Talk Behavior to Me Kendall Ryndak-Samuel

All right, hello everyone, and thank you for tuning in today. Greg, we have a very special guest who I would like you to introduce. We have Kendall Ryndak-Samuel, who is a BCBA, a Behavior Analyst. Kendall, thank you so much for coming on the show, and tell everyone a little bit about you so we can jump to the fun part of the conversation.

Yeah, absolutely. Thanks for having me, guys. So, yeah, I am a Board Certified Behavior Analyst. I am different than a psychologist. I feel like a lot of people, when they ask me, 'What do you do?' I go, 'I'm a Behavior Analyst,' and they go, 'Like a social worker?' And I go, 'Nope.' And they go, 'Like a counselor? Like, what do you do?' I'm like, 'Nope, not that either.' So, I am a professional who studies the environment, and I try to analyze and understand what is causing different behaviors to happen. Then, if it's significant enough, we put in strategies to change those. So, it could be something as small as teaching somebody how to make a sandwich, or it could be as grand as changing an entire system at a company on how you can decrease turnover and putting in incentive systems and all that.

But what I specifically do, I work in two areas. I work in behavioral sports psychology. So, I'm a private softball instructor. I use Behavior Analysis to teach all of my students how to pitch, how to field properly. I'm using behavioral performance in order to help them grow their skills, which is a little bit different than just typical coaching because typical coaching, you just might look at someone, be like, 'Huh, all right, this looks like this is going wrong, let's try this.' Whereas I kind of progress over time, and I track the strategies that I'm using. Then I also work in dissemination. So, I teach people how to talk about Behavior Analysis very basically, and I teach people about what it is because not many people know about it. So, long and short, I do a lot.

No, that's perfect. And this is why I was also interested to have you on. For anyone listening, Greg and I, a while back, were on the behavior podcast, which was a fun one. They're BCBAs; they do a whole lot of stuff, and they're just fun to talk to. And we've also been on the Texas Association of School Psychologists; they have their own podcast as well. We went on there with them. The reason, and I love how you hit it up right here with your softball example, is that it's kind of like, one, we get the same question. When I tell people I work in human behavior or do something like that, they're like, 'Oh, are you reading me right now? Can you tell me?' I'm like, 'You know, first of all, ma'am, leave me alone, I'm trying to have a drink.' (Laughter) But that's my usual response. But, you know, there's a lot of misconceptions. What I also like about folks like you, and then 'the behavior' as well, is you're a practitioner, right? And so Greg and I are practitioners. We're not just studying and writing and reading about this stuff at a university level or an academic setting, which is great—you need to have that stuff—but we're all about the application of it.

So you brought up two completely different areas, which is interesting to me. One, a lot of stuff, you know, a lot of the BCBAs and a lot of this work has to do with kids, and people think about like autism or different issues. My mom was an Occupational Therapist; she actually just recently retired. So she worked with a lot of really young kids, like zero to three, on some of those basic things like how to feed yourself, how to pick up these different things. And so you're looking, it's very behavior-based, and then you put in different intervention strategies. But what really fascinated me, too, is because you have a background in softball and you're a coach, is you're looking at it from not just a coaching perspective and maybe softball experience, but like what you know about behavior.

I'll ask you, but in my, since I've been doing this for a long time, it's sort of like once you get in and understand some of the underlying principles of behavior and how humans are, it's like it opens up this world that touches everything. So I kind of want to get your perspective on that because we even have listeners from all different backgrounds. Like we have a lot of law enforcement, first responders, some military folks listen. But we also have like fraud investigators, we have just interested parents, we have people who just want to keep themselves safe because we deal a lot with what people call 'threat recognition.' That's not what we really do, but it is, in a sense. So it goes everywhere, and sometimes that can become nebulous to people. They're like, 'Well, what do you mean? Like it touches everything.' So I kind of want to get your perspective on that, or what were your experience in dealing with something like that?

