure of ourselves and understanding that we know our truth, and we know the solutions to the issues, and moving forward with confidence– and being aware.

One of the things that I’ve heard in the past is being aware or being conscious of everything around you– keeping your head up and looking around and making sure that you’re not getting stuck in the ruts, that you’re aware of the things around you that can bring you success or bring you danger. We’ve talked a little bit about that in the past as well– just keeping an open eye out for what you want, what are the things that can add to your final goal. But you have to be aware, and you have to have your eyes wide open for that.

RILEY BASS: Being aware and being self-reliant would make you be the cause, and not the effect.

CHRIS COX: He does put a really cool analogy in here about an earthquake, when we think about being the cause versus the effect. When you think about an earthquake, it’s a purely mechanical thing. It vibrates at a certain frequency, basically– a frequency that knocks down buildings– and it smashes cars and all that, but the earthquake can’t actually harm the air, because the air resides above the earthquake level.

So if you’re at a higher level of self-reliance and awareness, and you’ve done all this digging deep and learning about yourself, you’re more like the air in an earthquake. You’re above it. You see the problem, but you’re not really getting pulled down into it.

RILEY BASS: You’re in a hot air balloon above it.

CHRIS COX: Yeah, beautiful. Just romantically up there–

RILEY BASS: Watching the sunset.

CHRIS COX: Watching the sunset, and watching the whole coast of California go off into the Pacific.

RILEY BASS: Watching the world burn.

CHRIS COX: Sorry, California. But it’s going to happen. They’ve already said it. So that’s a big, huge part of this, as well, is not being affected by those things, but getting yourself in a hot air balloon, being up there and getting away from it and controlling what you can.

The other part is watching out for those negative people in your life that can bring you down.

RILEY BASS: Right.

CHRIS COX: He calls them the NIOPs.

RILEY BASS: I just want to make that into a rap song somehow.

CHRIS COX: NIOP!

RILEY BASS: Negative influence of other people. And man, everybody knows that person that’s the total Debbie Downer in every situation. And there’s just people that you are around, and they’re just toxic. And that’s what he’s talking about, is those people that just bring you down, and they’re negative– maybe not necessarily towards you, but just towards their own life. And being around that negativity just spreads, and you become affected by it.

CHRIS COX: Yeah, so you got to stay away from those NIOPs.

RILEY BASS: Those Negative Nancys.

CHRIS COX: Negative Nancys. Debbie Downers.

RILEY BASS: Poor Nancy and Debbie. They didn’t really do anything, and they always get categorized.

CHRIS COX: But again, like with the earthquake, these negative people are like the big crevices that open up in the ground. They can pull you down if you’re not paying attention. And then, at some point, you become one of those people. You become one of those people that are just–

RILEY BASS: Grr.

CHRIS COX: –everything’s horrible. Everything’s bad. I don’t want to be here anymore. And when you find yourself being that way at some point–

RILEY BASS: You got to get checked.

CHRIS COX: Yeah. What am I doing here? Why am I even bothering with this?

RILEY BASS: You’ve got to get it together, and listen to a couple episodes of the podcast, and then reset yourself.

[LAUGHTER]

CHRIS COX: Yes, that’s exactly right. Exactly right.

RILEY BASS: That’s the solution.

CHRIS COX: The real solution is just keeping your focus. I think that’s a big part of it– being aware, but also keeping your focus on your ultimate goal. Have you set goals yet? No. Then get after it. We have a podcast just for goal-setting.

RILEY BASS: That’s right. And if none of this works, then just give up.

CHRIS COX: That’s right.

RILEY BASS: Give up hope.

CHRIS COX: Give up hope and take action.

RILEY BASS: Yeah.

CHRIS COX: Actually, that’s the next topic.

RILEY BASS: I know. See what I did there?

CHRIS COX: I think what you did was a “seg-yoo.”

RILEY BASS: Yes.

CHRIS COX: That’s what those are called.

RILEY BASS: A “seg-yoo,” is what that’s called. [LAUGHS] That was a nice segue, Chris, into chapter 11.

CHRIS COX: Right. This is exactly what it is. Give up hope.

RILEY BASS: And take action.

CHRIS COX: Just to clarify, the end of the last thing that we said was give up, but don’t really give up. Keep trying. Keep going after it. But what you should do is give up hope. Why, Riley? Why should we give up hope?

RILEY BASS: Because you’re not going to get anywhere if you’re just hoping for something to happen. You have to take action and make it happen.

CHRIS COX: Hope is a funny thing. It reminds me of the– going to Nerdville here– Matrix Reloaded. Whenever Neo is in the Architect’s room, and he’s about to leave, and then the Architect– they have this long conversation. And then he’s about to leave, and he says, I hope you never see me again, or hope I never have to see you again. And the Architect says, hope– the quintessential human delusion. Source of your greatest strength and greatest weakness, or something like that.

RILEY BASS: Hmm.

CHRIS COX: But I think it’s pretty funny– not funny, but I think it relates to this, because we do talk about hope usually in a positive light, but sometimes hope is negative.

RILEY BASS: If you’re always just hoping that something’s going to happen and hoping that something is going to work out–

CHRIS COX: “Hh-oping.”

RILEY BASS: “Hh-oping.” You’re always going to be hoping and never doing. Just sitting there hoping something is going to happen is not going to make it happen. You have to actually get up and make it happen.

CHRIS COX: Yeah, and that really has a lot to do with what I envision as inertia. If you’re stuck on the couch watching an episode of something– Battlestar Galactica or Real Housewives, whichever one you like to watch.

RILEY BASS: Those are pretty opposite shows.

CHRIS COX: Well, we have a very wide audience here. Chances are you’re probably going to stick around and do one more episode of something, right?

RILEY BASS: They just automatically start in 17 seconds. It’s so easy.

CHRIS COX: Right. It’s about inertia. You stay– it’s that Law of Thermodynamics.

RILEY BASS: Objects on the couch stay on the couch.

CHRIS COX: Exactly. And then objects in motion tend to stay in motion. And then, of course, the third one is, unless all that’s acted upon to change it.

RILEY BASS: Wow. Way to throw back to old-school physics.

CHRIS COX: Oh, I know. Stupid.

RILEY BASS: Nerd.

CHRIS COX: Whatever. But it makes sense. I think it makes sense in this case, as far as action goes, and how we tend to work in life– especially these days, with infinite streaming capabilities. If you think of it that way, it’s really, really hard to get off the couch–

RILEY BASS: Mm-hmm.

CHRIS COX: –unless you’ve just been sitting there, or you need to take care of some biological things like eating lunch or whatever.

RILEY BASS: But here’s the difference between the people that are sitting on the couch watching Netflix and the people that are out there making changes is they have decided– maybe they were sitting on the couch watching Netflix a while ago, and they made that conscious decision, OK, after this next episode, I have to get up. It’s time to get up. It’s time to make a change.

And it’s OK if you’re anxious about making that change, and it’s OK if you have a little bit of anxiety, But how you handle that and how you continue to push forward is going to make the difference between people that are stuck on the couch and the people that are out there making changes.

CHRIS COX: When I was growing up– I don’t know if it was like this with you, but my parents put a time limit on how much we could– how long we could play on video games–

RILEY BASS: Yeah.

CHRIS COX: –Nintendo. And I don’t have those restrictions as an adult, so I could sit and play PlayStation for two or three hours without even worrying about it. But again, if you think about that idea of the inertia, our parents made us change what we were doing and force us to get off our butts to go play outside or whatever it is. Part of being self-reliant is growing up and maturing enough to be able to look at those things and say, this is what I need to do next.

And it’s harder to do the next thing unless you have the plan to do it. So if you wake up on a Saturday and say, today I’m going to Home Depot, and then maybe if we have some time I’ll go by Target, and then we’re going to go to the park or whatever it is– you have your plan for the day. So you know how one thing goes to the next, so you have the plan. But if you’re just like, eh, Saturday, whatever–

RILEY BASS: Right.

CHRIS COX: –pop on Netflix or Hulu, and then–

RILEY BASS: There goes the day.

CHRIS COX: –there goes your Saturday.

RILEY BASS: And then 48 hours later, you have to go back to work.

CHRIS COX: Exactly.

RILEY BASS: Dang it.

CHRIS COX: So you have to have that plan, and you have to know what you want to move forward. Otherwise, you’re just going to sit there and dig your rut in your couch, or even your desk chair. People are going to work to get in that rut. So listen to your intuition. Listen to where you’re trying to go, and that will help guide you, especially when it comes to real-life stuff.

RILEY BASS: And don’t just hear it and listen to it, but then act on it.

CHRIS COX: Dr. Robert Anthony, in his last chapter, talks about the greatest obstacle to happiness and how to overcome it. What do you think the greatest obstacle to happiness is?

RILEY BASS: The future.

CHRIS COX: The future. Is the future or biggest obstacle?

RILEY BASS: Well, I’m a little bit scared of the future. When you watch those movies, they keep getting closer and closer to the future, and we keep getting closer to those years where there are aliens, and hover cars, and–

CHRIS COX: I still want my hover cars. We’re supposed to have hover cars by now.

RILEY BASS: Well, yeah, but I don’t know about the aliens and stuff.

CHRIS COX: Yeah, but aliens aren’t in the future. They actually have been here with us for a while.

RILEY BASS: True.

CHRIS COX: Yeah, he says it’s this idea of the future, and how we’re doing all these things for something in our future– retirement, or having lost the weight in a year, or whatever it is. But we don’t really focus on the now.

RILEY BASS: We’re always looking at how we’re going to be happy tomorrow, and the next day, and in a year, and in five years. And we’re not looking at why are we– or why are we not– happy today, and what we need to do to change that. Whatever you’re being and thinking and living right now is what’s going to determine your happiness, and it’s going to determine how much time you spend worried about the future and what’s going to happen next.

CHRIS COX: We need to plan for the future and have our goals, but we have to live in the moment now. We have to do the things now that make us happy. Now, for some people, that’s like, well, I’m to go buy a new TV, or I’m going to go get this great car. That’ll make me happy. But that’s not really what he’s talking about, is it?

RILEY BASS: No, he’s talking about just living in personal happiness, and making sure that your mind and your spirit are aligned, and that you’re moving in a direction that makes you feel happy to be where you are.

CHRIS COX: And when we’re living in this present moment, the– what he says– the true source of experiencing joy lies in one act– discovering and following what excites us the most in any given moment each day, all day.

RILEY BASS: All day, err day.

CHRIS COX: All day, err day.

RILEY BASS: Right. Life’s a journey, and it’s really important to know where you want to end up, but it’s also important to enjoy every step along the way, and make sure you’re taking in the sights, and make sure you’re having fun on that road trip. We talked about a road trip a couple episodes ago, but it’s ringing true again. That’s what our life is, and we need to make sure that we are celebrating each step along the way.

CHRIS COX: Life is about the journey, not the destination. But I think this really exemplifies that, and the book as it talks about the present. We need to enjoy where we are, what we’re doing now. Find our happiness here, because at some point, we are going to get to our future self. And if our future self looks back and sees that we weren’t happy back then, when we really could have easily been happy if we’d have just looked at things differently, then we may feel like we might have wasted some time back there.

So we need to look at what brings us joy, and what will allow you to live your life joyfully. Helping people reconnect with their world through better hearing is one of those things that we do. And I think that it’s easy for us to be able to find joy in our everyday lives, because what we do is bringing joy to other people.

RILEY BASS: Well, and what’s awesome about what brings us joy is that it is what brings other people joy as well. So we get to see that reaction in them, but then they get to see that with their loved ones and their friends and families. And it’s cool. It multiplies as it goes out.

CHRIS COX: And there’s definitely people out there that have careers or have jobs that they have to really dig deep to find the joy– find the purpose for what they’re doing. And sometimes it’s contorted and weird. But if that works for them, then it works for them. And that’s what makes them happy, and that’s what makes them fulfilled. We’re fortunate enough to be in a profession where–

RILEY BASS: Ours is pretty easy.

CHRIS COX: Where it’s easy to find that joy, or should be easy to find that joy, because of the impact that we have on people around us now. I wanted to take this time to more discuss some of the things that we’re encountering and we’re seeing here in the current landscape professionally within audiology and other hearing care, because there’s a lot of things going on.

RILEY BASS: Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you know that there’s been a lot of changes and a lot of different things happening in our industry that have really been impacting all of us.

CHRIS COX: And lots of different opinions about things.

RILEY BASS: Oh my goodness, yes.

CHRIS COX: I think that this book is important in this time right now. And if you get a chance to read it, great, or hopefully this summary has helped you a little bit in some of this. But this really does come down to how we are looking at the profession, and what is it that we can get out of it that’s good?

There’s a lot of hand-wringing and fretting out there by a lot of different people– old and young– and I hope that you guys listening aren’t getting wrapped up in the negative way. I hope you’re not getting sucked into the earthquake crevices that are popping up all over the place. Find your hot air balloon.

RILEY BASS: Sail away into the sunset.

CHRIS COX: Well, no sail away. You definitely want to be a part of it. You don’t want to just walk away from audiology and say, see you guys later. But continue to be a part of it and be a part of the discussion. Even on the bigger scale, when we’ve talked about– when we look at the political arena in the United States as it has been unfolding for the past year, 18 months, whatever– there’s a lot of negativity going on there as well.

So take a look at yourself. What is it that you’re telling yourself? What is it that you’re believing about yourself? And how are you applying that to all these big things that are happening out there?

RILEY BASS: And just know– control the controllable. There’s a lot of things in our lives that we can’t do anything about, but how we react to them is going to directly impact our happiness and our level of thinking.

CHRIS COX: One of the differences between successful people and unsuccessful people is how successful people handle change–

RILEY BASS: Mm-hmm.

CHRIS COX: –and how they look at it and deal with it and use that change to improve their outlook and creatively work around the problems that can come around because of that. So I implore you to do the same thing with what’s coming across the table here with the over-the-counter hearing devices, and dropping of licensure regulations in certain states, and seemingly the erosion– that some people are saying– the erosion of our value as audiologists. Your value is what you make and what you deem your value is, not what someone else puts a price on.

RILEY BASS: Your value is what you make it, and if that wasn’t the case, then there would not be so many practice owners that are out there being successful right now. And people would all be just buying cheapy little piece apps off the internet. But practices are alive. They’re thriving. They’re growing year over year, despite all of this other negativity that’s going on, because those practice owners are believing that this doesn’t affect them, and they can control what they can control, and they’re using a lot of the techniques we’ve been talking about in this book to keep that positive attitude and keep moving, and it’s showing with their success.

CHRIS COX: If you’re a student or you’re within the first few years out of being an audiologist, this is an exciting time. You’re coming into something different and new than what most people in the profession have seen over the last 15, 20 years. For me, I’m excited because we got a lot of potential to do a lot of really great things with the demographics that are changing, with the technology that’s just advancing every year to being something cooler, and cooler, and cooler.

So I am excited. I’m happy for what’s in front of us, and I look at all these changes as just changes. They’re things that are happening, and we can’t control a lot of what’s going on. But if we take it, and we roll with it, and we make the best of it and thrive with it, then that’s the best thing that we can do to show others that it’s not a big deal. Ain’t no thing.

RILEY BASS: Absolutely.

CHRIS COX: Let’s worry about what we can worry about, and not worry about the other things.

RILEY BASS: Exactly. And you know what that means, Chris?

CHRIS COX: What does that mean? We have officially completed Beyond Positive Thinking on the podcast.

CHRIS COX: Yay! We have gotten our first book done.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

RILEY BASS: So we hope you guys enjoyed this four-part podcast that we put together for you. We really wanted to bring you the information from this book, but like I said, we understand that sometimes it’s hard to read books outside of your normal curriculum, especially when you’re still in school or just getting started with your career.

CHRIS COX: It’s hard for me to read books, period.

RILEY BASS: Yeah.

CHRIS COX: I can’t even read.

RILEY BASS: Yeah, I actually had to read the book to Chris for him–

CHRIS COX: It was nice. It’s what we did during lunch breaks.

RILEY BASS: So thank you guys so much for listening. If you are interested in obtaining a copy of this book, let us know. We can probably get one sent out to you. As always, give us some feedback. We are excited to hear from you guys. Take care.

CHRIS COX: Thank you so much. Bye-bye.

Beyond Positive Thinking (Part 3)

By

Chris Cox and Riley Bass host the pAuDcast

On today’s show, Chris Cox Au.D., and Riley Bass Au.D. continue their series on Beyond Positive Thinking by Robert Anthony.

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We are back with another exciting edition of our book series on Beyond Positive Thinking by Dr. Robert Anthony. We’re going to spend this episode talking about programming your mind for the best and techniques for imprinting. So all of that thinking that we did in the last episode, we’re actually going to put down onto paper and get a plan in action.

CHRIS COX: (IMITATING ROBOT) You have to program your mind.

RILEY BASS: Are you a robot?

CHRIS COX: I’m trying to be a robot. I’m doing the moves right now. No one can see me doing the movies right now, but–

RILEY BASS: I can see you, and you’re doing a really good job of being a robot.

CHRIS COX: Thank you.

RILEY BASS: Congratulations.

CHRIS COX: I always wanted to be a robot.

RILEY BASS: I’m glad that you’ve programmed your mind to be a robot, and you’re doing a really good job.

CHRIS COX: Thanks. I was thinking positively about it, and then I thought beyond it.

RILEY BASS: All right. So there’s an equation for programming your mind.

CHRIS COX: a plus i plus e equals s.

RILEY BASS: Perfect. That makes sense.

CHRIS COX: So that’s it. That’s all you’ve got to do.

RILEY BASS: OK. Bye, guys.

CHRIS COX: So we’re looking specifically in the– back on our book, Beyond Positive Thinking, Chapter 6. It discusses a certain formula to help you program your mind for the best. Again, we were talking earlier about the self-image that we have and how we talk to ourselves about what our future looks like, and our attitudes about being happy, or whatever it is. And then writing down those goals and making them come out in the real world from being– just living inside your brain.

So let’s break down what those different letters that we just said are. Why don’t you go through that for us?

RILEY BASS: A for affirmation. Affirmations the ideas and thoughts that reflect our quality of life. If we raise the quality of our thoughts, we will raise the quality of our life.

Imagery. Imagery is the conscious process that has pre-determined attitudes and beliefs that are used to support achieving a certain end result or goal. So imagining– closing your eyes and taking a step back and thinking, how am I going to reach this goal? What does that success look like?

CHRIS COX: And it’s different from daydreams. Because a lot of times, we sit there and think about, oh, what would it be like to be on a boat, and own a boat, or whatever it is. And we think about it in this daydreamy sort of thought, this really non-substantive thought. It really has nothing behind it.

The idea behind visualization is to– the imagery, I guess, is really what this I stands for. But the idea behind the imagery or visualization is to really see the picture of what your affirmations are telling you– see the picture of that goal, see the picture of what it could look like if dot dot dot.

RILEY BASS: So if the affirmation is you owning a private practice, then you need to visualize yourself in that role and visualize yourself being in that position.

CHRIS COX: And the last part of that–

RILEY BASS: Emotion. You’ve got to have feelings.

CHRIS COX: You have to have feelings. Otherwise, you are a robot. Right?

RILEY BASS: Right.

CHRIS COX: So what we do with that imagery is we have to attach the emotion to it. What would it look like if I owned a practice.

RILEY BASS: Not just what would it look like, but how would I feel.

CHRIS COX: Exactly. So that’s the next part of it. So what would it look like if I owned a practice is the imagery part. How would it feel to own a practice? How would it feel to have a staff? How would it feel to impact the community? That is the emotional part that you have to be able to make a change in what your mind state is and your self-image.

And all that equals–

RILEY BASS: Success.

CHRIS COX: Success. So the affirmation part is huge. That really has a lot to do with, again, that positive thinking. And it really comes down to– the book talks about the self-talk. How are we talking to ourselves? Are we calling ourselves idiots and dummies, and worthless POS and all that? Or are we affirming good things about ourselves and encouraging ourselves from the inside to be– go after it more, do better in a positive way?

And that imagery is the same thing. How are we looking at that? And we really have to sit down and think about this stuff. And if you can’t attach the emotion to it, then you’re– it actually gives statistics in here about how successful you could be without any of the either affirmation, imagery, or emotion. And you really have to have all three of these things for you to be able to find that success.