Yeah, so I mean, that's what made me fall in love with this science, is that I saw this opportunity for, a lot of people call it a technology, because it really is this huge grouping of strategies, and how to analyze what's going on, and strategies for that, and then strategies to change behavior if you need to, and to teach skills, and to work on increasing motivation, which is how we live. And I just found that was so fascinating because I really hadn't seen anything like that before in my life, even like learning about general psychology in high school. It was cool, but then when you got to like operant and classical conditioning, I was like, 'Wait a second, this is actually how people learn how to do things. This is how people get motivated to get out of bed, to go to their job, to have kids, like everything!' So if you can understand the basics of that, that's like a superpower. And working in the field, that's what you do for a job. It's so cool.

So, I really wanted to go into this because I was like, 'Well, there's no way there's a job for this.' Like in high school and in college, I was like, 'I'm so good at this, like breaking down all the operant, and learning about how Pavlov made his dogs salivate and all of that, but there can't be an actual job for that.' Well, there is. And I was so excited because again, I felt like I was going to learn about a superpower that I could teach everybody else about. Then, when I got into it, I learned that it's actually kind of a narrow practice right now. There are all these different things that we can do with the science, where even on our board's website—the Board of Behavior Analysts—and then there is another organization, it's called The Association for Behavior Analysis International. So, all of these organizations, they have all of these sub-specialties of areas that they say Behavior Analysts can practice in. And when I found that, I was like, 'Oh my God, I could choose any of these, just like in medicine! You could be a gynecologist, a cardiologist, oncologist, you could do anything. I could do the same thing but in Behavior Analysis. This is dope!'

But then when I got into it, I was like, 'Whoa, people are only working in like a couple areas. I want to change that, I want to grow that!' Because there's research, tons of research that's been out there that has said this science should be used by everybody. If people understand how to use this, you could change your life, you could change your family's life, you could change gigantic groups, like an organization, a country, for the better. And that's why I do what I do, because I want to see a great impact in the world. And that's why I found you guys too. I want to see what people are doing, talking about Behavior Analysis, behavior science in general, and how else it's being practiced. Because really, these two areas that are being practiced in, one very, very heavily, is in autism. And that's where a lot of people think of Behavior Analysts working, is in like schools, therapy centers. And then you got the other side of it, kind of small, but it's called Organizational Behavior Management, which is like business Behavior Analysis. So, working in the corporate setting, and helping people, you know, you've heard of a PIP before, Performance Improvement Plan, stuff like that, incentive programs. So, that's happening a little bit, but I want to grow this field and see it thrive and help the world.

Well, Greg, did you want to add anything?

Of course. I'm excited about your book coming out in October. Brian will talk about that later, I'm sure. One of the things I like that you did that set you apart from other people, look, there's a lot of, I get anxious because a lot of people write about stuff they don't know about. And they read a book or they studied in school and then turn it into their life's work without doing any research after that initial tranche of information they found. So one of the things that's troubling is in Europe right now, they've got a lot of these seminars where people say, 'Oh, absolutely everything about human behavior starts and ends with kinesiology and body language, and this is the end all be all.' And it's not. It has nothing to do with it, or very little to do with the big process. What you talk about is you talk about research. One of your quotes was, 'That's another layer of being really successful behavior analysis is having extreme empathy and being able to put yourself in somebody else's shoes.' Because if you can't do that, it's going to be really difficult to see the whole picture and why maybe something's happening.