And the other part of it is that– I think it’s interesting that he says it here– but where he provides no known benefit. It cannot change what will happen tomorrow, but it can weaken your faith and cripple your actions, destroy your inner peace of mind, and make you feel powerless.

RILEY BASS: That’s not good.

CHRIS COX: You never worry about anything, Riley?

RILEY BASS: Sometimes I worry about stuff.

CHRIS COX: I don’t ever worry about anything.

RILEY BASS: I worry about looking like an idiot sometimes.

CHRIS COX: Hey, hey, hey, watch that self-talk.

RILEY BASS: But what I do know is that the cornerstone of all of this, and what makes all of this work, is belief. And if you have a positive belief, then you know that you are able to achieve what you’re looking for. That’s one of the things that we talk about all the time and is one of the key words that I think you hear around here at Audigy, is belief and raising your belief. Because if you don’t have the belief that you can do these things, then you can’t. And if you believe that you can, then you can.

CHRIS COX: It comes back to that river of life concept. If you believe that you can bring something or take something from a river that’s bigger than a thimble, then you can do that. And you will be able to get more out of life because of that belief.

So that’s how you can work on changing your self-image. That’s how you can work on getting these things in your head intentionally and start growing this idea of what your destiny and your future can look like.

If we look at the next bit here, he talks about imprinting and techniques for imprinting. What is imprinting?

RILEY BASS: Well, it is basically deciding to do something– that it’s often not going to automatically happen just because you say I want to do this. You have to actually think it, out and write it down, and put it into concrete evidence that that’s what it is that you’re trying to achieve.

CHRIS COX: It’s one of those things– we made a joke about last time about when a duck hatches, and it sees a chicken and thinks it’s its mom. It’s like that first idea of– for the duck or for– I think it’s just fowl in general, they imprint on their parents– whoever they see first, or whoever is there when they hatch, then they imprint on them.

RILEY BASS: It works for humans, too.

CHRIS COX: Does it really?

RILEY BASS: Yeah. If a duck sees a human first, then it– so you could get a baby duck egg and hatch it. And if you’re the first thing it sees, it will think that you are its parent.

CHRIS COX: Right. Well, I knew that. I was just meaning that– I don’t think– I thought you were saying that humans do the same thing whenever they hatch.

RILEY BASS: No. Ducks will think that humans are their parents.

CHRIS COX: Right. Yeah. And I’ve seen– actually, I had a little pet duck once. His name was Henry.

RILEY BASS: Did it think you were its dad?

CHRIS COX: Yeah. We watched TV together. It was great.

RILEY BASS: That’s actually the cutest thing I’ve ever heard.

CHRIS COX: Yeah. Sad story, though.

RILEY BASS: What was his favorite show? Duck Tales?

CHRIS COX: That would have been hilarious. That would have been on at the time. We only had, like, two channels at the time.

Anyway, imprinting is a deliberate control of our thoughts and pictures concerning the kind of changes we want to make.

RILEY BASS: And making the decision to make some kind of change or set something into motion is only the first step. Once you decide to do it, that’s great. But I’ve made a lot of decisions in my life that I have never carried out until I actually buckled down and wrote them out.

CHRIS COX: The second part of it is you picture the end result. So you write your intention statement, which is basically a goal. You picture the end result, and then you feel the emotion that goes along with accomplishing the goal.

Going back to that formula that we talked about earlier with affirmation–

RILEY BASS: Imagery.

CHRIS COX: Emotion.

RILEY BASS: Equals success.

CHRIS COX: This is how you’re doing it. This is how you get to that point.

So your affirm your goal with an intention statement. And this is just a statement of fact or belief that is written out in a personal, positive, present tense form as though the goal were already a reality. I have a donut.

RILEY BASS: There it is.

CHRIS COX: Now I don’t have a donut. I intend to have a donut, though.

RILEY BASS: I wish I could have a donut.

CHRIS COX: Yeah. You’re on that weird diet.

RILEY BASS: But I made a conscious change and wrote down and went to the grocery store and planned out to do this Whole 30 diet. And I am serious, and I’m not cheating on it, and I’m staying true to it.

CHRIS COX: That is a bigger thing than I could ever do, and it’s impressive that you’re actually buckling down and doing that.

RILEY BASS: I’m literally having dreams about marshmallows, just eating handfuls of marshmallows right now.

CHRIS COX: With everything you could dream about, it’s marshmallows?

RILEY BASS: I don’t know. And I like marshmallows, but not that much, not I’m like, ooh, marshmallows.

CHRIS COX: Your subconscious is trying to tell something.

RILEY BASS: Right. So no donuts.

CHRIS COX: We’ve talked about this before as far as goals go. When you write down your intentions, you’re really programming your subconscious to look at that and force it to see what you really want to do. And your subconscious mind, as the book says, isn’t different to that. It will move to what you believe. So if you believe negatively, it will sway negative. If you believe positively, it will sway positively.

Step 2 is picture the end result. You picture an experience in your mind, the accomplishment of that end result. What’s it going to look like? What’s it going to look like, Riley, when you get done with that 30-day crazy diet of yours?

RILEY BASS: Hopefully, it will look like I don’t want to eat marshmallows anymore, that I would rather eat carrots or broccoli.

CHRIS COX: That sounds like such a great replacement for marshmallows.

RILEY BASS: I know, right?

CHRIS COX: I’m sorry to try to make you fall off. I think that’s a great visualization of what this could do for you, Riley.

RILEY BASS: Thank you.

CHRIS COX: Picturing that end result.

And then the third part is the emotion. What’s it going to be like for you when you get to that point and you’re hitting your goals for whatever your goals are?

RILEY BASS: I’m going to be in great shape. And I am not going to use half a cup of coffee creamer in my coffee anymore.

CHRIS COX: So that coffee creamer is in the fridge. Can I use that, then?

RILEY BASS: Yes.

CHRIS COX: Cool. You’re not going to using it at all for a while.

RILEY BASS: No.

CHRIS COX: All right. So what’s that going to be like for you?

RILEY BASS: Well, those first 30 days are hard. I’ll tell you that much.

CHRIS COX: But once you accomplish it, what’s that going to be like for you?

RILEY BASS: I think it’s going to be pretty rewarding. I’m looking forward to the day that that finishes, and I can make some more goals from there.

CHRIS COX: I’m trying to get an emotion out of you. Rewarding and looking forward to isn’t quite an emotion. What’s an emotion that you’ll have with that?

RILEY BASS: Relief.

CHRIS COX: Relief, OK. I’m digging in deep here. I’m digging in here deep in some PFL, Patients For Life questions. What’s it going to be like for you when you achieve your goal?

RILEY BASS: It’s going to be very satisfying. I’m going to be very happy with myself once I accomplish that goal. We always set these goals to eat healthier and be healthier. And this is something to kickstart that that I think I can really be proud to do and proud to say I did.

CHRIS COX: You’re going to be happy. You’re going to be accomplished. You’re going to feel proud.

RILEY BASS: And I’m going to feel relief.

CHRIS COX: And relief as well, because you’ll be done with it.

RILEY BASS: And I’m going to eat some ice cream and some marshmallows.

CHRIS COX: Is that going to be your celebratory thing, is ice cream and marshmallows?

RILEY BASS: Maybe. I don’t know.

CHRIS COX: So you can see how you can use this to solidify your intentions. And it’s just these three things to create that success, as we were talking about with that equation.

The intention statement is surprisingly not complicated, but there’s a lot of things that he talks about here on how to create a good intention statement. Because people can say things, and they can intend to do things, but it may not necessarily be in alignment with either what their final goal is, or it’s not specific enough, or it’s too specific.

So there are 12 things that he talks about. And we’re not going to go through each of the 12 things. But we’re going to– we’ll read them all out, but we’re not going to get into depth with each one of them. Let’s look at some of these guidelines for creating powerful intention statements.

I think the first thing that he mentions here is talking about the nega-tags. It’s basically the negative things that you can add on to the back end of your intentions statements that can negate the positive spin that you’re looking to do with those intention statements.

Let’s look at a couple of examples, and then we can go through and talk about these 12 different guidelines for it. It is my intention to forgive everyone.

It is my intention to allow myself to make mistakes. It is my intention to love myself unconditionally, no matter how many mistakes I make. He’s got a bunch of them here. But these are just what they look like or what they sound like.

It is my intention to believe that I create my own experience. And they all start with “it is my intention.” He says that that’s important to say that as opposed to just saying what you want to do just plainly. If you put “my intention,” or “it is my intention to,” et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, it gives you this ability to have it both be present, meaning in the present tense, but also gives you that ability to look forward with that intention.

So if we look at these– we’ll go through these really quickly. But number one on here–

RILEY BASS: Your intention statement must be in the present tense.

CHRIS COX: Two, your intention statement must state what you want, not what you don’t want. Number three is–

RILEY BASS: Your intention statement must be specific.

CHRIS COX: Number four is your intention statement must use words that trigger feeling and emotion. That’s a key when we’re talking about that success.

RILEY BASS: Like donuts.

CHRIS COX: Mmm.

RILEY BASS: Boats.

CHRIS COX: Boats, donuts. That sounds like a good party.

RILEY BASS: What if you had a boat made of donuts?

CHRIS COX: I don’t know if I would ever sail on it.

RILEY BASS: It would probably sink. Or you would eat it.

CHRIS COX: Number five.

RILEY BASS: Your intention statement should focus on the best possible outcome.

CHRIS COX: Number six– your intention statement must be a positive statement.

RILEY BASS: Number seven– your intention statement must be personal.

CHRIS COX: Your intention statement must not make comparisons, number eight.

RILEY BASS: Right. Number nine– your intention statement must be believable.

CHRIS COX: Number 10– your intentions must create balance.

RILEY BASS: Your intention statement must conform to the secrecy principle.

CHRIS COX: And just as a quick aside, what is the secrecy principle?

RILEY BASS: It means keeping your goals to yourself. If you tell other people, most likely, they will discourage you or try to stop you.

CHRIS COX: And number 12– the intention statement insurance policy.

RILEY BASS: It’s knowing that you are willing to accept, at the minimum, whatever your intention statement is, but knowing that you’re also willing to accept something even better.

CHRIS COX: So intend to have a glazed donut. But if I happen to get a chocolate donut with sprinkles, then–

RILEY BASS: You’re accepting that.

CHRIS COX: I’m accepting of that.

Those are some of the 12 guidelines there for imprinting or creating your intentions statements. And that goes to help you imprint better what you’re trying to do and solidify that to where you can find some success. We’re looking at that formula again.

RILEY BASS: Right. And one that I want to go back to of those techniques is the one about competition. We don’t need to compete. Whenever we’re competing against other people, it’s directly as a reflection of our own poor self-image.

So like we talked about earlier, if you have that negative self-image and you’re not looking at yourself favorably, then you’re going to want to compete with people to show that you are better than them. But really, the only person you’re in competition with is yourself.

So take that factor out and strive for excellence. If everybody is working together, we’re going to achieve a lot more. And that’s especially true in the hearing health care industry. There’s so much competition out there between everybody, and all these different markets for patients to obtain hearing technology, and all these different scenarios that are just at each other’s throats, almost, competing for their little piece of the pie.

And instead of competing against each other and creating this turmoil, if we would figure out a way to unite and work together, we could definitely impact a lot more lives, we could help a lot more patients, and we could achieve a lot more as a profession.

CHRIS COX: That competition is healthy in the business world. But at the same time, when we’re fighting over, like you said, the small piece of the pie when there’s actually a whole lot more pie out there for us to get, then it can be easier for us to focus on that positive, focus on the cooperation and collaboration in our community as opposed to competing.

Because sometimes, that competition, in the sense that you’re talking about, isn’t healthy. Because it makes us feel worse about ourselves or worse about our situation when we really just need to be looking at what we’re doing and how we’re comparing ourselves from, say, the past performance.

RILEY BASS: Let’s talk about some money.

CHRIS COX: I think it’s important that he talks about money in this, and wealth and how important money is to everybody. Because it could be very easy to go around a discussion about money and finances when you’re talking about positive thinking and going– looking at your goals and all that type of stuff. But he definitely acknowledges in one of the chapters that money is something that we are all going to have to deal with, good or bad, like it or not.

RILEY BASS: And I always think it’s interesting when we ask a group of students who got an Audiology to make money, to make a lot of money. No one ever raises their hands. And I understand the desire to help people in that. But there’s nothing wrong with being financially stable and having money to support your lifestyle and to help build your empire of whatever Audiology thing you’re going to do.

But it’s not something that you need to be scared of. And it’s not something that you need to be scared to admit. I want to enjoy the finer things in life, like donuts. I want to be able to afford to go out for donuts in 24 days.

CHRIS COX: You’re not counting down or anything.

RILEY BASS: Not that I’m counting. But there’s that quality of life that you do want to have. Obviously, that’s not where happiness comes from. But there’s also some comfort things that you may desire, and that’s OK. It’s not a bad thing to be financially stable and to be financially well off, even.

CHRIS COX: And he once again asks you to look at yourself. If you’ve had financial issues for all your life, then chances are maybe you’re not good at managing money. Maybe you need to change the way you look at money. Maybe you need to change the way that you approach what you have as opposed to constantly trying to strive for more. And I think it’s super important that he talks about, again, looking inwardly at yourself and being happy with what you do have.

RILEY BASS: Whenever you’re feeling down and out about what belongings you have, there’s always somebody that’s looking at your life, wishing that they had the things you had.

CHRIS COX: And that’s huge. And we have to acknowledge that in what we do. Some of you out there that are listening have come from maybe not so luxurious upbringings. Some of you may have. And to every single person out there, there’s somebody that’s looking at you as somebody who’s got more than they do, just like we look sometimes at people out there with the big houses and the big boats as having more than we do.

If you want that, you can go get it. Go for it. This is talking about believing in yourself and achieving those goals if that’s what you want to do. But it’s also trying to tell us to ground ourselves, and being happy with what we do have, and acknowledging that we exist in this spectrum of people with haves.

The other part that I think is important is that he talks about being able to receive things. Some of us may not be super excited about receiving certain things, because it feels weird. But he says that if we learn to receive things freely, just by saying thank you– not trying to turn it down, not trying to make a big scene out of it, but just being able to receive things– then it will allow us to be able to find more wealth and be able to give away even more in the future.

But there’s always going to be risks. With financial situations, there’s always going to be risk. And we have to be aware of that by looking inwardly at how we manage our money, how we think about money, being satisfied with where we are, and understanding that there’s a give and take when it comes to money, and using it in the right way in the world.

All right. So that wraps up this episode. We talked today about programming your mind for the best.

RILEY BASS: And some techniques for imprinting

CHRIS COX: Quack quack. Along with the importance of money and how that figures into your future and your goals.

RILEY BASS: It’s not a scary thing. It’s OK.

CHRIS COX: It’s just about achieving your financial desires. That’s really what it is.

RILEY BASS: I want to have a boat full of donuts.

CHRIS COX: No. I intend to have a boat full of donuts. That’s how you say it.

RILEY BASS: Thank you for reminding me of exactly what we’ve been talking about this episode.

CHRIS COX: You’re welcome. That’s why I’m here, Riley.

RILEY BASS: I intend to have a boat full of donuts.

CHRIS COX: But you won’t, because you’re on a diet. So good luck with that. All right. We’re out.

Beyond Positive Thinking (Part 2)

By

Chris Cox and Riley Bass host the pAuDcast

On today’s show, Chris Cox Au.D., and Riley Bass Au.D. continue their series on Beyond Positive Thinking by Robert Anthony. Did you miss part 1 of the series? If so, go back and listen to Beyond Positive Thinking (Part 1) first!

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RILEY BASS: Welcome back to the podcast. We spent last week talking a little bit about the opening to the book Beyond Positive Thinking, and we want to dive a little bit deeper into that and really kind of look at the clinical applications, as well as life applications of this book.

CHRIS COX: Like real-life applications?

RILEY BASS: Like real life, not–

CHRIS COX: Like IRL?

RILEY BASS: IRL, not fake life.

CHRIS COX: Right. Yeah, it’s a good book we’ve talked about before, and one that we’re happy to be able to highlight here for you. So let’s get into it. One thing that we wanted to talk about here, that was a truism in the last chapter, this idea of the river of life.

RILEY BASS: Sounds like The Lion King.

CHRIS COX: Is that The Lion King?

RILEY BASS: That’s The Circle of Life. But the they probably drink from the river of life.

CHRIS COX: Yeah, my guess is they also drink from regular river.

RILEY BASS: No, river of life.

CHRIS COX: OK. Well, we’ll just agree to disagree on that one. So the idea, the overall idea around the basis of the book, is that life is kind of indifferent to us. It just happens, you know, and if you think of it like a river, it just flows. And we can dip into the river of life with a teaspoon, with a thimble, with a bucket, with a barrel, whatever it is, to get as much out of life as we can.

RILEY BASS: With an inflatable kiddie pool?

CHRIS COX: Or, yeah, that’s another one you could use.

RILEY BASS: It’s pretty big. You can hold a lot of river of life water in a kiddie pool.

CHRIS COX: And just swim in the river of life kiddie pool.

RILEY BASS: Exactly.

CHRIS COX: But yeah, that’s the idea. And a lot of the times, we have a smaller idea of what our life can bring us, or what life can bring us. And there’s some out there that they go full force and take a bigger chunk out of life, so to speak.

So how do we get that bigger yield from dipping our barrel into the river of life?

RILEY BASS: You think positively.

CHRIS COX: Yeah, anything beyond thinking positively.

RILEY BASS: You can’t just think positively at the river of life. You have to go beyond the positive thinking.

CHRIS COX: But keep in the back of your mind as you’re listening to this, and as you’re going through either your studies or you’re going through your big person job now. Big boy, big girl. And think about what you’re doing with this river of life. Are you are you coming to it with a thimble, or are you coming to it with a barrel?

A lot of this really has to do with you, and your perception of you, and what you think is the truth. As they talk about, your truth is your truth, and it doesn’t matter if it’s real or if it’s right or not. It’s your truth, positive or negative.

RILEY BASS: Whatever you tell yourself is true, is what you are innately going to believe. So if you tell yourself that, I don’t know, ghosts are real, then ghosts are going to be real to you.

CHRIS COX: And if that thing falls off the counter in the middle of the night–

RILEY BASS: It’s a ghost.

CHRIS COX: –it’s a ghost. Not just your cat. I mean, it could be your cat, but you believe in ghosts.

RILEY BASS: Might be a ghost cat.

CHRIS COX: So if you believe in ghosts, then maybe things around you that happen you can attribute to ghosts. But if you think of it more a professional manner, what could we relate that to?

RILEY BASS: If you think that you are going to fail at something, and you go into a new job or a new endeavor with a negative outlook on it, then it’s probably going to go negatively. If you are scared of the idea of opening a private practice because you think I’m going to fail at it, then you will fail at it. But if you come into this situation, and you say, I’m going to do everything I can to make this work, I believe that I’m going to be successful, I’m going to have the most amazing audiology clinic in my community and in my state, then you can do it. There’s nobody that’s stopping you and telling you that you can’t do it except for you.

CHRIS COX: Exactly. You’re your own limitations. And whenever you think about yourself in smaller adjectives like I’m not good enough, or I’m too timid, or that’s not my thing, it does put that limit on you. And it really comes down to self-image. And that self-image has been created and refined by ourselves over all these experiences we’ve had of our life. And that self-image can be good or can be bad. And that self-image can help us find happiness or it can, as the book says, it can tyrannized our life.

So we have to be deliberate in how we’re seeing ourselves and how we view ourselves, because that’s where it starts. That’s where all of this starts, is our own perception and our own self-image, and how we relate to the world. So many of us are in spots that maybe we don’t want to be in. Whether you’re either in school or you’re out working, you may be in a job that you kind of feel is a rut, or maybe you’ve kind of felt that way about a lot of different things over the years, and it just seems to be following you that you’re not exactly where you want to be, and you’re not doing exactly what you want to do.

RILEY BASS: And the way to really get out of that situation and to get to a place where you are where you want to be is 100% related to your perception of yourself and your self-image.

CHRIS COX: So maybe it has something to do with you that all these things aren’t working out right.

RILEY BASS: It’s not just bad luck?

Our self-image is really the culmination of all of our thoughts and attitudes and opinions, and everything that has happened to us since our childhood. And it creates this picture of who we are in our minds. And it goes along with you’re your own worst enemy. And a lot of times, even just arbitrarily in day to day life, if somebody compliments you on something, it’s always you go towards that self-deprecation of, you know, whatever, it’s nothing, instead of really realizing that I do have the strength. Not like somebody would say, Chris, you’re really smart, and you be like, yeah, I am really smart.

CHRIS COX: Thanks.

RILEY BASS: I don’t know if that’s a good example, but obviously, practice humility in everything that you do. But a lot of times we focus on the negative things rather than the positive, and then we create this negative self-image of our self that limits us from reaching our full potential.

The good news about this is even if you in the past have been guilty of having somewhat of a negative self-image of yourself, you can change the image of yourself. And you can really work to find the better in yourself. And once you change that self-image and once you begin to evolve it and work really hard to see yourself in that more positive light, the results are going to follow.

Our behavior is just an automatic to whatever our self-image is. So we don’t really control that, and it’s very hard to overcome those natural behaviors whenever you are in that negative mindset.

CHRIS COX: Especially when you’re not really thinking about it that way. We have these thoughts sometimes that just enter our brains and we don’t intentionally do anything with them. We just let them sit in there and they can rot our brains or they can make our lives happier. But when you’re intentional about the things you think about, the things that you want to accomplish, then all of that starts to kind of restructure your brain and your desire to move towards those directions.

And we’ll talk about that here in just a second. The book definitely lines out some tips for changing that self-image.

Something that I just thought about is something that you and I talk about, Riley, and what we call Riley luck.

RILEY BASS: Oh.

[LAUGHING]

CHRIS COX: Seems like you have the worst luck ever with everything.

RILEY BASS: I do. Despite all of that, I tend to try and have a positive mindset. But–

CHRIS COX: You do. Despite all of that, you have a positive mindset. But there are just all of these things known as Riley luck–

RILEY BASS: Right.

CHRIS COX: –where if it’s going to go wrong, it’s going to.

RILEY BASS: Wrecking rental cars in other states, and getting shingles, and if anybody is sick in the entire building or even thinks about it, I get sick, too.

CHRIS COX: Automatically. It could be a person on a totally different side of the building.

RILEY BASS: So yeah. But I don’t let it get me down. I don’t go through life as Eeyore the sad donkey, just like, OK, bad things are going to happen. I try to stay positive and go through it a little bit lightheartedly. But yes, Riley luck is a real thing.

CHRIS COX: Sure is. There’s some of that stuff that you can’t control, obviously, and one of the things that we say around here a lot is control the controllable and don’t worry about everything else. Being sick and all that is just going to happen, right? But keeping that positive attitude is key for being able to get through all of it.

Another thing the book talks about is this idea of believing is seeing. We’re used to hearing, seeing is believing. But it’s really the opposite of that. You have to believe first and then you see the path before you. And that’s really talking more about the goals that you have for yourself, and believing that you can achieve those. Once you’re able to line out in front of you what you want, then you start to see the pieces that you need to construct that vision for yourself.

RILEY BASS: Right. If you wait to see something before you believe in it, you’re always going to be waiting, because you have to go out there and make it happen for you to be able to see it. So if you’re always waiting, I’ll believe it when I see it, then you’re always going to be waiting for something to happen. So quit waiting and make it happen.

CHRIS COX: How do you go about doing that? How do you go about taking action?

RILEY BASS: Setting goals and writing down, especially smart goals which we’ve talked about on this podcast. And saying, in order to achieve my overall goal of, for example, opening a private practice, I need to do A, B and C along the way, and that’s going to help me get the abilities and the skills that I know that I’m going to need. It’s going to give me the confidence that I need, and it’s going to physically set me up in a situation where I’m able to have a private practice. Maybe figuring out your setting and your strategy for acquiring a practice and stuff.

So it’s both physical and mental, and emotional and spiritual belief in setting those goals into alignment and figuring it out.

CHRIS COX: All those aspects, the three aspects you’re talking about, that you have to have those aligned to be able to reach those goals. You have to have them down on paper, you have to right them out, you have to make them real. It’s about having that thing in your mental world come out into the physical world.

In the book, it talks about this creation process. And there’s this model of being, doing, having. And that the universe flows from being into doing, and then into having. So if you break that down, what it means is that if you’re, well, he talks about being happy. And this discussion about success ethic, in the sense that if you have the things that happy and satisfied people have, you will do what happy and satisfied people do, and then he will be happy and satisfied.

But what he’s saying is that’s not actually true. What happens is that life goes from being to doing to having. If you’re being happy and satisfied from the inside out, so he’s talking about all of this comes from the inside out, you’ll start doing what happy and satisfied people do. And then you will have what happy and satisfied people have.

RILEY BASS: s is money, right?

CHRIS COX: Cars and boats, million dollar houses all over the place.

RILEY BASS: I know money is a super arbitrary thing to mention, but when you think about that, you see all the time that there’s these millionaires, billionaires that aren’t happy, that are miserable people, that are lonely, that don’t have anything in their life that actually makes them happy. Whereas you see people that don’t have as much, and are living in maybe not quite so nice of homes and driving as nice of vehicles and don’t have those physical things that you associate with, if I had a boat I would be happy. But if you are happy from the inside out, then you’re going to be happy whether you have a boat or not. A boat’s just going to make you even more happy. Because everybody likes boats.

RILEY BASS: It’s huge. And you’re right on with that. That happiness, it has to come from being happy. It has come from that part of it, from the inside out. And from there, the rest of it cascades.

So when we look at writing your own script and creating your own goals, this idea of the being, doing, having concept is something to keep in mind. Because you don’t become something by having something, you have that something because you’ve become whatever it is that you’re looking at, whatever it is that you do.

And that is good or bad. The same goes with negative. If you’re being a negative person, or if you’re being dissatisfied with things, you won’t be doing the things that happy people do or that successful people do. And therefore, you you’re yielding the negative aspects of that attitude.

RILEY BASS: Right.

CHRIS COX: Being conscientious of what state of mind you’re in is super important in looking into the future for what you’re trying to do.

RILEY BASS: Exactly. And one thing that’s easy to think of is going to work every day. You want to go work in a place where every day you know that you’re going to make an impact and you’re going to do something awesome that day. And not just, like, oh, I don’t go to work today.

I mean, yeah, I get it, sometimes your bed is all warm and snugly and you just want to stay there and watch TV in bed all day. But you do have to get up and go to work. But I know that there’s never been a day where I’ve just dreaded going to a job. And if there ever was a day that I felt like that, and I was just dreading it, I either left that job or I would leave that job if it was a situation I was put into.

So looking at each day and thinking about, am I going to choose positivity and choose happiness today, or am I going to start the day off where the first thing out of my mouth, or the first thing I think of is, I don’t want to do work today, I don’t want to go to work. Make sure that you’re not in that situation. And if you are, you need to really re-evaluate what type of changes you can make to change that about yourself.

CHRIS COX: Happiness comes from the inside, but it doesn’t mean that things on the outside can’t affect that. And especially in a negative situation with bad work experience or bad work environment. They can really grate. If it gets to the point to where you’re not able to be happy because of where you work, then maybe it’s time to look somewhere else, for someplace that not necessarily you’re expecting is going to bring you happiness, but at least won’t impede your pursuit for you being happy.

RILEY BASS: Good news about being an audiologist is we are in high demand, and there is an exorbitant amount of opportunity out there available for us. So if you’re ever in a position where you feel like you’re truly not happy, do something about it.

CHRIS COX: One of my favorite things in the book is this quote here. “Go after what you want, but enjoy the trip. Life is a journey, not a destination. Know that when you get what you want, it will not change who you are at the being level. So enjoy yourself, love yourself unconditionally, and participate in the trip.”

This reminds me of traveling as a kid. My dad is somebody who likes to go from point A to point B as quick as possible, drive through the night, all that. And then I found out, as I got older, I’m more of the journey type of person, who likes to stop by and check out things to do, random excursions, and all that, on the way to whatever I’m doing.

It’s two different ways of looking at travel. But for my dad, it was more important to get to the destination, for whatever reason, and for me, I wanted to get to the destination, but also wanted to see things along the way and enjoy the trip, and enjoy the journey and where it can take me, because there’s so much out there that you can miss.

So I think it goes hand-in-hand with what we’re talking about here. Have your goals and have your intentions, but also–

RILEY BASS: But don’t forget to stop and see the world’s largest ball of yarn along the way.

CHRIS COX: Exactly.

[LAUGHING]

RILEY BASS: So next time, we’re going to talk a little bit more about programming your mind for the best, and some techniques for imprinting.

CHRIS COX: What is imprinting? Is that when a duck gets out of the egg and sees a chicken and thinks that’s its mom?

RILEY BASS: Yes. Just kidding. Tune in next time to find out what it actually is.

Beyond Positive Thinking (Part 1)

By

Chris Cox and Riley Bass host the pAuDcast

On today’s show, Chris Cox Au.D., and Riley Bass Au.D. become bookworms! Beyond Positive Thinking by Robert Anthony is required reading at Audigy, and Chris and Riley give you their notes on this truly impactful book. This is the start of a 4 part series so make sure to listen to all 4 parts!

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Read the transcript:

CHRIS COX: Riley?

RILEY BASS: Chris?

CHRIS COX: You ready?

RILEY BASS: I’m always ready.

CHRIS COX: We can do this.

RILEY BASS: I was born ready.

CHRIS COX: I believe in you. You can do this. We can do this.

RILEY BASS: We can do this together.

CHRIS COX: We can do this together. Hi guys. Welcome back. We believe– we have such positive thinking going on right now that we can do this. Whatever is about to happen, we believe that you can do it also.

RILEY BASS: Absolutely. I totally didn’t realize we were already recording, and I thought we were just having a conversation about being ready to record.

CHRIS COX: That’s just how we are.

RILEY BASS: I didn’t realize that you were like, are you ready for life?

CHRIS COX: No, are you ready for this?

RILEY BASS: I am ready both to record and for life.

CHRIS COX: Good.

RILEY BASS: So double ready.

CHRIS COX: Double ready, how about triple ready?

RILEY BASS: Triple double stamp.

CHRIS COX: [LAUGHING] Look. I am excited because we get to talk about something that you and I have been discussing for several years now.

RILEY BASS: Donuts?

CHRIS COX: Let’s move away from the donuts.

RILEY BASS: [LAUGHING]

CHRIS COX: It’s getting to be an old stick now, isn’t it?

RILEY BASS: [LAUGHING]

CHRIS COX: Although donuts are very delicious. We are actually going to look at a book for this episode, next episode, maybe episode after that, maybe another episode beyond that. It depends on how much we talk. Our fine producer Will here is going to just take our words and whatever we’re talking about, spice them up, and make them make sense into a couple of episodes, like he usually does.

RILEY BASS: It’s a huge job for him to do that. He’s way under paid for having to deal with Chris and I on a regular basis.

CHRIS COX: And I quit tipping him a long time ago. I probably should tip him some more now. We’re going to go through a book. And some of you may have heard of this one, some of you may have not. But it’s one that we here within this company– it’s almost required reading.

RILEY BASS: Beyond Positive Thinking by Robert Anthony is, like Chris said, one of the keystone books here at Audigy. It’s something that every new employee receives a copy of it. And it’s something that is quoted very frequently around the office and in our day to day lives.

CHRIS COX: So we want to bring it to you guys in a way that’s easily digestible and pertinent to you as a young professional. And when we look at this, I mean, we’re definitely not the definitive authorities on this. Of course, Robert Anthony, the author of this, he’s done a lot of this sort of discussion and research and so forth, therefore putting this book together.

All we’re here to do it mainly shine a light on it and hopefully have you investigate it further and get you thinking along these lines that life is more than just positive thinking. Positive thinking and thinking positively about things around you is important. But we’ve got to go beyond that, right?

RILEY BASS: You have to go extra positive.

CHRIS COX: You’ve got to go positive and then beyond.

RILEY BASS: And we know that especially when you’re still in school, reading books for leisure purposes is difficult, especially with the load of homework and everything that is going on. So we know that that’s something that a lot of students say, I really want to read these books that are going to help me professionally, but I just don’t have time.

So hopefully you have time to listen to a 20 minute podcast, and we will give you guys the synopsis of what you would learn from this book.

CHRIS COX: All right. So let’s get into this, Riley.

RILEY BASS: We are going to try and get Robert Anthony on the podcast at some point.

CHRIS COX: We just decided this.

RILEY BASS: Yeah. Robert, if you’re listening, let us know and we would love to record with you. So hit us up. Tweet us at the Twitter.

CHRIS COX: Any Twitter works, really.

RILEY BASS: Any Twitter. Just put it anywhere

CHRIS COX: Just put it on Twitter. We’ll seek it out and find it. The main thing, Chapter 1– the starting point of making permanent and lasting changes in your life begins with understanding the difference between positive thinking, negative thinking, and right thinking. So what’s the difference between that?

RILEY BASS: It’s really knowing the difference in how thinking positively, thinking negatively, and knowing that middle area, how each one of those is going to affect you and how you can successfully navigate through each one of those. It always makes you think of that picture you see on the internet where the optimist has the glass half full, the pessimist has the glass half empty, and the realist is just standing there actually drinking the water.

CHRIS COX: That’s a good visual. And the example that the book uses is someone sitting down at the piano to play. Now, you can believe that you can play the piano like Beethoven. But if you’ve never practiced or you don’t understand music, it’s going to be pretty dang tough to actually play something that is coherent, much less pleasant.

So the idea is you can think positive about things, but you also have to understand the laws that are out there that are affecting the way that everyone lives. Those laws are like the law of gravity, the law of–

RILEY BASS: Motion.

CHRIS COX: –motion. Is that a law, motion?

RILEY BASS: It’s one of those really rare cases where unless you’re like a total anomaly, you can’t just sit down and play the piano. Of course, there’s those three-year-olds that can do that. But I’m not like that. I’ve been trying to be like that for years, and I’m not.

CHRIS COX: It’s probably because you’re not three years old anymore. You missed the window.

RILEY BASS: Well, you think I would get better with time.

CHRIS COX: You have to practice. You have to practice. That’s the thing. You don’t practice, I don’t think.

RILEY BASS: I don’t want to practice. I just want to sit down and just be excellent at it, you know?

CHRIS COX: So there you go. You’ve got this idea of wanting to do something, you have a positive idea of it. But you’ve got to go beyond that. You’ve got to think about– you have to have the knowledge and information around how a certain system works. So like playing that piano, you have to understand music theory.

You have to understand how the piano keys are laid out. And once you understand that and are able to master that, then you can sit down and start playing some Beethoven.

RILEY BASS: Right. And our experiences lead us to believe one way or another about ourselves. If we let ourselves believe that we’re never going to learn how to play the piano because we didn’t just sit down and start playing Beethoven, then we’re never going to get over that mindset that we can’t.

But if you have the mindset that I can learn this, I can do this, and you set those plans into action and you set yourself moving in the right direction, there’s no one dictating what you can or can’t do. All of your limitations are set by yourself. It’s like you see the guy with one like run a marathon, or the guy that’s 104 run a marathon.

You see all these things happen and you’re like, I could never run a marathon. But these people are doing it. Because no one’s telling them that they can’t do it.

CHRIS COX: And that’s huge when it comes to us as professionals. If I was in eighth grade, I would look at my current self and say, there is no way that you could have made it through all of that schooling– eight years, nine years, 10 years after whenever I’m thinking about it– of schooling it to do what you’re doing now– podcasting.

And I would have been in disbelief. And even back then, I remember thinking, I’m going to go to college. But that may be it, and I may not make it all the way through that.

RILEY BASS: You were forecasting yourself to be a college dropout when you were in middle school?

CHRIS COX: Yeah. At least it wasn’t a high school drop out that I was forecasting to be.

RILEY BASS: I mean, the only barrier set on you is the one you set on yourself. So way to overcome that barrier–

CHRIS COX: Thank you, thank you.

RILEY BASS: –graduate college. I’m really proud of you, Chris.

CHRIS COX: I appreciate that.

RILEY BASS: Defied the odds.

CHRIS COX: I’m the first one in my family to do that. I’m just kidding. Everyone in my family graduated college. Chapter one is introducing this idea of the belief in Positive Thinking, but also understanding that there is a system underlying all of it. And you have to be able to master that system and understand it to be able to see the positive results that you’re looking for.

You can’t just be ignorant to the world around and hope to succeed.

RILEY BASS: The thing about positive thinking is that a choice. You choose to think positively or you choose to think negatively. When you stop realizing and looking at what has happened up to that point, then you’re able to make that choice where you want to go moving forward.

We feel like we’re constantly in a state of waiting where we’re always waiting for the next thing, waiting to lose weight, waiting to be happier, waiting to be wealthier. We’re always waiting for when that time is going to be right. I mean, how many people have said, I can’t start my diet until Monday?

Because heaven forbid you start it on Thursday. It’s always one of those things where it’s always just one step away. And you have to realize that you’re doing that and consciously make the choice. Right now is when I’m going to change these habits to become or to achieve what I want to achieve.

CHRIS COX: And everyone out there that’s listening has achieved something. And you’ve most likely done it conscientiously. You haven’t just stumbled upon the success or achievement. You’ve prepared yourself for it. And a lot of the times– and what you’re talking about there, Riley– is that we’re conditioned by our past and what we’ve been taught and what we’ve learned and experienced ourselves.

And that certainly affects our actions from now on. For instance, my family is a very well-educated family. And I was expected to go to college from the time I was younger. I was expected to go to college. I knew I needed to go to college. That’s just what the family did. That’s what we all did.

And so for me, the whole college idea was I’ve got to go. Now, whether I succeed or not, that’s a different story. But I’ve got to go to college. And there’s no question about it. But there are plenty of other families out there who don’t believe in that, who have molded and discussed with their children that college is not a necessity.

And they don’t have to go, because none of them went. And so it’s just kind of a waste. That person making the decision, then, to go to college, isn’t as automatic as mine was where I am expected to go to college. I always knew I had to go to college. I’m going to college.

Those people have to make that conscious effort to step out of the norm and make a change and go to college and get a degree. So we have to make that choice, like you said. And that choice begins when we stop identifying with your conditioned patterns of the past, as the book calls it.

And Riley, I like what you said about waiting. You’re right. We all wait to do things, and things never get done then. The common one is with weight, but sometimes it’s other things like a paper that we’re supposed to turn in.

RILEY BASS: Were you a procrastinator?

CHRIS COX: No way. I got all my papers done.

RILEY BASS: So I was quite the procrastinator all through school, and maybe still am just a little bit of a procrastinator. And it used to be writing papers. It’s now when I have company coming over to my house, I wait till the last minute. And I’m trying to run the vacuum and dust the furniture at the same time and make sure everything’s done, when I could just be keeping up with things all along.

CHRIS COX: That procrastination does keep us from moving on and doing what we should be doing. Instead, we just like to be in our rut and we’re content sometimes, until something happens in the rut that forces us to make that change.

RILEY BASS: I blame Netflix.

CHRIS COX: This book shows us that we have to go beyond that. We have to believe in what we’re doing and our goals and take action to make that change. So how does this relate to those of us in the hearing health care field?

RILEY BASS: Did you ever get stressed out when you were in audiology school?

CHRIS COX: No. I was a pretty cool cucumber back then.

RILEY BASS: I knew you were not going to work into that for me.

CHRIS COX: I’m sorry.

RILEY BASS: Let me ask you again.

CHRIS COX: Let me ask you.

RILEY BASS: Fine, OK.

CHRIS COX: Did you ever get stressed out in audiology school?

RILEY BASS: Yes.

CHRIS COX: OK. I did, too. Really, honestly, I did.

RILEY BASS: It’s stressful. There’s a lot of assignments. There’s a lot of reading. There’s a lot of material. And especially early on when the graduation date seems so far off, it’s so easy to think, I’m never going to get through this. I’m going to be trapped in this forever.

Especially if you go straight from undergrad into graduate school, it’s just like, am I ever going to get out of a classroom in my whole life?

CHRIS COX: It just seems like such a long haul there.