So I pride myself on being in the business longer than a lot of people. And I still, to this day, walk through a parking lot, pick a car at random, take a look inside the car, and then go in the business to try to find the person that owns that car. And that hones my skills all the time because absolutely everything you do, from a trash pile to where you park your car, or what your car looks like, all that stuff that's on the floorboards to your car or the dashboard, that helps me target you. And again, my goal is slightly different than yours, but what I do is I read the full spectrum of human behavior, and then I compare it against the baseline that that person is operating in, or that they operate in at home. And then people will say, 'So what?' Well, that helps me figure out exactly what you need, what you need to hear from me, what you need to do in your home, why you're thinking that you're failing. So all those things that I can do with that information are amazing to me. And then when I open somebody's eyes, like in a lesson Brian and I teach a course, or in the book, or when we do a webinar or something, people go, 'Oh my God, that's amazing! We can do that?' It's like, 'Yeah, it's called pattern recognition.' And so the analysis part is what you're doing and what we do, but the idea is that we have to disabuse people, and I think you wrote a lot about this as well because I've read it. There's a lexicon that's out there that's non-helpful. It's like a doctor telling you all of these different things that you truly don't understand and saying, 'Well, there's my analysis.' Well, if you can't use that information. So I stripped everything up, and Brian and I are very good at taking things to a level that anybody can understand, and use them immediately, turn around in your own life, and be a better lover or husband or wife, or yes, coach. So I just want to give you the kudos for that and tell you that we're all on the same coin. It's just we may be on opposite sides of it, but I think all roads lead to Rome on this. I hope you feel that way as well.

Yeah, I 100% agree. And especially with what you said, how, yeah, if a doctor gives you their analysis. I love to use these examples: a doctor wouldn't tell you, 'So I looked at you, and you got rhinosinusitis.' You would be like, 'I'm dying. This is the worst thing ever. I should probably go get a lawyer and write my will.' It's a sinus infection; that's what they describe to you. 'You have a sinus infection. Here's a prescription. Call me if it doesn't get better.' Or cephalgia. That's a headache. You don't hear doctors saying that, and if you do, if you're listening to this and your doctor has said that to you, please, please maybe go find somebody else. But right, that's what's happening in behavior analysis, is that we have this wonderful science, all of these strategies that people are secretly obsessed with. People talk about this stuff all the time in books and on social media. It's everywhere. And that's one of my hashtags I use when I make my TikToks and Instagrams, it's #ABA or #ABAisEverywhere because it is. But people just don't know it because the people who are practicing it don't talk about it appropriately. We say things like, 'The motivating operations here just really fighting against what the actual behavior is doing and where it's coming from.' Already as a layperson, I'm like, 'I gotta go, I can't.' You could have just said somebody's motivation is a little bit in a different direction here, they have a different craving that maybe we might need to look at and change so that we can help them achieve their goals, whatever. That sounds so much better. But I've been guilty of it myself. But that's why I wrote the book, is because we need to help people speak about this appropriately and easily so that we can help everybody that we need to and so that we can grow the science as well. It just sounds better, it's a lot friendlier.

Yeah, and you know, especially on social media, there's a lot of people sort of self-diagnosing with different things, and it gets pretty bad. So there's a ton of misconceptions out there, and part of it is just people's feeling like, 'Oh, I want to be special' or 'I'm different,' you know. And so, 'Oh, I have ADHD,' or 'I'm on the autism spectrum,' or 'I'm this.' And it's like, 'All right, if that's where you're starting with, then I think we're not at the best place.' And so, the reason is, what I like to kind of get from you is sort of like, I guess, a two-part question: What are some of the big misconceptions that you see out there, especially with your training and your experience and your being a practitioner? And then also, there's this thing where people talk about what's 'normal' or 'typical.' And, you know, it's like, 'Well, that's not typical' or 'that's not normal.' And it, you know, when you study behavior, at least for me and Greg, it's like the things that we find normal or typical are a lot more than what most people do. Like it's like, 'Look, people are odd sometimes, people are weird, they do weird things.' Like it doesn't necessarily mean anything, right? We can't attribute value to that. So I kind of want to get your perspective on that, and from your background, what are those big misconceptions you see, and what are the things you see out there that are just kind of wrong? And then, what is 'normal,' what is 'typical'?

Yeah, so both really good questions. The first one, I see huge common misconceptions again, just basically around ABA. A lot of people just misunderstand what the science is. Again, when I tell somebody I'm a Behavior Analyst, they immediately go to, 'You're a social worker, you're a counselor, or you're a psychologist.' So right away, they go to mental health, which there are Behavior Analysts who work in the clinical setting, that work in mental health, absolutely. But that's one specialty of it. So there's misconception around what an actual Behavior Analyst is, what they're able to do. Again, like I said, a lot of people, if you have been around BCBAs before, they immediately, if they know what a BCBA is, they think you work in autism, or you work with kids who don't follow the rules, or you work in a school. Then there is another group of people that they know what behavior analysis is, and they may have had a bad experience with it, and then they just labeled the entire science as 'it's not good, don't use it, there are better strategies and therapies out there, especially like in the realm of autism, they're much better things to do with your child to help them than ABA.'

I do not doubt that people have had bad experiences with Behavior Analysts. People have bad experiences with their doctors, people have terrible experiences with their plumbers, their hairdressers. Not everybody is good at what they do. So there are going to be people that are kind of botched professionals. And that's super unfortunate. And it's unfortunate that that's in a very intimate setting that you're working in, especially when you work in therapy. You have to be really careful about what you do, and a lot of people make mistakes, and it leads to bad outcomes. So ABA has had this bad rap also, that it's not good. On TikTok, people have ripped, saying like, 'You're abusive, you abuse children,' and all these things. And that is the furthest thing from what Behavior Analysts are doing working in autism because I did work in autism for a while. We will change behavior that's significant to that person. We're not just going to change a behavior just because, and that's in our ethics code too. So if there is a BCBA that's out there that's just changing behavior just because it's convenient for them or for somebody else, that's not good, and they should be reported. But if there is an issue happening where somebody is injuring themselves, or they're putting themselves or other people in very dangerous situations, or maybe it's not a dangerous behavior, maybe it's just you want to see an increase in performance from your employees, or like my pitchers that I see, I want to help them make a significant change with their skills so that they can throw the ball harder. That's a significant behavior, and I am going to change that. So Behavior Analysts don't just change anything just because; it has to be significant to that person and make a very significant impact in their life or that group's life. So those are the main inconsistencies that I see with people who just aren't familiar with the science or who had a bad experience with the science.

And then for your second question about what's 'typical,' there isn't a whole lot that's typical. It's all relative to the person. And again, we're not going to change some behavior because it just doesn't look typical. I've had plenty of families come to me in the past for either autism families, saying, 'My child is hand flapping. We have to get rid of that.' My first question is, 'Well, is it hurting them? Is it hurting somebody else? Is it getting in the way of somebody else's learning? Is it getting in the way of their learning? Is it distracting to an entire class? Is it so distracting to this person they're not able to get their things done?' If you can't answer any of those questions, I'm probably not going to change it because it's not significant, and it doesn't matter if that looks atypical. Okay, like we all have, if that's like a stimulatory behavior, like we call it in ABA sometimes 'stemming,' people stim all the time. Sure, that could be a stim. I'm stimming right now. I love running my fingers across my hands. (A dog barks in the background) Yeah, yeah, the car just went off. (Laughter) So, yeah, it might not look typical, but that's okay. Everybody has atypical kinds of behaviors. And then in pitching, what I've seen, people will say, 'Oh, okay, her windup, it looks weird compared to everybody else, it doesn't really look typical, we gotta get rid of it.' Again, if she's getting enough power, she's throwing strikes, she's able to be an effective pitcher, I don't care that that looks atypical. I'm not going to change it. So sometimes it's preference from your clients, and that can be hard to deal with at times. But 'typical' is relative to the person. It just depends on what that person is doing. It's not this large grouping of 'only these behaviors are typical, only these behaviors are normal.' No, it's relative to that person.

And the way I look at it too, is like, because that's a great explanation, because, you know, you're kind of bringing this up in a sense implicitly, is, 'Well, what's the outcome, or what's the impact, or what's the effect of what they're doing?' Because that's what it should be. It's because, you know, humans are terrible in general at measurement and assessment, right? We don't measure things well. If I need to cut a piece of wood for something I'm building, it's very easy. I take out my tape measure, all right, we use inches, and this is, you know, and I can make my cut. But when it comes to things like psychology or behavior, I would say just behavior in general, right? It's not like physics, right? Physics is, there's, it's math, right? 'Here's what it is, this is what we know, you can measure it.' And unless you get really, really, really small or really way far out in the universe, then it gets a little complex. But otherwise, it's, you know, hard, it's difficult maybe, but these are the laws. You understand it implicitly. Like you don't need to know or be taught the measurement for what gravity is, right? Because you know what that is. You're not, if you jump off your roof, it's going to, when you fall, right? When it comes to behavior, like there's a lot of complexity in it, and so we don't always, we, you know, we don't always measure it correctly.