RILEY BASS: It is.

CHRIS COX: Then you get to your fourth year, and you’re like, oh my gosh, it went by fast.

RILEY BASS: You get to that light at the end of the tunnel as you’re approaching graduation, and you look back, and it seems like it went by so fast. But there’s definitely those times where you think, I am trapped here forever and I’m never going to get out of this. And that’s a negative way to think.

CHRIS COX: It is a negative way to think, and it can limit the way that you make it through your task. Sometimes that belief or the disbelief in being able to do something creates a reality for yourself. And then that dictates what happens after that. Sometimes our beliefs– good or bad, or right or wrong– really give us the wrong idea of what we’re able to do in the future.

RILEY BASS: One of the things that I hear a lot in all of my conversations I have with AED students and new graduates– and it’s continuous, no matter first year, second year, third year, fourth year– I asked students what they’re interested in doing in five or 10 years after they graduate.

And a lot of them say, I would love to own my own practice someday, but I’m just scared it’s going to fail. And I’m scared I don’t know what I’m doing. And I always ask them, why? Why would you be scared of that? What’s holding you back? What are you waiting to change your belief that you know that you could do this?

There’s been a lot of successful private practitioners out there, and a lot of them don’t have a business degree. A lot of them have had to tough it out and learn to do it the hard way, basically. And they’ve managed to do it. So what’s saying that you can’t?

CHRIS COX: Yeah. And the greatest part about that is that they’re willing to take somebody who isn’t experienced and teach them all the things they’ve learned over the past 20, 30, 40 years to make it easier for them to be successful in a business. And maybe even their business.

Someone might take a young professional in and say, you know what, I want to teach everything I know. And when we’re done, you can have first choice of my business. And they get to retire and the new professional gets to come in and learn a ton, do it quicker than the business owner did it, and get a business out of it.

It reduces that huge risk of just jumping in and starting something on your own. But there are people out there that would rather start something on their own– clean slate– and build it from the ground up. Either way is perfectly fine, and we see it happen all the time.

But you’re right, that whole belief that, oh my gosh, how do I go from where I am now to owning a business? And a lot of that has to do with changing the belief that it’s going to be insurmountable.

RILEY BASS: Right.

CHRIS COX: It’s going to be something that they’re going to have to make a conscious effort to change the belief in their future.

RILEY BASS: And I get it. It’s a scary thought. And I know that when I was in audiology school, I was scared to think about owning a business some day. I have been educated and informed and I have decided to make the choice that I know if that’s what I wanted to do, I could do that.

I obviously made the choice to be doing these podcasts and working with students and telling–

CHRIS COX: Good choice.

RILEY BASS: –and telling you guys to make the choice. But I am confident that if the day comes where I make the decision that I want to own my own business and I want to open my own practice, I know I could do it. I know it’s going to be tough. I know there’s going to be challenges. But I’m confident that I could do it.

CHRIS COX: I believe you can do it, too, Riley.

RILEY BASS: Thanks, Chris. I believe you could do it, too.

CHRIS COX: I don’t know.

RILEY BASS: Maybe.

CHRIS COX: Maybe. But there’s a lot of the people that we talk with, the businesses owners that we talk to all the time, and many of them started their business out of necessity. Something happened in their career where they just they had to move into doing business on their own, whether they were working with an ENT in a small town and that ENT closed down and moved out, and they didn’t want to move anywhere.

Well, their decision was either I’ve got to move out of this small town, or I can start my own business and stay here. And that’s one of many, many stories like that where you just have to do it out of necessity. And that is where that big major change in the belief happens for some people.

Because you have to do it. And the world, the universe gives you this choice to do one thing or the other. And it gets you out of that rut, gets you out of that comfort zone. And you are then forced to make that decision. Some people can do that without the major life changing event, but a lot of the times, it’s that big change that makes them do the things that are a little more risky.

RILEY BASS: Right.

CHRIS COX: So another thing with some of our listeners that are new professionals, a lot of the times, they’re sitting in wherever they are, maybe not owning a business, maybe not even in a private practice, but wondering what does the future look like for us as audiologists.

Are we doomed? There’s are a lot of talk out there, especially recently, about what does the future of audiology look like? Especially when it comes to the over-the-counter stuff and third party billing and all of that, which I hope we were planning on doing an episode on that here coming soon. As long as the weather doesn’t keep us from doing that again.

RILEY BASS: Right. We’ve been snowed out for a few days.

CHRIS COX: So we hope to get into that a little more in depth. But there is a lot of this talk out there. A lot of it is negative. A lot of it is hand-wringing. And for those of us who are new to this whole thing, we don’t really know what to think or what our positions are, and what all of these implications are for our profession.

So I think for us, it’s a matter of understanding the system. Like we were talking about with the piano. We have to understand what are we working within, what are our choices, and how do we make change in our profession to move it forward and make it the ultimate profession for hearing health care?

[MUSIC PLAYING]

RILEY BASS: So we are so happy to be sharing Beyond Positive Thinking with you, our podcast listeners. Obviously it’s really important to us, and we’re so happy that we can share it with you. We think it’s exceptionally pertinent to students where you are right now in your career.

It’s just very important to keep your thinking positive and keep moving in the direction that’s going to help you best achieve your goals and make an impact on your community.

CHRIS COX: So thank you for listening.

RILEY BASS: Yeah. We’ll see you for part two.

Licenses, Memberships and CEU’s

By

Chris Cox and Riley Bass host the pAuDcast

On today’s show, Chris Cox Au.D., and Riley Bass Au.D. are back from the holidays for a special episode of The pAuDcast. The crew talks about the differences between being licensed and being certified, the various professional membership available to audiologists, as well as understanding CEUs (continuing education). This episode is sure to thrill, so don’t miss it!

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Read the transcript:

CHRIS COX: Hey, Riley.

RILEY BASS: Hey, Chris.

CHRIS COX: We’re back.

RILEY BASS: We are back and better than ever.

CHRIS COX: Happy New Year.

RILEY BASS: Happy New Year. It is 2017. I can’t believe it’s already here.

CHRIS COX: 2017. Good grief.

RILEY BASS: I know.

CHRIS COX: You know, it’s been 17 years since the year 2000?

RILEY BASS: That is what 2017 means, exactly.

CHRIS COX: Can you believe that? That’s so crazy.

RILEY BASS: I can’t. I remember shooting fireworks off in the street on New Year’s Eve 2000.

CHRIS COX: Wow. OK

RILEY BASS: I was in middle school at the time, so.

CHRIS COX: We’ve got a great next couple episodes coming up for you. We did take a little bit of break in December. We had some things come up, like Christmas and–

RILEY BASS: Hanukkah.

CHRIS COX: Festivus.

RILEY BASS: Kwanzaa.

CHRIS COX: New Year’s.

RILEY BASS: All those things.

CHRIS COX: So all those things. We were just partying so hard, we just couldn’t make it into the studio and record a pAuDcast for you. So we’re going to make it up to you now. Today’s topic is–

RILEY BASS: Licensure and–

CHRIS COX: Credentialing.

RILEY BASS: And–

CHRIS COX: Memberships.

RILEY BASS: And CEUs.

CHRIS COX: That’s a lot of topics, but we’re going to try to cinch them all together. Do you have your license, Riley?

RILEY BASS: I have a license to thrill.

CHRIS COX: Ohhh.

[TIRES SCREECHING]

RILEY BASS: I have my driver’s license.

CHRIS COX: Yeah.

[CAR CRASHING]

Me, too. How long have you had a driver’s license?

RILEY BASS: Since I was 16, so–

CHRIS COX: Wow. You’re one of–

RILEY BASS: –14 years.

CHRIS COX: –those rich kids, huh?

RILEY BASS: Doesn’t everyone get their license at 16?

CHRIS COX: I didn’t. I had to wait.

RILEY BASS: But that doesn’t have to do with money. Just has to–

CHRIS COX: You don’t know me.

RILEY BASS: It just has to–

CHRIS COX: You don’t know my parents’ life.

RILEY BASS: It has to do with being able to drive a car. You can borrow a car to drive.

CHRIS COX: This is one of those things that we get a lot of questions on from students and from new graduates. And it’s something that a lot of people aren’t very clear on. I wasn’t very clear on it.

RILEY BASS: It’s super confusing. And I’ve been out in the field for a few years, and I’ve done some research on it even. And I still have questions and don’t know everything.

So it’s definitely something that we see that is a struggle for students and new graduates as you are coming into your professional career, knowing what license you need, what you need to get it, and any credentialling, anything else that you may need to go along with it. So it’s something that’s very important.

CHRIS COX: And credentialing is an important thing for professionals of any sort. Credentials– if we break that down, credential, cred comes from the same root word as credit, which is like believability or credibility. So it’s belief. And then dentials has to do with teeth, so you have to have truth teeth to be professional. That’s where this comes from.

RILEY BASS: Right.

CHRIS COX: I think that’s how it breaks down.

RILEY BASS: That’s exactly how it–

CHRIS COX: Latin and Greek, [INAUDIBLE].

RILEY BASS: Chris Cox actually prefers it if you call him Dr. Chris Cox, because he’s a doctor.

CHRIS COX: What is it about licensing that is so important?

RILEY BASS: Well, it’s mandatory. You have to have it.

CHRIS COX: OK. Isn’t that the same thing?

[BELL RINGING]

RILEY BASS: Yeah. Technically, yeah.

CHRIS COX: All right, so mandatory. This is the bare minimum that you need to be able to practice as an audiologist right?

RILEY BASS: Right. And every state, including Washington, D.C., requires a license to practice audiology. Any type of medical profession, and even some that aren’t medical, you have to have a license to practice. So that’s just part of it. So accept it.

CHRIS COX: This is it. This is it. The only thing you need to practice, to be able to practice in your state, is the state license. Like you said, it’s maintained through the state and governed by the state. So the requirements are different from state to state. And they’ve been different ever since, what, the late ’60s, when–

RILEY BASS: Right.

CHRIS COX: –the first state decided that they were going to have a–

RILEY BASS: Do you know what the first state to require licensure was?

CHRIS COX: Let me see. Where’s Jamestown? Virginia.

RILEY BASS: Wrong. Think older than that.

CHRIS COX: Rome?

RILEY BASS: St. Augustine.

CHRIS COX: Oh, St. Augustine.

RILEY BASS: Florida. Florida was–

CHRIS COX: Florida.

RILEY BASS: –the first state to require audiology license in 1969 to practice. In the following couple years, 30 states added that, all the way up until the mid-2000s, when every single state, including D.C., required an audiology license to practice.

CHRIS COX: So they’ve all determined that it’s an important thing to have.

RILEY BASS: They have.

CHRIS COX: So what’s the purpose of the license then?

RILEY BASS: Well, there was a story a couple of years ago about a 17-year-old that was doing medical procedures on people down in South Florida and billing insurance and everything. And they found out he was an unlicensed teenager, and he got in a lot of trouble. So that will happen to you, if you don’t have a license, is you can get in trouble.

And when you think about you going to see a doctor yourself, do you want them to have actually had all of the schooling and had all the training that they need to practice? Or do you just want to take them on their word for it? And they might be high school student.

CHRIS COX: Yeah, that guy didn’t have a license. Probably didn’t have a driver’s license either.

RILEY BASS: I don’t even think he–

CHRIS COX: Mom had to–

RILEY BASS: –had a high school diploma.

CHRIS COX: Mom had to drop him off at work.

RILEY BASS: He’s like, mom, drop me off two blocks away so nobody sees you.

CHRIS COX: I’m working at Dairy Queen. So exactly. I mean, the licensure’s there to protect the consumer, to protect the patients that we see. And it’s not a barrier, necessarily. Although, some people find it very cumbersome to get a license, depending on where you are.

But it’s there for a reason. It’s there to protect us, even us, as professionals. Like you said, we don’t want to go to doctor, or work with a contractor, or work with anybody that isn’t credentialed or doesn’t have some sort of license to be able to practice.

RILEY BASS: Right. And it’s no secret that some states are more difficult or easier to get licensed in, based on the requirements. Some of them are pretty strenuous to get all of their requirements. But there’s a few things that every single state requires. Do you know what some of those things are?

CHRIS COX: You need to pay them money.

RILEY BASS: Right, of course. You have to pay everyone money.

CHRIS COX: You got to fill out the application.

RILEY BASS: That is one, too.

CHRIS COX: You usually have to show proof that you have some sort of education. These days, the Au.D. is what covers that.

RILEY BASS: Right. And for me, in most states, it was your signed, sealed transcripts you can request directly from the university, from the registrar’s office. They’ll send them directly for you. So that’s something you usually always have to have.

CHRIS COX: Yeah, so when you are looking to graduate, and you’re trying to figure out where you want to be, as far as geographically goes, you’ll want to start looking at those requirements for that state.

We live here in the state of Washington. I’m credentialed, or I have license in Washington, Oregon, Florida, and Minnesota. And they’ve all been different. Aren’t you– don’t you have licenses in other–

RILEY BASS: I have Washington, Oregon, New Mexico, and Florida.

CHRIS COX: Ooh, New Mexico’s kind of a hard one.

RILEY BASS: It’s actually probably the easiest out of–

CHRIS COX: Is it really?

RILEY BASS: –the ones I have. Yeah.

CHRIS COX: So let me look– let’s look at Oregon’s real quick. Oregon has a pretty quick, pretty easy process. Of course, you have to have the application, you have to have the money. They need to see your transcripts from your university, either from your Au.D. or master’s degree. So you can also be grandfathered in.

If you have your Cs, you can actually have them verify that as well. And we’ll talk about the ASHA certification in just a little bit. But that’s one of the things that you can also use to prove that you’ve completed the schooling requirements.

There also is a professional development requirement. If you just graduated within the last 12 months, you don’t have to have a professional development, otherwise known as class time or CEUs. If you’ve been out for longer than 12 months, though, they need 15 hours for the preceding 12 months– 15 hours of CEUs to prove that you’ve continued that professional development. And then, of course, if you do have licenses in other states, then you have to have that verified through the other states.

RILEY BASS: And one more thing that you’re not mentioning but every state requires.

CHRIS COX: What’s that?

RILEY BASS: A passing Praxis score.

CHRIS COX: That is true. That’s true. Again, if you do not have your Cs, then– your ASHA Cs– then that Praxis score does need to be submitted.

If you do have them, then it’s rolled up through that and accepted through the ASHA Cs. So again, we’re going to talk about that in just a little bit. But just, you’re right. So we need to pass that national exam.

RILEY BASS: You know now, you can take it online, and you get your scores automatically, right when you take it. When I took it, I had to wait eight weeks. But at four weeks, you could call this number and pay $30, and they’d tell you the score. And now you get it instantly.

CHRIS COX: Wow. Back in your day?

RILEY BASS: Back in my day.

CHRIS COX: Do you remember? Pepperidge Farm remembers.

RILEY BASS: Back in 2013. Man, things have changed. They’ve sure evolved.

CHRIS COX: Okay. So there’s Oregon’s. It’s decently simple and streamlined. There’s some things you’ve got to– there’s a lot of legwork with that.

But here’s Washington’s. Again, this is same region, just one state north of Oregon. And they’ve got a couple of other different things that you need. You need all of that.

They don’t have the professional development requirement, but what they do have is you need a bonding requirement. So that is basically you have to get a bond, $10,000 bond, James Bond.

RILEY BASS: I knew it was going to come eventually.

CHRIS COX: This bond is kind of in lieu of the malpractice insurance, and everyone has to have that to be able to get licensed. You have to show proof of it. You also have to have an agent registration or somebody that’s going to be representing you in the case of some sort of violation.

RILEY BASS: Chris is my representing agent.

CHRIS COX: Great. I don’t have any money to help you out with that. You also have to have AIDS training or AIDS/HIV class. I think this is a–

RILEY BASS: Yeah. It’s a four-hour online class.

CHRIS COX: It’s a four-hour online class.

RILEY BASS: And way harder than you think it’s going to be.

CHRIS COX: Yeah. I mean, you’d think, with all the training we’ve had with infectious disease and everything, it’d be kind of easy to do. But it’s–

RILEY BASS: No. It’s way hard.

CHRIS COX: It’s a little bit harder than expected. So you’ve got the AIDS training on that–

RILEY BASS: There’s–

CHRIS COX: –as well.

RILEY BASS: –also an ethics exam in Washington. Some states have different types of exams, Washington having an ethics one. But some states have a physical exam, where you actually have to perform a hearing test. And you have to supply your own equipment, your own patient. It’s–

CHRIS COX: Minnesota’s like that. California’s like that. You have to go to the capital of that state and do a bunch of [INAUDIBLE].

RILEY BASS: Just schlep your audiometer all the way to– who even has their own audiometer? I don’t know anybody that has like their personal audiometer.

CHRIS COX: Yeah, that’s what makes it difficult. And hopefully, we’ll see– those are things that are somewhat barriers for some people. The good thing, especially in Minnesota, you can get a temporary license. They only hold those tests a couple times a year, maybe two or three times a year.

In Minnesota, you may be stuck not being able to take the test for six months. So you can apply for a temporary license, and that will allow you to practice until you can sign up for the next test, the next in-person test. And then once you do that, then you can get it transferred over to a full license.

RILEY BASS: And one thing that’s really varied by state to state is a couple states require you to have an additional licensure to dispense. So you have to have both an audiology license to practice and a dispensing audiology license. Some jobs, you can work without dispensing if you work– I know I have a friend that does intraoperative monitoring, and she does not have a dispensing license.

But if you work somewhere where you’re handling any type of amplification or hearing technology, you have to have that dispensing license as well. So something to keep in mind as you’re looking at state requirements.

CHRIS COX: Again, kind of a holdover from the old days, when it was master’s degree versus hearing aid dispensers.

RILEY BASS: Hearing aid dispensers. Right.

CHRIS COX: It was a way for them to show that we have competence in being able to wield a hearing device. But, again, with the advent of the Au.D., it’s kind of made that obsolete. However, some states are still requiring that. And that will literally take an act of state congress to change for most of those issues or–

RILEY BASS: So write your congressman.

CHRIS COX: And be on the State Board, too. I mean, that can be something you can do as well, is to be involved in your state level to help influence what’s going on at each of the state legislatures.

RILEY BASS: And the long and short of it is every state’s different. And the easiest way to find out is to get on the Google machine and look up whatever state audiology license. It will usually be the first link. It will take you right to their website. They’ll tell you everything you need. Hopefully it’ll give you lots of information and a phone number you can call if you have any questions.

CHRIS COX: OK. So that’s a couple of examples of what licensing can look like. Again, this is what’s required of you as an audiologist to be able to practice. It protects the consumer, and it allows us to be able to prove that we can do what we’ve been trained to do.

RILEY BASS: And keep an eye on it. It’s usually yearly or biyearly. So you either need to do it every year or every two years.

CHRIS COX: Let’s look at certification. We have a big certification that we’ve all been exposed to as students and new professionals. And that one’s through ASHA, those CCC-A, or the Certificate of Clinical Competence in Audiology. Now, where did this come from?

CHRIS COX: Well, Chris, it comes from back in the day, whenever audiology was a master’s level program. And this was what you needed to practice. Back in the ’60s and ’70s, they didn’t always require a state license, but you had to have something in order to practice. So the Cs was the option that you had. In order to practice in each state, you had to have your Cs, so–

CHRIS COX: But now, with the advent of the Au.D., that’s not necessary anymore.

RILEY BASS: Right. Well, yeah. The licensure is the holy grail, I guess, for practicing audiology, more so than a membership or a certification. So you don’t have to have your Cs to practice. That’s not required.

CHRIS COX: So we’ve got the ASHA Cs, and we also have the being board certified through the Academy– I’m sorry– The American Board of Audiology, ABA. Those are both ways to get certified, but they’re different from the licensure.

RILEY BASS: You don’t have to be board certified, and you don’t have to have your Cs. Those are both things that are voluntary. And they are not required to practice in any state at this time

CHRIS COX: It’s almost like with the membership, which we’ll talk about next. It’s where you choose to put your money and how you wish to support your profession. Now, there are a couple of other things, like with the ABA, you can get specialty certification for CIs or for pediatrics.

RILEY BASS: Right. The CISC or the PASC–

CHRIS COX: Mmm. Very nice.