And something you brought up even when you first were introducing yourself is like you talked about the environment and everything else. So it's always like you're comparing something to something else. Every observation you make is a comparison to something. And I think what a lot of people don't know is like, okay, they can see something, but 'What am I comparing it to? Why am I measuring this?' Every observation I make is, in a sense, every perception is a measurement of something. Whether it's hot or cold in the room is subjective to you. Like what the temperature, what the thermostat says, that's an objective measurement because that's what it is. But the effect could be something completely different. And it's kind of, it seems to me, difficult for people to even, who know certain things, like you brought up the great example of like the pitcher doing it different or windup. Well, I see that with like really good trainers, like people, for teaching shooting or something. Like, 'Well, that's a little different than we taught.' But, you know, what the really good trainer will be like, 'Hey, if that works for them, and it's safe, and it's effective, then that's how they do it.' Like the outcome. But we don't do that with everything. It kind of takes a lot of tacit knowledge and experience. So, like, what are, are there common ones that you see like that? Or where, where someone, what's the best way? What I always try to get someone's perspective on, from who's out of our field or doesn't do what we do, is like, in general, how do you teach people, or how do you explain that to people on how to measure correctly, or what is your comparison, or why, why is this observation significant? You get what I'm saying? It's like we focus on the vanilla. We focus on what, what's the comparative background is the most important part, right, for us. So I kind of just want to see like what you've seen in that, or what your take is on that.

I'm getting chills with you asking me about that because this is like getting into the nitty-gritty of what Behavior Analysts do. This is so exciting! So again, this is what Behavior Analysts are so good at, is turning something that seems very subjective, like somebody running, or people not showing up to work on time, and turning it into an objective measurement. So to a typical person outside of working in the behavior analysis field, if they wanted to start measuring something, they'd probably be like, 'Okay, if I'm looking at these employees coming in late, I might just say, 'Okay, they showed up a couple minutes past 8:00 AM. They're supposed to be here at 8:00 AM.'' Well, if that's not written down somewhere that 8:00 AM is the exact start time, then that's a problem because then it really isn't very objective. Everybody doesn't really know the rule. So what BCBAs would do is we would come in and say, 'Okay, let's make this even more clear. You can show up anytime between 8:00 AM and 8:10 and be on time. Still, any time past 8:10, it's late.'

For something that is a little bit more complex, like I always like to go back to sports, so gymnastics is a huge sport where a lot of people, they do have objective measurements for how they have their grading systems or point systems for who takes first and second and all that. But some people argue that it's subjective at times because it's also so difficult to judge those skills because they happen so fast. So for a layperson, they might think, 'Okay, well, it looks like they're getting seven feet off the floor, maybe.' I don't know, so they might just eyeball it, whereas Behavior Analysts are a lot more rigid with that. But that's how we get objective measurements; that's how we teach people, 'Okay, this is how you're exactly going to measure this thing.' We have to have a very definitive description of what you are measuring. Say in gymnastics, someone's layout has to be at least eight feet off before, or whatever it is. We would put that in our what we call our operational definition. So we have to start with a very objective definition of what we are measuring, so everybody measures it the same over time. Not just when we are first tracking our data and seeing what's going on, that is the definition that stays from the start of tracking it all the way through. Okay, now we have started to change it. If it was significant, we need to make sure this individual maintains this behavior, and then until we're done. So we are the experts at taking something that looks very subjective and making it very, very objective, which a lot of people, it's very hard to do that because you have to break it down to its most minute form. But again, we're trained to do that, and that kind of separates us apart from some other professionals who might target behavior at times.

So talk about, yeah, talk about the travails of predictive analysis. So what happened, for our listeners, Brian brought up a great question and Kendall, you did a great job answering it. What both of them were talking about in our realm, what we deal with, is called an external perspective. What happens is most people are so interested in giving an internal perspective, 'This is what this means, this is what I see,' and they're comparing it against themselves as a baseline, and that doesn't mean anything. The idea is, like, for example, if I was going to do a cold read on Kendall, I look in the back to 'Sam I Am,' the certificate that's above it, the organization, how she's dressed, that she's wearing white—all risky behavior there—but she's very clean with her line and organized. And the corkboard that's next door, all of those things are great. So I'm breaking that down. Well, the problem is, now I'm a CNN analyst because I don't know if you bought that room, I don't know if your significant other built that room, I don't know if those things are valuable to you or you built it for a podcast background because you want to portray a behavior. So what we do is we have to look at 360, everything. The Hoberman (sphere), we have to move it around, and then we have to measure it against something. So we have to measure the behavior that we see against known behavior, and then got to measure it against a baseline. And then from that information we have to say, 'Well, there's likelihood, this is likely what's going to happen if we don't impact that behavior. This is likely what's going to happen if we do a little bit of impactfulness to that behavior.'

So we're in the same world. The difference is with BCBA, when you guys have board-certified people that create a diagnosis, okay, the other people around are the ones that don't understand. It's generally not the person you're dealing with, like if we're dealing with a supervisory level, they'll look at us and go, 'Yeah, but I don't understand why you can't just point to the school shooter.' It's like, 'Wait a minute, it's not the way any of this works. This is, you know, we're not in Oz here, or Wardian Laos, you know, we don't have Harry Potter's magic wand with you.' And I love the sports analogy as well. What you do is you have to look at a situation, you have to look at the person in that situation, you have to understand that sometimes when we go to the doctor, we lie to the doctor. You also have to say that sometimes we put on egotistical behaviors, which we use to trump some other void in our life, and we have to go through all of that other stuff and go, 'It's getting better' or 'it's getting worse' or 'there's an attack likely' or 'it's never going to happen.' So I think that you're doing the same basic thing, and I think that sometimes the misunderstanding doesn't come necessarily from the client, sometimes it comes from society, because society doesn't understand that. And that goes back to your point, Brian, 'People are horrible at what they think is wrong with them.' And if you're getting opinion-based testimony, so, 'Well, if I ask you what are your symptoms, and you give me an honest portrayal of the symptoms, I can do more with that than if I say, 'Okay, what do you think is wrong with you?'' Because with me, I'm always on WebMD and I have a brain cloud, so I'm not sure what that means. 'No, it's actually a UTI, Greg. You're gonna get better.' But you see what I'm trying to say? So when I look at, I look at how you're approaching it, I love it because it's very clinical and very basic, and people would be able to understand, get behind it. Whereas I see that this mysticism, we have to shine lights on those folks and we have to say, 'That's not how any of this works,' and get to the root cause. Do you find that once that epiphany occurs, once that people see what it is that you do, do you find that it's easier to get your desired end state?

Absolutely, because then you have buy-in. And that's why it's so important to explain everything basically to whatever stakeholders you're working with: clients, people who might not be directly your clients but who might work with that client or live with that client. So you're trying to get this picture of their life, or the office setup, or their practice environment to see how they're training. And then when you go to do your analysis, or when you're just explaining what you're going to do and how the progression of behavior analysis works, if you're not able to do that and speak to that person in their language, that connection is going to be broken right away, and no rapport is going to be built, and they're probably going to say, 'All right, I'm going to try to go find somebody else who's going to help me.' But yeah, if you can do that, if you can speak to someone in their language, you're going to make them feel really comfortable, you're going to be able to make a really big impact in their life, and then they're going to feel a lot better about what is about to happen. And they're probably going to go talk to their friends and family about, 'You know what? I'm working with this person. I'm working with this Behavior Analyst who's helping me get up earlier in the morning. It's phenomenal! It's the same science that they use with kids who are having issues in school. It's the same science that they use to teach Olympic athletes how to run faster. It's insane, and it's getting me up earlier in the morning, and it's great.' So that's again, the level of impact that communication can have, and people, it's great.