RILEY BASS: –if you need some more letters to put after your name.

CHRIS COX: We use right now the Au.D. after our name. Some people have, when they get their Cs, use the CCC-A after their name. That’s good and well.

But you definitely want to make sure you understand how the designators and your credentials go behind your name, because it’s not exactly what everyone seems to be putting behind their name. We’ll talk about that in just a second, especially with the membership piece of it. Let’s look at memberships. There’s a lot of different groups that we can be a part of. As–

RILEY BASS: Right. Think there’s four big ones.

CHRIS COX: Four big ones, and then there’s a bunch of other smaller ones. Our four big ones, obviously, are–

RILEY BASS: ASHA.

CHRIS COX: AAA.

RILEY BASS: ABA.

CHRIS COX: ADA.

RILEY BASS: Yep. There’s also a lot of smaller, more specific ones, as well as the state level academies.

CHRIS COX: Mm-hmm. There’s some for the vestibular side. There’s some for just that acoustical side.

RILEY BASS: [? EHDI, ?] which is for the education of deaf and hearing individuals or–

CHRIS COX: Right, right, yes.

RILEY BASS: –the educational side.

CHRIS COX: Mm-hmm. So there’s a lot of little smaller memberships you can be a part of, as well as, like you said, our state boards, which are pretty important. So really, these memberships, again, these are voluntary. These are what you do as a professional to align yourself with whatever the purpose or the goals are for the specific entity it is, whatever group that is.

And, of course, as you know, there’s a pretty big thing going on within audiology, where we’ve got the three big ones– ASHA, AAA, and ADA– who all have different goals. And people align with those goals differently. And it’s been seen as kind of fractured, especially for such a small profession as we have. Now, here we’re not trying to side with any one entity because that’s not what we’re here to do.

RILEY BASS: In fact, I think we both belong to all three of those big ones.

CHRIS COX: We do. And there are definitely great things about each one of them, and there’s also some things that we may not align with for each one of them. But that’s what it means to be a discerning, intelligent professional, is to understand where you stand on certain issues and figuring out what you align with the best.

RILEY BASS: Right. And your membership into a different organization is going to give you that voice to be an advocate and to decide where you feel that you want to see the profession going. And that’s going to give you the voice to use that, because we can make a lot bigger impact if we work together. And we really need to do that.

There’s only 13,000 audiologists in the country. And we really need to work on uniting as one industry, and coming together, and really moving it forward, because we’re not going anywhere.

CHRIS COX: It is up to us, as the new professionals, to be able to do that and get on the same page. Again, not trying to politicize anything, not trying to take any sides with anybody, but it’s a truth. And as far as these memberships go, whenever we’d figure out what we align with and who we align with, then we round up the wagons. And we figure out where we’re going to go with it and how we’re going to evolve our own profession.

RILEY BASS: You can be an advocate for a lot of different things, but we all need to be an advocate for audiology. The last topic of the day, Chris. Your favorite–

CHRIS COX: C–

RILEY BASS: –thing.

CHRIS COX: –E U.

RILEY BASS: You later. CEUs.

CHRIS COX: Yes, I would love to. CEUs. They are both the bane of our professional existence and what keeps all of us together.

RILEY BASS: CEUs, or continuing education units, are required in audiology and in every other field as well. Pretty much anything that you have a license in, you have to have CEUs in. But each state is different as far as how many they require. I think ASHA requires 30 CEUs every two years. Some states require as few as 10. Some states require as many as 30.

CHRIS COX: I think there’s a couple that don’t even require any, right?

RILEY BASS: Right, and some don’t. I know, as having a Florida license, Florida requires three of your CEUs to be in ethics courses. So you have to have a wide variety of different types of courses. So it can’t just be hearing aid training after hearing aid training. You have to do some ethical training as well.

So it’s kind of a necessary evil but also a really good thing, because we do need to make sure we’re learning and evolving, especially in such a technology-based field. Technology is changing so quickly that we want to make sure that we’re staying on top of those changes, and we’re able to adapt to the new things.

CHRIS COX: There are different ways that you can manage the CEUs. You can manage them yourself, by keeping track of all the hours for yourself. ASHA also has a CEU tracker that you can sign up for every time you become a member. And if you take courses that are ASHA-certified– or I’m sorry– ASHA-approved, then they’ll be automatically kept track of in the ASHA registry.

AAA also has one where you have your CEU transcript. And if you’ve done anything that– any of the classes or courses that are approved by AAA– as long as you’re connecting your AAA number to that course whenever you submit the–

RILEY BASS: Right. Usually there’s a sign-in sheet. If you go to a live event or online, you’ll enter it, and it’ll automatically register you.

CHRIS COX: If you choose not to do that, because of Big Brother or whatever, you don’t want people looking at what you’ve been taking–

RILEY BASS: I don’t want people knowing what classes I take.

CHRIS COX: I don’t want anybody knowing that I’m taking this wax removal class. But, yeah, if you choose to take care of it yourself, then you have to do that, and keep very good records of it. And in case you get audited, which does happen from time to time, you have to show proof, either by having your certificate that you earned from that specific class or having some other proof that you took the course.

And keeping that handy with you, every time you’ve got to reregister– or, I’m sorry– renew your memberships, your certification, or your licensure. All three of them. Sometimes they all just– they all three of them need them. The thing to remember about your CEUs is there’s different ways to track them. You can even track them in an Excel folder if you want to or Excel file if you want to. But–

RILEY BASS: Pretty much every conference will offer them. Any state level, national level, manufacturer-sponsored, industry-sponsored, anything is going to offer CEUs.

CHRIS COX: Because they know, if they don’t offer it, no one’s going to show up. You’re not going to spend a day out of the office to go to a training of some sort.

RILEY BASS: It’s only a little bit of a bribe.

CHRIS COX: Yeah. Because we need them. So it does take a little bit of getting used to. And the idea of getting a CEU, or earning CEUs over the years, can seem kind of daunting. But as long as you can make it to a state conference or a couple of those live events, usually you can get most of your CEUs wiped– or not wiped– but most of those CEUs earned in that one sitting, if you are diligent about it.

RILEY BASS: And there’s always online courses, too, you can take. If you need those ethics hours or something, you can find those online.

CHRIS COX: And it’s last minute, and you’ve got two weeks left. And you got to do something [INAUDIBLE].

RILEY BASS: It’s December 19. You’re like, I got to finish these.

CHRIS COX: So there’s definitely ways to get those last minute, and–

RILEY BASS: Though, everybody, don’t be like Chris.

CHRIS COX: Don’t be like me. In review, we’ve talked about quite a bit today, especially for one pAuDcast. So let’s get those highlights and the high points. What is required to practice as an audiologist?

RILEY BASS: A license.

CHRIS COX: Okay.

[BELL RINGING]

What is a good thing to have, gives you that third party acknowledgement, and shows the clinical competency for doing what you’re doing?

RILEY BASS: Certification.

[BELL RINGING}

CHRIS COX: And what is one of those things that you do voluntarily to support your profession?

RILEY BASS: Membership.

[BELL RINGING]

CHRIS COX: And then, how do you keep all of that going?

RILEY BASS: CEUs.

[BELL RINGING]

CHRIS COX: That’s right. That’s like the ammo that makes it go. Well, that doesn’t really make sense. It’s like the power cells that make everything–

RILEY BASS: The gasoline.

CHRIS COX: Gasoline. That works, too.

RILEY BASS: The coal in the train.

CHRIS COX: Ah, man. You’re going old school. Gas, fossil fuels. Wow.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

RILEY BASS: We know this was a lot of information for one pAuDcast. There’s a lot of questions. We had to do some research to be able to deliver this information to you, and we’ve been out in the field for a few years now. Like I said, so much. Each state is different.

If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to reach out to us. We can help you at least try to figure out where the information is located. As always, we will see you next time.

CHRIS COX: All right. Thank you, guys.

Building Trusting Relationships

By

Chris Cox and Riley Bass host the pAuDcast

In today’s show, Chris Cox Au.D., and Riley Bass Au.D. are joined by Andrea P. Howe, the co-author of The Trusted Advisor Field Book. Andrea is an expert in the area of building trust and is on a mission to, as she says “kick conventional business wisdom to the curb and transform how people work together as a result.” This was an awesome conversation and we thank Andrea for dialing in to speak with us!

Reach out to us if you’d like a copy of The Trusted Advisor Field Book. Free to listeners while supplies last! Get in touch with Chris and Riley using their contact info at the end of this episode!

Did you miss our series on Transitioning from Student to Provider? Catch up on what you missed by visiting our special series page.
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Read the transcript:

RILEY BASS: So Chris, I have a question for you.

CHRIS COX: Yes, please.

RILEY BASS: Do you trust me?

CHRIS COX: It kind of depends. I trust you with my daughter, but I don’t necessarily trust you with a box of donuts.

RILEY BASS: Oh, well, that’s acceptable. Would you trust me if you were about to jump off the back of a boat and I was trying to save your life?

CHRIS COX: Which boat, and which ocean?

RILEY BASS: Titanic, Atlantic.

CHRIS COX: Oh, I don’t know. Is there going to be room on the door for me to climb aboard or anything?

RILEY BASS: No. You’re going to have to keep it in the water, Jack style. Don’t worry. I’ll never forget you.

[CHUCKLING]

CHRIS COX: All right. So trust– is that what we’re getting at? Is that what you’re getting at?

RILEY BASS: Yes.

CHRIS COX: Have you ever done a trust fall before?

RILEY BASS: Gosh, I can’t remember. Maybe in summer camp when I was much younger, but not any time recently.

CHRIS COX: OK. I did one yesterday. No one was around. I ended up taking a nap.

RILEY BASS: Speaking of trust, we are very, very excited to bring a special guest to you guys today. This guest came and spoke to our entire company about a month ago, and we asked and were prepared to beg to have her come do a podcast with us. And she so graciously agreed to do one, and we are–

ANDREA HOWE: Can I laugh out loud now?

CHRIS COX: Yes, you– please.

RILEY BASS: Yes, please.

[CHUCKLING]

ANDREA HOWE: I’ve been containing myself this whole time. Then I heard the beg line and couldn’t keep it in anymore.

RILEY BASS: Well, laughing is allowed and encouraged on the podcast. We are so excited to welcome Andrea Howe. Andrea, welcome to the podcast. Please tell us a little bit about yourself.

ANDREA HOWE: Thank you. I’m so excited to be here. I love everything and everyone Audigy related.

CHRIS COX: Oh, stop.

[CHUCKLING]

ANDREA HOWE: True statement. I’ve never done a trust fall, just for the record. So that’s one thing you should know about me. And I’ve never made anybody in my workshops do it either, although sometimes I threaten to when I think it’s important to do that. But I always say we cover that in the advanced program, so you’re off the hook for now.

I am a recovering IT consultant. So I’m not a medical professional. I’m a consulting professional, although I suppose some people might consider that an oxymoron. But I’ve been in and around the consulting world for a little over 25 years now.

CHRIS COX: Oh, wow.

ANDREA HOWE: Yeah. Don’t do the math. And spent the last 10 focused specifically on the subject of trust-based relationships. It’s become a specialty or a niche, or I guess fancy people say niche. It’s a niche for me.

I am the co-author of a book called The Trusted Advisor Field Book, which is a companion guide to two books that preceded it, one called The Trusted Advisor and another called Trust-Based Selling. And that book, The Trust Advisor Field Book– we were just celebrating our fifth anniversary.

RILEY BASS: Oh, wow.

CHRIS COX: Congratulations.

[APPLAUSE]

ANDREA HOWE: [INAUDIBLE] Yeah. So this is my life. I teach workshops. I do virtual learning programs. I have traveled various corners of the world and various digital corners of the world, teaching mostly consultants or people who were in consultative roles– that includes sales people; it includes internal consultants– what it really takes to be extraordinary in their client relationships.

CHRIS COX: Consultants– that sounds like what we as hearing professionals do.

ANDREA HOWE: Oh, absolutely.

CHRIS COX: I have to make another note that it sounds somewhat strange to hear that the trust genre or trust niche is a niche and that it’s not something that everybody is using.

ANDREA HOWE: Oh, yeah.

RILEY BASS: Right?

[INTERPOSING VOICES]

ANDREA HOWE: I guess that is kind of– I don’t know. Is that sad? It’s a sad state of affairs.

CHRIS COX: It kind of is, isn’t it?

[CHUCKLING]

ANDREA HOWE: Well, certainly, it’s a very narrow subject area, right? Some people would consider it to be, in some ways– when you think about the kinds of training that your typical consultant would go through, they’re learning a lot. They’re spending a lot of time focused on their industry expertise, their subject matter, trying to get really smart in that way, and I help them be really smart about the relationships side of it.

CHRIS COX: Ah, relationships. I think that’s one of the key things that we talk about here on the podcast, as being a hearing care professional, about building relationships with both your teammates and with your patients. So I’d love to hear that from you as well about the importance of these relationships.

ANDREA HOWE: Well, I think they’re really critical because I think for anyone who’s in any kind of service-oriented role, medical professionals and professionals in general, what really differentiates you, what has you stand apart isn’t actually your experience or your subject matter expertise. It’s other people’s experience of you. And I think we typically don’t spend a lot of time thinking about that and honing our skills in that regard.

RILEY BASS: Absolutely.

ANDREA HOWE: Which is job security for me, so that’s good, right?

RILEY BASS: Perfect. Well, that leads right into our first question, Andrea. We primarily on this podcast talk to audiology students and new graduates, so our listening base is usually a little bit on the younger side and new professionals into the field.

And I’m sure you know that there is sometimes that stigma attached to being a young professional, where maybe you’re looked upon as– they don’t know what they’re doing. They’re too young. They’re too inexperienced. So what is your take on being a young professional in the field and really building those trusted relationships and building that credibility for yourself with patients or clients that might not see that in you?

ANDREA HOWE: Yeah, it’s a great question. Well, let’s talk about the new part first because I think any time you’re new in anything, whether it’s the workforce, or a new job, or a new phase of your career or phase of your life, or whatever, it’s a critical time to do two things, one is establish yourself, and the other is, like I said before, really differentiate yourself or figure out how you can stand apart.

And when you’re entering the workforce, there’s a lot that’s new, and not the least of which is using that R word again, relationships. This whole new set of relationships– if you’re an audiologist– now, I’m imagining, right? I’m putting myself in your shoes because I don’t live that life. But you’ve got new patients, new colleagues, new vendors, new– probably a very long list.

And I think we human beings mistakenly believe that trust-building takes time, so because we’re new, we can’t really get in there and build great relationships. We have to do it over time. And one of the first things I teach anyone is that it’s a myth that trust-building takes time, and there’s a lot that you can do to accelerate the levels of trust that you have in all those new relationships.

RILEY BASS: Awesome. What are some of those things you can do?

ANDREA HOWE: If you’re just entering the workforce and seeing patients independently for the first time, I think there are three key things that you can do. First is don’t either undersell or oversell yourself. Just be yourself.

[DING]

So you said the word, Riley, “credibility.” One way to build credibility with other people is by citing your credentials and talking about your experience. Another credibility builder, and it’s the one that most of us fail to really appreciate, simply is honesty.

So from a trust-building standpoint, I would say don’t try to hide or gloss over a lack of experience. It’s OK that you’re just out of school. In fact, there are most certainly some benefits to it. You may be familiar with newer technologies, for example.

And so by the way, don’t try to hide or gloss over those either. Just be real about all of it, and not in an apologetic way, but in a simply– I know who I am and who I’m not. I’m confident in my abilities, and in fact, I’m so confident that I’m willing to tell you when I think I have a knowledge gap or a skill gap or I might need to call in a colleague to help. And if your patients or your colleagues have concerns about your lack of experience, either they say so or you sense it, be glad. They’re being open with you about it, and you have an opportunity to listen, to understand more about what worries them about you. In other words, don’t be– I wouldn’t be afraid of a quote, unquote, “lack of experience.” Just be you. Know your gifts, your strengths, your talents, your weaknesses, and bring them all to bear. So that was one of three tips I had.

[CHUCKLING]

CHRIS COX: Well, I wanted to ask if you would be willing to share the story that you shared with us back a couple of months ago with your experience as a first-time consultant going out to a place that was probably not as open to young females coming in and telling them what to do. Would you mind sharing–

ANDREA HOWE: You must be talking about the naval shipyard.

[CHUCKLING]

CHRIS COX: Would you mind sharing a little bit about that story? I thought it was really relevant to what we’re talking about right now.

ANDREA HOWE: Thank you. I don’t mind at all. I love that story because I think it’s so illustrative, and I love flashing back to remember some of my biggest consulting failures.

[CHUCKLING]

This story is actually– it goes back to my first ever client meeting as a young– I was a 23-year-old IT consultant. That’s the kind of consulting I did for the first 10 years of my career. And I was assigned to a project on a naval shipyard in Norfolk, Virginia, or as they say down there, they call it Nawfawk. It’s Nawfawk, Virginia.

And literally, I’d been on the job for two weeks. I’d been out of college for a couple of months. And I went to this first ever meeting, and I was there with two other colleagues, and there were nine clients in the room, all of whom happened to be men, by the way.

So a shipyard is a very unique place. It’s very industrial. It’s very big. The scale is huge. And it’s a very male-dominated environment, and the client who was leading this team– we were there to kick off a six-month project.

And the client who was leading the team opened up the meeting saying, well, let’s have everybody say how long you’ve been on the shipyard and what are you bringing to the party. So you can imagine, if you think back to a time in your life when you just wish that the ground would open up and swallow you whole, right? This was one of those moments for me because–

CHRIS COX: Pretty much all of middle school for me.

ANDREA HOWE: Yeah, maybe even most of high school for me too.

CHRIS COX: Yeah.

[CHUCKLING]

RILEY BASS: Agreed.

ANDREA HOWE: And for sure, this moment in my consulting career– because the honest answers to those questions were, how long have I been on this shipyard– if we’re generous and round up, 15 minutes, not just for this shipyard, but any shipyard. And what am I bringing to the party? At best, I really didn’t know, and at worst, I didn’t bring anything.

So I scrambled. I started to panic, all quietly and internally, of course, and decided that I would choose my first brilliant consulting strategy, which was to orchestrate it so that I could go last, be the last person to answer the questions. Turned out to be one of the first and last time– I mean the first of many times that I made a really bad call in the middle of a client meeting because by the time it was my turn to answer the questions, how long have you been on the yard and what do you bring to the party, I had learned that every single member of the client side of the team– there were nine of them. Remember, all of them are male. They’d been working on the– each of them had been working on the shipyard longer than I had been alive.

[CHUCKLING]

CHRIS COX: Wow.

ANDREA HOWE: True. You laugh, and it’s a true story. So there I am. It’s the first of many moments of truth for me in my consulting career. What the heck do I do now, is what’s going through my mind. And I basically– I tap danced. I ignored the first question, how long have you been on the yard, pretended like I just– forgetting to answer it.

And for the second question, I proceeded to regale my new colleagues with everything I could remember from the prior semester that sounded as impressive as it possibly be. This is the IT world, so I told them how I knew [? Jordan ?] DeMarco, data modeling and IDEF modeling, and blah, blah, blah.

RILEY BASS: I don’t even know what that means.

ANDREA HOWE: Yeah, I went on and on and on for two minutes too long. And I learned a really important lesson in that moment because– well, looking back at that, there’s so many things now that I wish I’d done differently because I understand things differently now. Like understanding that honesty is one of the best ways to build credibility. Understanding that the thing that we’re most afraid to say in any given moment is often precisely what will build the most trust in that moment. And also understanding that there is a very close relationship between trust building and personal risk taking.

You don’t get deep trust without a willingness to take personal risks. So while how I responded was understandable– nobody stood up and said, “you’re fired”– I imagine they all sort of rolled their eyes and went, “here we go, another young one that they’re charging us too much money for.”

In hindsight, I wish I’d had the presence of mind to say, “all right guys”– and I do mean literally guys– “how long have I been on the yard? If we’re generous and round up, we’re going on 15 minutes. And that’s any yard, not just this ship yard.” I could have added, “all you have to do is look at me and you know I’m young and new to these parts, so I’m not going to start off by BSing you. And what am I bringing to the party? I’ve got some modeling skills that I understand are going to be relevant more than anything, bring a complete commitment to the success of this team. And I’m really looking forward to getting to know you all better and work with you.”

Something along those lines with confidence and presence. And if they had a problem with the honesty in who I was, then they could have spoken up, and we could have dealt with it instead of it hanging like a black cloud over my head, which is what it did for weeks and months.

CHRIS COX: One of those things that you wake up five years later, and are like, ugh, why did I do that.

RILEY BASS: In the middle of the night. You could of always brought balloons to the party. Nobody would ever be mad at you for bringing balloons to the party.

[LAUGHTER]

ANDREA HOWE: That’s awesome. That’s perfect, Riley. That never occurred to me.

CHRIS COX: Always carry balloons with you.

ANDREA HOWE: I love it.

CHRIS COX: Riley does. She always has balloons with her.

RILEY BASS: I do. I have a whole bunch of balloons, right now.

CHRIS COX: As you talk about it, it seems like building relationships and having a strong knowledge of how relationships work is maybe a facilitator or a lubricant to performing whatever the tasks that you normally do on a day-to-day basis, whether it’s selling doughnuts, or whether it’s working with patients, or building a team, or even working with family. That knowing how relationships work and how to connect with people just makes your job so much easier.

ANDREA HOWE: I think that’s absolutely right and well said. Makes your job and your life easier.

CHRIS COX: Yeah, for sure. As we talk to our audience, we would like to give them some things that they can take with them and use immediately wherever they are, whether that’s still in school or out in their business. And Riley has already asked once for some things. I think you went through one out of three–

ANDREA HOWE: I did.

CHRIS COX: –bullet points? So I’m curious. What are some of the other things that you recommend for building trust and establishing trust as a new professional.

ANDREA HOWE: What’s it worth to you, Chris, to get the other two? No, I’m just kidding.

RILEY BASS: He’ll give you one of his doughnuts.

CHRIS COX: I’ll give you one Riley’s balloons.

ANDREA HOWE: Can I have a balloon and a donut? So another piece of advice, or a tip I have for a new professional– aside from be yourself, don’t undersell or oversell– is to be willing to take risks, unlike me in the shipyard. Part of what I was doing was trying to protect myself, trying to look good, trying to have the right answer.

And there are a lot of different ways you can take personal risks. For example, when you’re first connecting with a patient, sharing a personal story about why you chose audiology as a career path or sharing something personal about yourself, not private, not inappropriate, not TMI, just personal. Being willing to open up to other people means that they’re far more likely to be willing to open up to you.

I think it’s especially true in a medical context. Coming to a medical professional for a consult, especially around a hearing challenge, I think it’s a very, very personal thing. It might be hard to admit that you’re struggling. It might be embarrassing. There’s so much associated with that. And creating an environment where people are really comfortable opening up and saying what needs to be said and telling you what’s really going on for them, or what they really care about, or want is critical.

You’ve got to have trust to do that, and you don’t get there as quickly as you otherwise could, or to the extent that you otherwise could, if you’re not willing to take some personal risks yourself. So be the one to go first, and they will usually follow. So that’s my tip number two.

CHRIS COX: Great tip number two.

RILEY BASS: One more tip? Because it’s for the doughnut.

ANDREA HOWE: It better be good, right? If it’s really good, maybe I get sprinkles?

RILEY BASS: And it has to be really good for Chris to share a donut. He’s pretty protective of his doughnuts.

CHRIS COX: And actually you can have this apple fritter.

RILEY BASS: That’s kind of a recurring theme on our podcast. We tend to talk about doughnuts a lot, so this is no exception to that rule.

CHRIS COX: I wonder if we could get sponsored by somebody.

RILEY BASS: We should. Voodoo Doughnuts, right down the street in Portland.

ANDREA HOWE: Consistency is good, right? That’s another key to trust building is being consistent. So you’re doing a good job with your audience with the doughnut theme.

RILEY BASS: Yes.

CHRIS COX: Oh, great. Yes.

RILEY BASS: Who knew?

[LAUGHTER]

ANDREA HOWE: All right, so drum roll, right? Big buildup for this last one, so it better be good. The thing I like the most about this third tip is that it’s really simple and it’s available to anybody any time. It’s something you can start practicing immediately. Now it’s simple. I didn’t say it was necessarily easy. And what it is, is becoming a masterful, or being a masterful listener.

So my advice is to work your listening muscles like you would a real muscle in your body. And in two particular ways, or two exercises, or two skills. I usually call them being great at paraphrasing and empathizing. Those are the two critical listening skills. Paraphrasing is repeating back what you’re hearing somebody say, not in a parroting, robotic kind of way. Simply, OK, so what you’re saying is x, y, and z. Did I get that right?

And empathizing is a way of mirroring back, or connecting with any emotions that you hear people communicating. So you might have a patient say– say it’s an elderly patient, “you know, it’s so hard to hear at family gatherings anymore. I can’t follow the conversation at dinner time.”

CHRIS COX: That’s a good one. Yeah.

ANDREA HOWE: All right.

CHRIS COX: We hear that.

ANDREA HOWE: They might say that a lot of different ways. But the way I just said it, there’s sadness. There’s maybe a bit of– what’s the word?

CHRIS COX: Embarrassment, maybe?

ANDREA HOWE: Well it could be embarrassment, but I was thinking more like you feel there’s kind of no hope. You feel– what is the word?

RILEY BASS: Hopeless.

CHRIS COX: Oh, that’s a good one, hopeless.

ANDREA HOWE: Yeah, it could be hopeless.

[LAUGHTER]

CHRIS COX: We’re not getting it. I guess we’re just totally missing the marker.

ANDREA HOWE: I think it starts with a D. Or it has a D in it, or something. I don’t know. So if you can connect with that and there’s data in what they said. So you know that there are issues in certain settings. “So it sounds like you’re having trouble, in particular, at family gatherings. And it also sounds like that’s sad for you.” And just then pausing and letting them respond. And maybe you hit the nail on the head, and it is sad for them. And they say, “you know what, it really is.” Or maybe sad is not quite right. Maybe “it’s really frustrating more than it is sad for me.” “Oh, OK. I got it, frustrating. Well I can appreciate why that would be frustrating. Of course you’re frustrated, you can’t connect to people the way you’re used to.”

So if you’re really willing to get into conversations like that, you’ll be amazed at, not only how much more you learn about the people you’re trying to serve, but how much more willing they are to share with you, to take and act on your advice, and how much connection, or loyalty, you can build relatively quickly.

So there’s a big secret about listening. Or it’s not really a secret, but there’s a hidden driver of influence that most people don’t understand. And that is that influence is not fundamentally about how articulate you are when you’re talking. Influence has everything to do with how effective you are when you’re listening.

CHRIS COX: I love this concept because we talk about that here when we’re training providers and talking to them about connecting with their patients. It’s all about understanding what is emotionally underlying all of these things that they deal with on a daily basis that are affected by this hearing loss that they may have.

And too many times do we just talk over it, or glaze over it, not really address the root issue of why they have come in to see us as hearing care providers. They just move on here like, get your case history. We’ll do your testing, and then here’s what I recommend. And it’s kind of in and out without any real connection, or without any real understanding of what that person across the table from you is really experiencing and how they’re truly feeling on a day-to-day basis because of this loss of connection through hearing loss.

ANDREA HOWE: It makes sense that we all have a tendency to diagnose too quickly. Consultants do that too. We tend to be high achievers. We like to have answers. We like to fix things. We get the gratification of solving something. There are two problems with doing that.

One is very often you find you’re solving the wrong problem, or you’re missing a key cue that might suggest a slightly different path, or a slightly different approach, or even a massively different path or approach. And the other big problem with it is you miss myriad opportunities in the process to really connect with the person you’re trying to provide the solution, or the answer to. And that includes having them feel at ease and comfortable with you, feeling like you really understand. You really get it. You get their world.

And that relates to their willingness and ability to actually take action on the things you recommend. You might manage to sell them the super high-end hearing device, but what if they only wear it an hour a day. It doesn’t do any good. And, yeah, maybe you can check the box and say, we made that revenue for the practice, and I feel like I gave them what they needed.

But you’re leaving so much on the table, including the real sense of satisfaction of having truly made a difference in that person’s life, their family’s life, everybody they interact with. Knowing that they’re likely to wholeheartedly refer you. That’s where we go back to developing business with ease. It’s easy if you build great relationships because your patients become the people who are the ones doing the selling for you.

CHRIS COX: They’re the ones that go out there into the community and spread the word about how you did, either good or bad. So I wanted to ask you a little more specifically on this, you said to exercise and do this on a daily basis. And those two things that we’re supposed to do is– I’m sorry I wasn’t listening. What was it?

RILEY BASS: Paraphrase and empathy.

CHRIS COX: Very good.

ANDREA HOWE: Riley was listening.

CHRIS COX: Paraphrase and empathize.

RILEY BASS: Yes. Gold star.

CHRIS COX: How do you do that? What does that look like? I was just kidding. It was a joke, you guys. I was listening. How do you practice that day in day out? It seems like maybe it’s self explanatory, but in your mind, how do you work that out?

ANDREA HOWE: There’s a little exercise I suggest people try. I call it every day empathy. And what everyday empathy is, is that you practice at least once a day empathizing with somebody who’s outside of your typical work environment, so the barista at Starbucks, the grocery store clerk who’s checking you out, the person behind the counter at the dry cleaner, your daycare provider. Somebody who’s in that service role who you encounter. Somebody who answers the phone when you call customer service to get help.

And you simply practice tuning in to them, not just tuning in on a rational or logical data level, but tuning in on an emotional level. And just practice at least once saying something empathetic. You can see the face of the grocery store clerk. They look exhausted. And my first reaction is to get annoyed and indignant because they’re in a customer service role and they’re supposed to greet me with a smile.

And if I can choose to set that aside for a minute and say, “all right, I’m going to use this as my everyday empathy practice.” I’ll look at that person and I’d say, “it looks like maybe you’ll be glad when your shift comes to an end,” something along those lines. “I kind of get the feeling maybe you’re having a not so great day.”

And there’s some great benefits to doing that. One is, if you get it wrong, the stakes are relatively low. Some might feel differently for their Starbucks barista. Like oh god, they’re going to screw up my coffee order forever. This is catastrophic.

CHRIS COX: I’ve got to go to another Starbucks on another corner.

RILEY BASS: We have a Starbucks right down the street from our office. And everyone in the office goes. And the guy that’s the barista that works the drive-thru knows all of the employees of Audigy. Every morning he asked me, and he’s like, were you off last week for the holidays because I didn’t see you all week. I’m like, yeah. So he knows.

CHRIS COX: Maybe don’t practice on him.

ANDREA HOWE: So the stakes might be really high if you screw something up with him. For the most part, the stakes are going to be low. You’re probably not going to screw it up anyway. Even if you do, they’ll say, “oh, no. Sorry, as a matter of fact, I was just starting my shift,” and whatever.

RILEY BASS: “That’s just how my face looks.”

ANDREA HOWE: Yeah, exactly. You also have the added benefit of treating somebody in a role who typically gets a lot of customer complaints rather than any kind of affirmation and validation. You really can make a difference for them. And in the process, you’re building the muscle.

And I don’t care where you practice. You can practice anywhere and everywhere. And you will find once the muscle starts to develop that you naturally bring it into all dimensions of your life, including your work life. It starts with just setting an intention and saying, all right, in this interaction I’m going to– and then it ends with noticing when you’re starting to rush to problem solve, or rush to move along, or rush to diagnose, or rush to fill in the blank, and making a conscious effort to step back and then say something, mirror back what you’re hearing or experiencing from the other person.

RILEY BASS: So now you and my doctor are both telling me I should exercise. Great. All right. So as we kind of start to wrap up here, Andrea, can we really quickly review those three quick points of establishing trust? And then I want to talk a little bit more about how our students can maybe–

CHRIS COX: And professionals.

RILEY BASS: I was going to say how our listeners can get in contact with you. So what were those three points one more time.

ANDREA HOWE: The three points for new professionals–

CHRIS COX: Oh, I know this one.

RILEY BASS: You weren’t even listening.

ANDREA HOWE: Go ahead Chris.

CHRIS COX: Just be yourself. Don’t overdo you and underdo you. Second is take a risk.

RILEY BASS: Be honest.

CHRIS COX: Be willing to take risks.

RILEY BASS: And number three?

CHRIS COX: Be a good listener.

ANDREA HOWE: Excellent.

RILEY BASS: You were listening.

ANDREA HOWE: Well done.

RILEY BASS: Good job.

CHRIS COX: Thank you. Thank you. Can I have a balloon, Riley?

RILEY BASS: Yes, you can have a balloon. Like we said earlier, The Trusted Advisor Fieldbook is your book that you co-authored. We happen to have a few copies here around the office. If any of our listeners would like to get a copy of that, please shoot an email, or tweet, or a Snapchat. I don’t know, whatever. Get in contact with Chris and I, and we will make sure to get a copy of that book out to you as soon as possible. It’s a phenomenal book.

CHRIS COX: It’s a really good one, easy read.

RILEY BASS: Like we were saying, we just did an entire company training. We took a day and a half, and Andrea came and spent a day and a half with our entire staff. The whole company read the book. And everyone loved it and unanimously wanted to bring her back. We had her here a few years ago, and we wanted to see her again.

So I highly, highly recommend it. And it’s something that’s going to be extremely valuable to all of our listeners in both your professional and your personal lives. So Andrea, if our listeners want to get in contact with you, what’s a good way for them to do that?

ANDREA HOWE: Well one way is to go to my website, which is thegetrealproject.com.

CHRIS COX: Get Real Project.

ANDREA HOWE: Thegetrealproject.com.

RILEY BASS: The Get Real Project.

ANDREA HOWE: Thegetrealproject.com. You’re also welcome to email me Andrea@thegetrealproject.com. I’ll also give out my cell phone. If anybody wants to call me on my mobile it’s 202-906-0485.

CHRIS COX: Beep. That’s really risky. Wow, you take risks for sure.

ANDREA HOWE: Do you know why I do that? I saw a super famous author do that at a conference speaking to 15,000 people. He gave out his cell phone to 15,000 people. And I said, you know what? If he could do, it I can do it. Because the reality is most people don’t call you. And if they do call you, they really want to talk to you, or they’re taking a risk, or they’re really stepping out to do it.

RILEY BASS: Absolutely. Well we appreciate it so much. We will make sure that all of our listeners get your contact information. We’ll post on to social media whenever this podcast goes live.

CHRIS COX: Do you have a Twitter account?

ANDREA HOWE: I do.

RILEY BASS: Oh, yeah. Do you have a Twitter account?

ANDREA HOWE: I have two of them. Personal one is Andrea @AndreaPHowe. And then there’s @ProjectGetReal, is another Twitter account.

RILEY BASS: Andrea, we very much appreciate you coming on and doing this podcast with us. We don’t want to take anymore of your time. We know you’re very busy.

CHRIS COX: Thank you so much.

ANDREA HOWE: You’re welcome.

RILEY BASS: But we really do appreciate it. And I know our listeners do too. So thank you so much, and we hope that we can maybe record with you again someday.

ANDREA HOWE: I would love that.

CHRIS COX: It’s been awesome.

ANDREA HOWE: My pleasure.

Advocacy and Audiology

By

Chris Cox and Riley Bass host the pAuDcast

Welcome to Season 2 of The pAuDcast! In today’s show, Chris Cox Au.D., and Riley Bass Au.D. talk with Bettie Borton, Au.D., a former President of the American Academy of Audiology and current Director of University and Student Outreach at Audigy. The topic of this podcast is advocacy — why its important in a field such as audiology, and how you can get involved!

Did you miss our series on Transitioning from Student to Provider? Catch up on what you missed by visiting our special series page.
Listen to the Episode Below
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Read the transcript:

CHRIS COX: And we’re back.

RILEY BASS: And better than ever.

CHRIS COX: Forever.

RILEY BASS: You know what’s better than the original?

CHRIS COX: No.

RILEY BASS: The sequel.

CHRIS COX: Of what? Which one?

RILEY BASS: Of this season of the podcast.

CHRIS COX: Wow. This is a sequel? I was expecting this just to be another season.

RILEY BASS: Well, it’s the first sequel. It’s the Empire Strikes Back right now.

CHRIS COX: Yeah. This is the Empire Strikes Back season. This is going to be a lot darker and it’s going to be the best one.

[LAUGHING]

RILEY BASS: But no ewoks.

CHRIS COX: No ewoks.

RILEY BASS: That’s the third one.

CHRIS COX: Yeah.

RILEY BASS: Got it.

CHRIS COX: They’re kind of expensive so I don’t know if we’re going to be able to get them.

RILEY BASS: All right. Well, we’ve got our season two Star Wars joke out of the way, so let’s dive right in.

CHRIS COX: Yes, and we are plowing into. Let’s move on to what we’re here to do. We’re glad you guys are back. We’re glad you’re listening to us again– tuning in. We had a brief pause there for us to recoup and get some of the things done. But we’re back now to educate and entertain.

RILEY BASS: Informate.

CHRIS COX: Informate– that might work, yeah.

RILEY BASS: Yeah.

CHRIS COX: Today, waiting patiently in the wings here, chomping at the bit to chat with us, is our very good friend Dr. Bettie Borton.

DR. BETTIE BORTON: Good morning.

CHRIS COX: Good morning. Good afternoon– whatever time you’re listening to this.

DR. BETTIE BORTON: Good evening–whenever you’re tuning in.

CHRIS COX: Right.

[LAUGHING]

Welcome to the show– season two, episode one– Dr. Bettie Borton. And we’re so happy that you’re here.

DR. BETTIE BORTON: Well, thanks. It’s great to be here.

RILEY BASS: So Bettie, why don’t you tell us a little bit about what you do here at Audigy and your road to get to where you are today.

DR. BETTIE BORTON: Well, I’ve been with Audigy for about two years and I serve as the Director of University and Student Outreach. And in that role, I try to develop relationships between Audigy and students, universities, faculty members. We provide on sites and host events, which many of your listeners are probably familiar with.

That was sort of a natural outgrowth for me of a 30 plus year career. I’ve been an audiologist for a long time– probably more years than I want to delineate to specifically. And during the course of that time, I’ve been employed in many different roles. I’ve worked in big medical centers. I’ve worked in schools for the hearing impaired. I’ve worked in clinics, but most especially and most favorably in the private practice arena.

RILEY BASS: By most favorably, you obviously mean working with Chris and I.

DR. BETTIE BORTON: Absolutely.

RILEY BASS: Right. OK. I just wanted to clarify.

DR. BETTIE BORTON: Let’s get that clear.

RILEY BASS: So tell us a little bit more about your private practice– what you did. I know you’ve had a couple, but tell us more specifically about the most recent one you had.

DR. BETTIE BORTON: Well, my first practice was sort of a symbiotic relationship with an EMT. My second practice was with a partner in Birmingham. But my third practice was in Montgomery, Alabama and Auburn Opelika, Alabama. And it was a truly independent, autonomous, free-standing private practice. And it was quite enjoyable, and after a period of time, as I approached retirement with my husband, we decided to sell the practices.

But I discovered during the course of my career that I really enjoy that independent, autonomous employment setting.

CHRIS COX: So would you say that’s the main reason why you stuck with that and went with that?

DR. BETTIE BORTON: I’d say so. I just have a rather entrepreneurial bent, I think. And I enjoy that type of independence and that type of freedom within an employment setting.

RILEY BASS: And you kind of enjoy being the boss, right?

DR. BETTIE BORTON: I do. I like to boss people around.

CHRIS COX: She’s a little bossy. But that’s OK.

[LAUGHING]

So beyond that, you’ve also been involved in quite a few things in your career, both professionally and out on your own personally. Do you mind sharing a couple of those with us– some pretty big ones out there that I think are really cool.

DR. BETTIE BORTON: I’d be glad to. I’ve been quite active on the state level, of course, in my home state of Alabama with the Alabama Academy of Audiology there, and was the first president of that organization. But I was also a member of the Board of Governors for the American Board of Audiology, ABA, and later served as their national chair.

And then I served on the board of directors for the American Academy of Audiology, and subsequently was elected as the president of the Academy.

RILEY BASS: What? No way.

CHRIS COX: We have a president among us.