I totally agree with that. And Brian, just one quick comment here. Look, you can go to any Rite Aid, or I'm in a small town so we don't have a pharmacy; actually, I have to go to a witch doctor who comes out with a chicken foot and...

Well, your doctor also is like the vet and takes care of the horses and the barber. (Laughter)

But you can go to any pharmacy and you can go in and say, 'I have a headache,' and the person will lead you to a counter that has aspirin and Advil and Tylenol and all of these other things. And what I see sometimes is people go to a doctor and they go, 'Well, they've got me on this med, and you know, one of the side effects,' or you'll watch a commercial with a side effect, and you grab the person—I'm a touchy-feely, I grab the person—I go, 'If you ever read all of the stuff that's in a normal bottle of over-the-counter aspirins and what it can do to you?' Well, we don't see the things that are familiar to us. We don't dig deep, we don't look under the veneer, we don't want to investigate those because we just take them for granted. And our human behavior, look, if you would have had a counselor, and Brian, this is for you, for the love of God, if you would have had a counselor like Kendall when you were growing up, you wouldn't have had all of these behaviors that we got to unpack now and speak with a megaphone, 'Please come off the roof,' and all that other stuff. But we don't have that. We don't have those life coaches. Now we have coaches at different parts of our life, and we have parents, and we have significant others. And you know what, if I'm going to conduct predictive analysis, the more of those people you have, the better unpacked you'll be, and the better you'll do in life. But the less that you have the ability to bounce that off, 'Look, I'm feeling that this is normal, clinically normal, but it might not be. I feel that this soothing behavior that I'm doing is okay, right? But it might not be.' And that's the art of what you're doing, you're communicating that. So a siloed communication means it's never going to get anywhere. We'll draw an unreasonable conclusion and then run with it, and that's not helping anybody. So I like this because where the discussion is going is like, 'Look, measurement assessment leads to a better conclusion,' and that's what we do. We just do that over. We're looking for different things. You know, you're looking for the pitch, I'm looking for a bombing placer, you're looking for how can this person improve themselves. I'm saying on a highway full of cars, this is the one you want to interdict because that's the most dangerous vehicle that's coming up. So, but it's no different really because what we're doing, we're comparing and measuring and saying, 'Hey, that banana's too ripe, that one's not ripe enough. We're either having banana bread or we got to leave it out in the sun.' I love that. So you simplify things, which means I'm a big fan because most people are overblown, and you can't even get through the diagnosis without having to have a PDF on your side or a dictionary to reference some of the material that they're doing.

Yes, yes. Can you kind of explain, or give sort of an example, if you've got some? Like, how do you—one of the things you talk about, and Greg was talking about when we go with internal versus external baselines, and how we read a situation or a person or behaviors, right? And one of the things that's hard to do, and Greg and I kind of argue about this a little bit, maybe it's just the way we talk about it, but is when you say like taking another person's perspective, like it's psychologically that's very, very difficult to do. Like, Kendall, I have no idea. We've only been talking for half an hour, we had one like 15-minute phone call before this, and I Googled you, right? So I don't know your life experiences, I don't know what you see, I don't know how you think. And so it's difficult. Like, how am I supposed to take your perspective on this? How am I supposed to get in the head or in the mind of someone else? Like I've got a little, he's now like 13-month, you know, boy. It's easier that because it's like this kid's me. I see like this kid literally is me, but biologically is, you know, I help create him. But like even his behaviors and even how he acts and points and stuff, like I can get it because I live with him, I see him every day, and I do it. But when it comes outside of that, right, it can get difficult. And, you know, so what are your, how do you do that? How do you shift perspective? How do you take someone else's perspective? Or, do you even have to? Because that's my thing. Is what I tell people is like, 'Look, it's really hard to psychologically take another person's perspective, but you don't have to. You don't have to know what they're thinking.' You have to have some comparison. So like, how do you describe that, or what do you tell people to do, or when they ask you, 'Hey, I'm sure people come up, hey, I've got my kid doing this,' or 'someone's I'm watching this,' I'm sure you get all these wild questions that most of them are completely irrelevant and don't matter in the big picture. So like, how do I filter through that if I'm just listening, it's going like, 'Yeah, maybe it's about my kids or my neighbor's kid or someone I saw?' Like, how do I use, what are your lenses that you use?