RILEY BASS: Wow. Once again, we’re being one-upped by our guest.

CHRIS COX: Always.

RILEY BASS: Our guests are always way cooler than we are. Thanks for sticking with us, guys.

[LAUGHING]

CHRIS COX: So Bettie, you’ve held a lot of leadership roles. And I think what’s striking is that you also were an owner of a private practice at the same time as a lot of that. Can you explain a little bit about how you juggled both of those at the same time? How can you even do that?

DR. BETTIE BORTON: Well, it was challenging. I will say that. One of the things about Audigy is that it allowed me to become an owner investor in my own practice, rather than an owner doer. I was able to step back from the practice and let my staff take over most of the day-to-day activities. And I had a largely oversight role as I moved into the presidency and completed that role, which was really a three year tour of duty.

CHRIS COX: Oh wow.

DR. BETTIE BORTON: And Audigy really helped me position myself and my practice and my staff for that transition. So that was enormously helpful to me.

RILEY BASS: So just to clarify, when you had a practice, you were a member of Audigy.

DR. BETTIE BORTON: Correct.

RILEY BASS: Gotcha.

CHRIS COX: And then later, after you got done with your practice, you got bored in retirement and decided you had to have something to do, and so you decided to come knock on Audigy’s door and see if you could come hang out with us.

DR. BETTIE BORTON: That pretty well sums it up.

[LAUGHING]

Actually, it was just another way that I could impact my profession. And I’ve put a great deal into my profession over the course of my life. And one of the things that’s very important to me is seeing independent private practice thrive in our profession. And I think that many professions, not just audiology, but many health care professions, are in danger of losing independent practice. And I wanted to see what I could do to impact our profession and prevent that from happening if it’s possible.

CHRIS COX: Well, I want to definitely take an opportunity to talk about that with you. Because of your experience and where you’ve been, both with private practice and working so hard within our profession– which, thank you for your service by the way– I want to spend some time to just talk to you about those professional affiliations, and why it’s important to be involved.

DR. BETTIE BORTON: Well, I think that audiology is rather unique because we have a number of organizations that people can affiliate with or participate in to impact our profession. And that’s an OK thing. But in terms of advocacy or really impacting your profession and your professional colleagues, it is your profession. You need to own it. And the best way to do that is to become involved in it so that you are knowledgeable about the issues and the trends that are impacting your practice and your profession. Because if you don’t mind that backyard, nobody else is going to do it for you.

So I think it’s critically important for students and professionals alike to advocate for their profession, and that requires understanding the issues, understanding what kinds of trends are coming about and how the long-term effects might impact our profession.

CHRIS COX: So you said this is our profession and it’s up to us to help move the profession forward. And you and those like you before us– Riley and I, as new audiologists– have really done a lot to lay the groundwork for where we are now, including fighting for this autonomous degree that we know the AUD. Hey, that rhymed.

RILEY BASS: It does rhyme. You did a good job. You should get a degree in rhyme time.

CHRIS COX: Yes. Thank you.

RILEY BASS: But in all seriousness, it is important because if we’re not advocates for our profession, nobody else is going to. And if you look out into the marketplace today, there are people that are trying to put us out of business by these direct marketing piece apps that are available online and in Target and Wal Mart and the grocery store. And if we don’t fight for our profession and we don’t advocate for ourselves, then that’s what’s going to become the norm and we’re going to become irrelevant in society today. And we can’t let that happen because, then how are we going to pay off our student loan debt?

DR. BETTIE BORTON: You’re exactly right.

RILEY BASS: I mean, and other things too.

CHRIS COX: And other things. And the yacht and all that.

RILEY BASS: Right. Right. No, I didn’t mean pay things off. I meant help people.

DR. BETTIE BORTON: Well, another thing to consider is that in the total scheme of things, audiology is both a very young profession and it’s a very small profession. And so the smaller the profession and the younger the profession, the greater the need for very intentional advocacy efforts and for very sweeping participation. Because there are so few of us, all of us have to lend our voice to any kind of advocacy effort. Because if we don’t, there is simply not going to be enough push behind the effort to convince the regulatory agency or the lawmaker or whomever it is to move forward with the initiative.

As you can probably surmise from the current political scenario, lawmakers are influenced by large numbers of constituents advocating for a single platform. And because we are small, that is a real challenge for our profession. I think all of the professional organizations are working overtime to compensate for our limitations in terms of size and the fact that we are a very new profession as compared to optometry or dentistry or medicine or some of the other doctoring professions.

CHRIS COX: And even beyond that, for me, when I first learned that, that was wide opening– that was very eye-opening.

RILEY BASS: I was like wide opening what?

CHRIS COX: Very wide opening.

[LAUGHING]

That was very eye-opening to think that our numbers are so small. And even beyond us comparing ourselves to dentistry and optometry and even with physicians, whenever you’re someone in legislation, like in Capitol Hill or even at state level, there are bigger and louder lobbyists out there for any other number of things that are going to get the attention of those legislators.

So when it comes to us, we’re even a smaller voice in an already large pool of screaming voices that have tons and tons and tons of money.

DR. BETTIE BORTON: Sure.

CHRIS COX: It’s almost defeating to think about– that there’s just so much there. But I think that we have a lot that we can contribute and offer. And I think a lot of it comes down to educating even our own patients on the importance of audiology and hearing health care when it comes to them and their families.

DR. BETTIE BORTON: You bet, Chris. And that’s one of the best ways that we can approach advocacy as a small profession– is to pull our patients and other consumers of hearing health into the mix and ask them to help us advocate or to advocate on our behalf. That’s a very good way to grow the numbers, so to speak.

CHRIS COX: Bettie, I want to ask you this. What do you think, in your opinion, is the most important issue in our profession today?

DR. BETTIE BORTON: Well, if I answer this question, there will probably be a lot of people who will disagree with me. But to me, the single greatest issue facing our profession today is our educational model– owning our standards for that model and owning the accreditation process. Because until we own our own standards for educational programs, and until we are in firm control of the accreditation process that defines how one becomes an audiologist and what our scope of practice is, then we are at the mercy of many other groups.

For example, if we try to pursue limited license physician status, I think that there is so much out there about how inconsistent some of our educational programs are and how varied the standards are, that we run the danger of running afoul of much larger organizations like the AMA with regard to this particular issue. So to me, getting behind ACAE’s accreditation process that is really of by and for audiologists– it’s not shepherded by another discipline– it is our own accreditation process, and urging universities to get this accreditation and maintain it is extremely important.

And young providers and students can be very instrumental in this by simply urging their own professors and programs, especially as they matriculate out of education and become donating alums to pursue this course of action. Because it really is the best thing for audiology.

CHRIS COX: So you’re saying getting a better standard on our education system so that the output of what comes out of these programs is a little more similar than it is now?

DR. BETTIE BORTON: Yes, and one of the best ways that we do that is to have a single accreditation process that is developed and monitored and implemented, solely by audiologists.

CHRIS COX: Kind of going back to what you said earlier, and it ties into this a little bit, but the size of our profession and the relative newness of our profession I think, to me– I see it in a positive light as exciting, because that means that we can actually lay more of the foundation for what’s to come in the future and do it with a little more ease, perhaps, than if we were a big burgeoning profession that’s been around for a long time and has its stalwarts at the top that don’t want any change.

So for me, I see it as a positive. And part of that– of course the advocacy is a big part. And I think education is another big component of it. We’re still trying to figure out what we’re trying to do within the universities– the AUD only being around officially, what, 16 years at this point. So there are definitely some opportunities there, but I think there’s also some things to look forward to and push for in our future for the future profession and the education of our audiologists.

DR. BETTIE BORTON: You’re absolutely right, Chris. It’s a really exciting time to be an audiologist. And I would submit to younger audiologists that it’s a really exciting time to be an advocate because you can be part of your profession’s history.

CHRIS COX: That would be cool.

RILEY BASS: Bettie, I definitely see a lot of potential for our profession to take off and reach great heights and I’m excited to see where we go. We could probably sit here and talk about this all day. But rest assured, we do have this planned as talking about advocacy and involvement in the profession as one of our main topics that we are going to be covering this season on the podcast.

But while we have you here, Bettie, I want to ask you a couple more questions because most of our listeners are students or new graduates. So since you have had a practice and had a lot of experience being the boss, what are some things that you really looked for when you were looking to hire an extern or a new graduate to come into your practice and work with you?

DR. BETTIE BORTON: I think that having someone who can clearly articulate to me what their goals are is really important to me. Because if they can’t tell me what their goals are, I have no way of assessing if they are going to align with my practice’s culture, with our goals, with where we’re going– that sort of thing.

So being able to have some clearly stated goals is really important. But also, I look at a lot of intentionality in the candidate. Do they want to come to work in my practice for a particular reason? I hope so, and I hope I’m not just a job for them but I am the job. And if I’m not the job, then perhaps it’s not going to be the best fit for them or for me.

RILEY BASS: I heard you use to keep candy in your waiting room.

DR. BETTIE BORTON: I did.

RILEY BASS: So maybe that is one of the reasons.

CHRIS COX: That’s probably– I would have probably worked there.

RILEY BASS: I’m just kidding. That’s why Chris would want to work there.

[LAUGHING]

DR. BETTIE BORTON: Because of that candy. Well, there were a lot of patients who really enjoyed the candy too. And there were a fair number of employees who enjoyed the candy and stuffing the candy bags. But also attitude and work ethic are really important to me in a prospective employee. I’m a baby boomer, so I have very traditional values for the workplace. And so attitude is important no matter what generation you’re part of. But work ethic is, I think, particularly important to baby boomer genre.

CHRIS COX: And to yourself.

RILEY BASS: Well, what’s interesting, Bettie– and I know that you weren’t in there, but our last three podcasts that we did with members at Team Summit last month– we talked to each one of them who are at different stages in owning a practice and all of them said the exact same things that you just said– culture, attitude, work ethic– that those are the same things that they look for. And one of them is a fairly young provider, one of them is kind of in the middle.

So seeing that span across, it’s not just a baby boomer thing, we have a millennial owner that said the exact same thing that you just said, so–

DR. BETTIE BORTON: Interesting.

RILEY BASS: Pretty interesting to see how that all comes together.

DR. BETTIE BORTON: And notice that competency was not one of the big issues. But you might think that would be really bizarre at our litigious, risk-oriented environment. But perhaps it’s because most of us who are mentoring employees or students feel that we can teach you clinical skills that you need to know, or we can expand on those clinical skills. But attitude, work ethic– those things are much more difficult to instill.

RILEY BASS: All right. So what would be some advice that you would have for students or new graduates.

DR. BETTIE BORTON: Well, I would advise students or young professionals to make sure that they have detailed goals. Where do you want to be in five years? Where do you see yourself in 10 years? And additionally, I would encourage them to really spend some time researching their employer and their employer’s culture– team culture– and to appreciate that– appreciate it for what it is– a reflection of the employer’s personal work ethic and concept of how they want their professional legacy to be.

Also, I would encourage young providers to remember that even if you already have a job, you may have just a job now, and not really the job. Remember that you have come into the field at such an exciting time because there is so much more opportunity. We have a much greater percentage of opportunity for this generation than for my generation. So you will have many, many jobs to choose from.

The trick becomes deciding which one is the perfect match for you and which one will allow you to leave a legacy that you will reflect on very positively.

CHRIS COX: Nice. Thank you for that advice. I’m sure that a lot of people will want to take that under advisement. Hint, hint, everybody.

RILEY BASS: Take that advice under advisement.

CHRIS COX: Is that what I said?

RILEY BASS: Man, you were right, Will. You told us if we took a break that we would lose our touch.

CHRIS COX: I didn’t lose my touch, I just made [INAUDIBLE]. Oh geeze. It’s going to be a rough season.

[LAUGHING]

RILEY BASS: Just kidding. It’s going to be awesome.

CHRIS COX: It’s going to be great. All right. So one last thing, Bettie. I want to make sure that we touch on this because I think it’s super important. Amongst all the other things that you’ve done in your career, you’ve also done some things that are outside of the audiology realm that I think are pretty cool and shows that things like this can be done. But why don’t you tell us a little bit about your involvement in the– what was it called?

DR. BETTIE BORTON: A therapeutic riding program.

CHRIS COX: A therapeutic riding program.

RILEY BASS: Not creative writing though.

CHRIS COX: Right.

RILEY BASS: Or poetry.

DR. BETTIE BORTON: This involves equines.

[HORSE WHINNYING]

RILEY BASS: Equines.

CHRIS COX: Oh, horse. OK, well, so tell us about it. Come on. Come on, Riley, we got to get together here.

RILEY BASS: Sorry.

DR. BETTIE BORTON: Well, for about 13 years while I was living in Montgomery, I ran a therapeutic riding program. It’s a program using horses as an interventional tool for children and adults with disabilities. And this was a large nonprofit in Montgomery. And I am myself an equine enthusiast. I showed horses growing up. My daughter showed horses. So I had a strong equine interest.

CHRIS COX: What did you show them?

DR. BETTIE BORTON: I showed them the show ring and tried to collect some blue ribbons in the process.

RILEY BASS: Did you ever fit any horses with hearing technology?

DR. BETTIE BORTON: I did not. But I saw many dogs get fitted with hearing technology at Auburn University.

CHRIS COX: Wow. So was there a joke in there Riley? Was that a set up?

RILEY BASS: You know, I probably would have gotten to it eventually. But I hadn’t planned it out.

CHRIS COX: You hadn’t gotten the punch line yet?

RILEY BASS: I was just going to let it happen organically and you all stopped me before I got there. De-railed.

CHRIS COX: Dang it. Sorry. Well, I was going to try to get it back around if it was, but, anyway– so I think that’s really cool. That’s one of my favorite things about you, Bettie– is that you’re involved with so much within audiology and leadership. But you also were involved with so much outside of that. And for 13 years being a part of that association– what it an association? Is that was it was called?

DR. BETTIE BORTON: Yes. It was called Montgomery Area Non-traditional Equestrians– the acronym is MANE.

CHRIS COX: Mane, oh.

RILEY BASS: So like a horse’s mane.

CHRIS COX: I was going to say like a lion, but the horse makes more sense.

RILEY BASS: Well, yeah. They weren’t riding lions.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

Well, Bettie, we know that you have to ride your lion back to Alabama, so will let you wrap up and get out of here. We are so thankful for you to spend a little bit of your busy time. I know you don’t get to come hang out with us here in Vancouver very often. And when you do, you’re pretty much jam packed between meetings and going to Burgerville.

[LAUGHING]

Which is her favorite– the blackberry shakes.

DR. BETTIE BORTON: It’s my downfall.

CHRIS COX: By the way, Burgerville is a regional burger joint here in the Pacific Northwest.

RILEY BASS: It’s like way better than In and Out.

DR. BETTIE BORTON: With great milkshakes.

RILEY BASS: Yes. But what is a good way for students to get in contact with you?

DR. BETTIE BORTON: They can reach out to me via e-mail at bborton@audigygroup.com. And I welcome any kind of inquiries and I love to hear from students. And so if you have questions or comments, please get in touch with me.

RILEY BASS: As always, thank you so much for tuning in. Please make sure to like and subscribe to us on iTunes or the Google Play Store. And leave us a review so we can continue to make the podcast better each week. Please follow us on Twitter. I am @Rileyb659.

CHRIS COX: And I am @coxchriscox.

RILEY BASS: Or you can find us both @audigyu #podcast.

LIVE at Team Summit with Brad Baldwin, Au.D. & Darla Baldwin

By

Chris Cox and Riley Bass host the pAuDcast

Today’s special guests are Brad & Darla Baldwin of Carolina Hearing Group. The Baldwin’s talk with us about their start in Audiology and why they chose private practice, as well as some of the lessons they’ve learned along the way. This episode is not to be missed!

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Transcript not currently available.

Live at Team Summit with Tonya Reiman

By

Tonya Reiman on The pAuDcast

In today’s show, Chris Cox Au.D., and Riley Bass Au.D. are LIVE from the Chelsea Theater at the Cosmopolitan Casino in Las Vegas, Nevada for Team Summit 2016! Today’s special guest is Tonya Reiman, an author, motivational speaker and body-language expert. She is a regular contributor on The O’Reilly Factor, on the Fox News Channel. Reiman has also appeared on CN8, Access Hollywood, EXTRA, and Fast Money.

Listen to the Episode Below
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Read the transcript
CHRIS COX: Yeah. Its’ going to be awesome. So we have an amazing guest here. We’re so honored to have her join us for this amazing podcast.

RILEY BASS: Yeah, she just finished up two workshops here at Team Summit, and both of them–

CHRIS COX: Back to back.

RILEY BASS: –were standing room only. And those rooms fit, I think, about 150 people, so over probably 400 people actually attended these two workshops.

CHRIS COX: Fuzzy math, but yeah. Sure.

RILEY BASS: Yeah, I’m not very good at math. But we are so excited to have you here, and so thrilled that you agreed to come and hang out with us for a few minutes on The pAuDcast. Tonya Reiman, you are a body language expert, amongst other things, so tell us a little bit about what you do and what brings you here?

TONYA REIMAN: Well, typically I do several things. I speak for a living, so I travel all over the place and talk to companies, and help them to make nice-nice between themselves as well as with their customers, their clients, their patients. And then I’m also an author. I have three books out.

Finally, I do a lot of media. So for instance, the elections are coming up. I’m on MSNBC this week, CNN this week, Fox this week. So it’s kind of like a barrage of, hey, let’s look at every single person’s non-verbals and figure out what they’re saying. So it’s going to be good week.

CHRIS COX: That’s awesome. And to add to that, you’re on The pAuDcast this week.

TONYA REIMAN: That is awesome. This is actually my very first podcast.

CHRIS COX: Is it really?

TONYA REIMAN: Yes.

RILEY BASS: I feel like this would be something you would just be awesome at just normally podcasting. You can join us every week if you want.

TONYA REIMAN: I would love that, actually. Just do a Tonya segment. I’ve never done a podcast, so this is super cool.

RILEY BASS: Well, the best thing about it is you don’t have to worry about your body language.

TONYA REIMAN: That’s right.

CHRIS COX: How are we going to do this? We don’t have any visuals.

RILEY BASS: We’re just going to body language at each other, and you guys are just going to have to fill in the blanks this week.

TONYA REIMAN: That’s it. Although, it’s very descriptive. We can easily describe different things, so it’s kind of cool that way as well.

CHRIS COX: I know you meet a lot of people out there, and a lot of our audience are younger professionals. What do you see that our peers are making mistakes on and kind of flubbing a bit?

TONYA REIMAN: You know, it’s not even just your peers. I do want to point out that one of the newest things is everybody is so individualized. We’re all on our phones. We’re all on iPad’s and tablets, and so that’s becoming the new thing. And because of that, we’re losing touch with the population in general.

So for instance, if I go back to when I first started speaking, I would go get in an airport– because that’s all I do, right? I travel all the time– sit in an airport, and the person next to me would normally ask me a question. We’d start engaging in conversation.

Now, it’s– the person next to me is on their phone or on their tablet. And suddenly if I don’t want to be bothered, I now have an excuse to be on my phone or my tablet. So I think that’s one of the biggest problems, because we’re losing the capability to just interact with one another.

And that’s such an important aspect, especially when we talk about young people who want to build relationships and they want to get ahead. The way you meet people is just shutting down your phone for a little bit and interacting, and none of us are able to do it that easily. It takes some practice.

CHRIS COX: Yeah, it’s real tough.

TONYA REIMAN: So I think that’s one of the real problems.

CHRIS COX: Yeah, for sure. And then you have the added level of security by putting in your earbuds.

TONYA REIMAN: Yes.

CHRIS COX: That really lets everybody know do not talk to me.

TONYA REIMAN: Yes. Yeah. I mean, there’s times I go to the gym, and I know people are going to ask me something because maybe I was on TV last night. And they want to come over and bombard me with questions about whatever election or, unfortunately, whatever celebrity was on. And I will just put my headphones on, no music, nothing, but those headphones say do not disturb. That is my do not disturb sign.

So it’s sad that we’ve come to this, but at the same time it’s a benefit and it’s a harm. So you probably should take it with the benefit if you can use it, and then recognize that if you want to interact, and if you want to be able to commingle with people, pull them out!

CHRIS COX: So head in your tech, that’s one. What’s another one that you see out there that we do?

TONYA REIMAN: I feel like younger people don’t have that same ability to meet and greet. And what I mean by that is we were talking earlier today about handshakes. Handshakes are really important because it’s the cornerstone of how we bond with people and how we feel about people.

So when I meet somebody for the first time, whether they’re 16, whether they’re 60, I want to be able to have some kind of rapport, some kind of touching. So normally I would just shake hands with somebody, get that initial bonding mechanism going, and then be able to have a conversation recognizing what’s good and what’s bad.

The other thing is we’re so tuned in to everything on the media that we’ve forgotten how to have real conversations. So a real conversation starts by, I bring a topic up or you bring a topic up, and then when we’re in rapport, we wind up threading. So I might say to you, oh, how’s the weather in Las Vegas? And you’d be like, oh, my god. It’s beautiful.

And you know what? I just came from California, and– and then from that point, I go, oh, California. I was there a couple weeks ago. Did you ever go to– so it’s a matter of younger generations aren’t that good at going from thread to thread. And it’s because we’re so used to just watching and listening to other people so often that we’ve lost touch with how to communicate face to face.

CHRIS COX: I can definitely see that.

RILEY BASS: That’s such a great thing. I never thought about it that way until you just said it, but we’re so locked into all the comments and stuff that we see on all the social media that that’s what we’re doing instead of having conversations is we’re just watching other people have conversations instead of practicing it ourselves.

TONYA REIMAN: Yes.

RILEY BASS: You’re never going to get better at it just watching, so that’s a really great point. I never thought about it like that.

TONYA REIMAN: Well, if you think about the key to success, it’s about being able to talk to anyone about anything. Does that mean you have to be the golden mind of everything? No. It just means that you should know a little bit about a lot of things, and in that you’re able to have a conversation with anyone. Maybe there’s a person who doesn’t know what’s going on in politics, but they know there’s a certain people, there’s a certain group that that’s taking over, at least if you can have a conversation. I’ve spoken to people, both adults and the younger generations, or the older generations and the younger, and they’re like, I don’t know who the vice president is. And I’m like–

CHRIS COX: Ooh.

TONYA REIMAN: –how do you not know who the–

RILEY BASS: Right?

TONYA REIMAN: You know?

CHRIS COX: Yeah. It’s sad sometimes–

TONYA REIMAN: Yes. Yeah.

CHRIS COX: –to see that, because that is our world.

TONYA REIMAN: Yes.

CHRIS COX: That’s what is important, not the stuff that’s going on Facebook or Twitter or whatever it is. But we tend to just stick our heads in that, and that’s it.

TONYA REIMAN: Yeah. And I also think that people at this point– and this isn’t new. This has– it’s been around forever, but people get their mind set on something and they become stuck. And that’s one of the things I teach people. Don’t get stuck, and if you do get stuck, I’m going to help you unstick.

And how do I do that? I just shock your system. So I come to you, and I maybe–

RILEY BASS: Taser?

TONYA REIMAN: –hand you something. No, no tasers.

CHRIS COX: Don’t taze me, though!

TONYA REIMAN: No tasers. Only carry switchblades. No, I’m just kidding.

So I come to you, and maybe I feel like you’re stuck in this world that you can’t see anything else. You’re biased. You’re filter’s are biased, and you’re not able to open up. So I’ll come to you, and I’ll hand you something, right?

And when I hand you something, I’m going to hold on to it for just a beat extra. And when you go to take it, you’re going to kind of be shocked. And that shock, that initial shock, takes you off autopilot and suddenly you go– and it’s like a reset button.

You have this moment, this second, actually, where it’s reset, and you go back to being open to some of the things that maybe you weren’t open to before. And that’s one of the most powerful things that I teach people.

So if you feel like you’re talking to somebody and it’s a dead end– and not that you need to get your point across and make them a believer in whatever you believe, but just that you want to have an open dialogue with real conversation– the way to do that is to take somebody off autopilot and allow them to have that moment of wow. What happened?

RILEY BASS: Where am I?

TONYA REIMAN: Yeah. I just woke up, and now I’m open to conversation as opposed to just a closed mindset.

RILEY BASS: Well, just FYI to you guys, when she was talking about handing something, she was holding her hand out to me, and I was legitimately fighting the urge to put my hand out and take this imaginary thing she was pretending to hand me.

TONYA REIMAN: It was an imaginary pen.

RILEY BASS: Yeah, I was like, I can’t put my hand out. That would be weird. But I was definitely thinking about it, and she could probably tell I was thinking about it, so–

TONYA REIMAN: The intention queue, right? That’s what I said.

RILEY BASS: Yeah, and then sitting right across from me is making me really aware of everything.

TONYA REIMAN: That’s the greatest thing, because so many times people are just going through life on autopilot. And yes, autopilot means that we get through our day, because we need to be on autopilot. We need to know that when we’re driving, we don’t have to be consciously thinking, oh, I have to get off at this exit. Our mind takes over and it gets us home, right?

At the same time, when you’re having a conversation with somebody who you just met for the first time, or you’re on a job interview, you don’t want to be on that autopilot. You want to be super hyper aware–

CHRIS COX: Right.

TONYA REIMAN: –comfortable in your own skin, but super hyper aware of everything that’s going on. You want to be watching them, reading their facial cues. You want to be recognizing what they’re doing with their hands, their legs, their body, so that you’re always talking to them in the language that they need to be spoken in.

And that’s a gift, if you can give it to them, because not only are you going to look like the winner, but the person you’re speaking to is just going to feel this kind of attraction. And not in any other way other than, wow. I like that person, and I want to hang out with them.

RILEY BASS: Yeah.

TONYA REIMAN: You become charismatic.

RILEY BASS: Well, and that’s what we all want, right?

TONYA REIMAN: Exactly. That’s the golden ticket.

CHRIS COX: And a lot of what you talk about really isn’t about a cognitive process, it’s all about that gut feeling that you have when you read somebody, when you listen to their tone and so forth. So can you tell us a little bit about that, and how that’s all connected with our own instincts?

TONYA REIMAN: Yeah, that’s a great question. So what winds up happening is if you think about where we were before we had words, everything was based on our non-verbals. Everything was, if I move this arm, if I move that arm, where do I tilt my head. This is how we communicated. So non-verbals were there before verbals, and so because of that, it’s a gut instinct to be able to look at someone and just automatically analyze and think about what they are feeling and experiencing.

Now, you bring words in, and so now not only do I have to watch your non-verbals, because we know that’s really where the truth is, but we also have to listen to your words and make sure that they’re cohesive so that we’re looking at you and we’re believing you. You come across as congruent. Because if you don’t, I’m going to believe the non-verbals over the verbals.

So it’s that piece that people go, oh, I just had that gut instinct. And it’s always my job to say, you know why you have that gut instinct? Because that person just did this. They just moved their hands. They just fiddled.

They crossed their arms when you said that. They closed their thumb when you said that. So you recognize the signs of discomfort, and then decide why those signs or signals or cues or red flags are coming into the conversation, what you might have said to tick that off, and then go back and start over and say, hmm, I kind of got the impression that maybe you didn’t agree with this.

So I always make the joke with my kids– I have three kids– and all three of them have tells. I mean, I know exactly–

RILEY BASS: I was going to say, they can’t get away with anything.

TONYA REIMAN: No, they can’t.

CHRIS COX: No, they can’t.

TONYA REIMAN: So growing up, we have a very open household. My policy is as long as you tell me the truth, fine. We’re good.

You want to stay home from school today, don’t pretend you have a belly ache. Just say, mom, you know what? I want a play day. And you’re going to get it, as long as you don’t take advantage. So having said that–

CHRIS COX: Nice.

TONYA REIMAN: –my kids also know that they should not lie to me, because I’ll always know. So one of my kids– the youngest, it’s usually him, because he still doesn’t fully get it– but he’ll say something to me that I know is not true. But I don’t tell him when he says it. I just watch him.

And I go, you know what? Keep talking. And then a few minutes later I go, you know what, Jayden? We’re going to revisit that in about 25 minutes, and I want you to rethink what you just said. And if you want to say it again, that’s fine, but perhaps you should think about it a little bit more.

And why do I say that? Because I saw his cue. I knew his tell. I knew he was not being completely honest. And now instead of just punishing him and calling him out, I give him a second opportunity to revisit and come clean. And that’s worked incredibly well at my house.

CHRIS COX: That is amazing. Wow.

RILEY BASS: I wish you were my mom. That was awesome.

TONYA REIMAN: Because the whole thing with being a mom, especially with what I do, my kids– they look at me as almost like a superhero. Not because I do television or because I’ve written books, but just because they know I know what’s happening in their minds–

RILEY BASS: You’re a mind reader.

TONYA REIMAN: –and that’s kind of cool for them. So giving them the opportunity to just re-evaluate what they might have said makes them feel like this is a safe place, and no matter what I do as long as I eventually come clean, I don’t have to worry.

CHRIS COX: That’s a great philosophy. I need to start– I need to use that for–

RILEY BASS: With your kid?

CHRIS COX: With my kid, yeah. I don’t think she’s old enough to get that level–

TONYA REIMAN: Start young, because you know what? It’s at the youngest age that you start to see their tells. So it could be something as simplistic as what I talked about earlier today, swiping the nose, pulling on the ear, averting eye contact, but doing it in a similar pattern each and every time. Rubbing the arm.

There are so many singular tells, but then if you group them together you automatically see. Like, I could tell you my sons, but then if he listens, he’s going to be like, not doing that again. But it is important to start it young so that you see the tells, because they do evolve. And the tells, if you don’t point them out, get stronger. And so it becomes easier–

CHRIS COX: Yeah

TONYA REIMAN: –to read them. And the real rule is not saying it– never telling them what their tell is– and then giving a 10 minute time span between their tell and when you say, I think we should take some time and just revisit that.

CHRIS COX: Yeah, that’s awesome. A little parenting advice along with this one too. A little bonus. Thank you for that. So let’s move on to the next thing. What about–

TONYA REIMAN: Wait. By the way, that works on friends, spouses, boyfriends, girlfriends. Don’t kid yourself. This isn’t just a parenting tip, this is a life tip. It works on everyone in your life.

You just have to– instead of going, we’re going to revisit that and being condescending, it would be something like, you know what? I have to run and do something, but when I come back can we talk about that again, because I don’t know. I feel like I missed something. And that’s a way of injecting the fact that, hey, something wasn’t right.

CHRIS COX: It just gives them another chance–

TONYA REIMAN: It’s a life skill.

CHRIS COX: Yeah, that’s awesome. Next time you do that to me, Riley, I’m still going to lie the second time.

RILEY BASS: I know. All right, so we talked about some things that are red flags, and those things you don’t want to see whenever you’re communicating with someone. But what are some things that these students, these young graduates can do to really help them build those connections and establish that rapport?

TONYA REIMAN: It all goes back to making shared connections, and what I mean by that is making people feel comfortable in their own skin and recognizing that, in general, we just want to connect with others. So if I can make you feel like you’re similar to me, then I’m going to like you and you’re going to like me, because we like people who are just like us. And that’s the main goal, just making sure that people recognize the similarities we share. And that’s why I constantly stress, don’t go out of your way to be different unless the different crowd is the one you want to get into.

So it’s really– especially in graduates who are looking to get jobs, who are looking to build those relationships, get those connections, you want to make sure you make them feel like, hey, you’re great. I’m great, and together we could do a lot of things. And that goes with having open body language.

So if you could see me visually, it would mean that my arms are open, my chest is back. I’m pulling back because I want you to know that I’m open to everything you say. And I think people get lost in that, especially because we’re so visually untuned, and we’re so used to just being by ourselves.

My son’s like, oh, yeah. I have tons of friends, and I Skype with them every night. And I’m like, no, you need to actually hang out with them. You need that human contact.

RILEY BASS: Skype is for faraway friends.

TONYA REIMAN: Yeah, right. That’s right.

RILEY BASS: Not down the street friends.

TONYA REIMAN: But at the same time, when you’re with somebody on that face-to-face basis, you really have the ability to connect with them on a deeper level.

RILEY BASS: Right.

TONYA REIMAN: You can’t look at a red dot and connect with the other red dot. It doesn’t work.

RILEY BASS: Right.

TONYA REIMAN: So that’s why it is important to have those human connections and be comfortable. And what I’m getting at is I think we’ve become a generation that doesn’t feel the need to. And once we have to, once we’re forced into that position, we really don’t know how to react or how to handle it.

So what happens? We become reticent, and we avoid eye contact, or we look down or we tend to spend our time gazing around instead of really doing what we need to do, which is build a relationship and a bond.

RILEY BASS: One of the things, and I’m sure that you’ve known this because you’ve been around our company for a few years now, is that audiology is a very female dominated industry, and it’s also– there’s a lot of younger female audiologist and graduate students. And I was specifically asked on two things. How can I establish my credibility despite being and looking very young and also being very small and petite? We had one girl that was– she was pretty short–

CHRIS COX: She was like five foot flat.

RILEY BASS: –very, very petite, and she said that she feels like she can’t establish that rapport with patients, or she can’t get them to trust her or be confident in her abilities because she’s small and she looks young. So I think that’s something that a lot of audiology students, particularly female, can relate to. So do you have any advice or any thoughts on that?

TONYA REIMAN: Yes. Actually, that’s a great question, because I hear it time and time again. Especially– not even just from younger petite women, just women in general.

So one of the things that women need to recognize is that they are a dominating force. And if you’ve come this far in your education, and you’re ready to go out and tackle that world, you need to prove it, not only to them but to yourself. And you do that by feeling strong about yourself. And although I can’t visually display what a power pose is–

RILEY BASS: We can tweet it.

TONYA REIMAN: Yes, that’s true. OK, but if you think about what a power pose is, when we can stand up– think of it like putting your arms up in the air and spreading your legs a little bit, shoulders back, and then just taking like two or three really strong deep breaths, staying in that position for like two minutes. What winds up happening is our testosterone levels go up, and our cortisol, which is the stress level that we experience, goes down. And what does that do? That makes us the alpha in any situation.

So I always tell people before you interact with whoever is intimidating you at that moment, go into the restroom for four minutes, do the little cold water on the wrist so that you don’t have sweaty palms, and then power pose. And within doing that power pose, no matter what you choose to do as long as it’s open and expansive, do those deep breaths and you’ll find that you really do relax on one level but feel more powerful on another.

It’s something that people need to do, because once you’ve done it, you can kind of look somebody in the eye and say, you know what? Yes, you may be older. You may be more experienced. But I am just as good, and I will someday be better.

RILEY BASS: You hear that, guys? That’s the question you asked earlier, and there’s your answer for it.

TONYA REIMAN: Yes.

CHRIS COX: Power pose and then put water on your wrist.

RILEY BASS: Own it.

TONYA REIMAN: Well, you know what? It’s funny, because it’s those little things. People say to me, really? You want me to just go and stand in the bathroom and put my arms in the air? And I go, yes, that’s exactly what I want you to do. Because if you do it enough, what winds up happening is it takes over and you become more powerful on the long term.

And I do this myself. I’m a woman who travels all over the place. I go on TV. I’ve written books. I speak in front of thousands of people.

But each and every time I do, I do my own movement. So I’ll go into the ladies room, and I’ll do my power posing. And then right before each and every speech, I will normally go into the room and touch every chair.

And I will even do some primal yells. Why? Because I want that room to be mine. I want to own that room.

So if you’re talking about students who are in an environment that they live in, so to speak, they need to take ownership of that room and recognize that whoever’s coming in there is coming into their world. So you have to realize, especially the younger people, don’t let somebody come into your world and intimidate you, because it’s your world so make it yours. Touch it, yell, scream, whatever you have to do for the five minutes before somebody comes in to make you recognize that you own this space.

CHRIS COX: That is awesome. Amazing.

RILEY BASS: Stand your ground.

TONYA REIMAN: Yes. Do you know how many times the wait staff comes in and is like, is somebody being killed? What’s going on? Why are you screaming? Because I need to do my primal yells, and I need to touch all the chairs, and I need to make this room mine.

RILEY BASS: I just need to do a few things in here.

TONYA REIMAN: Yeah. Because when people then come in, I’m greeting them as if they’re walking into my office as opposed to meeting in a neutral ground.

RILEY BASS: That sterile zone, yeah.

TONYA REIMAN: And it really does make a difference mindset wise.

CHRIS COX: For our listeners, you literally are in your office, and your patients are coming to you. And so that is yours. It is yours absolutely to take over that space and show the confidence and the knowledge and the skills that you have to them so they feel at ease in being your patient.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

Tonya, thank you so much for spending time with us today. It’s been an amazing visit with you. How could our audience get a hold of you?

TONYA REIMAN: You know what? I’ve made things very simple.

CHRIS COX: Love it.

TONYA REIMAN: You want to get in touch with me on Facebook, it’s Tonya Reiman. On Twitter, it’s– wait, what? Tonya Reiman. On Snapchat, Tonya Reiman.

CHRIS COX: Easy. Nice.

TONYA REIMAN: LinkedIn, it’s Tonya Reiman.

Oh, wow!

Website, it’s tonyareiman.com. I also have other things, like Body language University, and each and every one of those is an avenue to just connect with me. And the one thing I want to put out there, and this is who I am just naturally, if you send me a question, if you send me something to look at, I will always get back to you. Because every single question not only helps you, but it also helps me grow at the same time.

So I’m always looking for people to join me on Facebook. As a matter of fact– to give myself a little promo here– the debate’s coming up, and one of the things I do is I do a live debate. So I do live debate twittering. I do live debate Facebooking, and–

CHRIS COX: Nice

TONYA REIMAN: –people are always invited to join in. So we’re watching the debate. I’m watching the debate with thousands and thousands of people, and they’re all sending me questions and thoughts and making comments on what I say, Like, oh, wait. Did you see that? He looked down to the left. Boom.

And now five people want to comment on that or ask a question, so that’s a really powerful thing. And everybody is welcome to join me on that.

CHRIS COX: Excellent. That is awesome.

RILEY BASS: That’s awesome.

CHRIS COX: And if we wanted to read one of your books, what is the latest one that you’ve put out?

TONYA REIMAN: The latest book is on dating, so I would say–

CHRIS COX: Oh, that’s great too.

TONYA REIMAN: It is, but personally my favorite book is The Yes Factor, because it has the capability of teaching you the non-verbal facet as well as the verbal facet. And the first book I wrote, The Power of Body Language is great. It’s like an airplane book, and it’s humorous and it’s comical. But the colleges now are using my second book, The Yes Factor, because it does include everything, and there’s so much background.

The one thing that people always say is, oh, that’s Tonya Reiman’s opinion. And I’m like, no, it’s not Tonya Reiman’s opinion. It’s science. And yes I give out that information, but I’m not giving it out based on what I think at the moment. I’m giving it out based on research that’s been done scientifically.

CHRIS COX: And that’s what we like as–

RILEY BASS: As nerds.

CHRIS COX: Nerds.

TONYA REIMAN: Yes.

CHRIS COX: Science nerds. OK. Well, thanks again for coming to hang out with us, and–

RILEY BASS: We are so excited to have a celebrity on our show.

TONYA REIMAN: Thank you very much for inviting me.

RILEY BASS: I think that means we’ve made it.

TONYA REIMAN: Yes. Thank you.

CHRIS COX: All right, bye bye.

RILEY BASS: As always, thank you so much for tuning in. Please make sure to like and subscribe to us on iTunes or the Google Play Store, and leave us a review so we can continue to make The pAuDcast better each week. Please follow us on Twitter. I am @Rileyb659.

CHRIS COX: And I am @coxchriscox.

RILEY BASS: Or you can find us both at Audigy U #podcast.

Live at Team Summit with Dr. Tony Milliano

By

Chris Cox and Riley Bass host the pAuDcast

In today’s show, Chris Cox Au.D., and Riley Bass Au.D. are LIVE from the Chelsea Theater at the Cosmopolitan Casino in Las Vegas, Nevada for Team Summit 2016! Today’s special guest is Dr. Tony Milliano of Audiology & Hearing Center. Dr. Milliano talks with the crew about his start in audiology, what he looks for in new providers and externs, and shares some advice for students looking to break into the business.

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