So, we use a few different measurement strategies in that assessment portion of when we are looking at behavior, because we can't put changes in place before we learn about what's going on. So when we're in that assessment phase of behavior analysis, we will take objective data, which first, like we talked about, we have to have a really, really good definition of what we're supposed to be targeting. So, for instance, say, we'll go to a child example. Say a child's in school, and they just aren't doing their homework, and they haven't turned anything in all year, and it's like two months in. So what we will do is we will interview the teacher, we'll interview the child if they're able to talk for themselves. We'll interview the family. So we get all this background information of what could possibly be happening, and what other people's perspectives are of the behavior that's going on. And then we will take objective data on what we are seeing. So, for a Behavior Analyst that would be working in this area, they might go into the home or they might go into the school and take data on what is happening right before that child is supposed to be engaging in doing their homework. What is happening when they're doing their homework, or if they're not doing their homework, what are they doing? And then if they did do their homework, or didn't do it, what happened right after that? So then we try to find these patterns of what is going on in these situations. And then once we can put all these pieces together, and sometimes it happens pretty quickly because some behaviors are very, very consistent. Others it might take a little bit longer to understand because it might be happening across all different environments. It only might be specific to one environment or one person. They might only not be doing their homework for one teacher. Once you can get all that information, then we can move forward. So we do what you guys kind of call it pattern analysis, which it might be different than this, but we do try to find those consistencies of, 'This is what is happening. This appears like this is why it's happening. Now we can put this change in place.' So we rely heavily on that objective observation of, 'I'm not going to try to get in your head. If you want to tell me what's going on in your head, I'm going to write that down because that is probably impacting also what you're doing.' But I'm not really worrying about what's going on in here or in here, again, unless you tell me. I'm worried about what's going on out here, because we can kind of change that to help that person meet their goals, stay on track, whatever it is.

I'll be a quick translator for Kendall to our normal audience for First Responders, which Kendall said, 'You have lights on your vehicle and a siren, and you're rushing to an unknown trouble where you've got limited information coming in from an RP on the scene and a dispatcher, and you as a copper have already decided how you're going to handle the scene and the situation and calm things down.' And that's why cops die because we're rushing into the situation with scant information. Another sales pitch for your book, I surround myself with translators because sometimes I speak in parables that I don't understand, just information comes out in that manner. And earlier when we were talking, I said the white shirt represented risky behavior, Kendall. And what I meant by that is I have to wear dark shirts, why? I'm a mess maker when I'm eating, when I'm drinking, I'm always wearing it and I'm up in front of people all the time. So your risky behavior is that you know that you can hold it together. So I have to have people around and said what Greg is trying to tell you is this. So the reason I'm excited about your book coming out, and I was so thankful to be able to talk to you, is common sense, street-level interventions for me work the best. And when people understand that they're contributing, like listening to somebody and they're sitting there going, 'Don't you want to write into this town?' 'Not yet, I'm enthralled, go on!' I love that. You know, and this is how we're going to learn about other people. This is how we're going to fix things. Self-help books, listen, if you knew how to help yourself, you wouldn't be buying a book. So my thing is that I like this approach. I'm very enthralled by it, and I just think that when you said don't sell yourself short on the translational aspect of the book because even the lay person is going to get something out of it. They're going to read it and they're going to be able to compare it to their own life and go, 'Wow, that's me!' And that's helpful too. Seeing that, you know, you got to show up every day engaged. And the only way to be engaged is to understand what your role is. So this book is going to speak volumes to you understanding what that person means, why that person shunned you, why you're turning people off, you know, all of those are part of the subtext of what you're talking about. And I love it. That's all I got to say.

You know, and what happens with, you know, this is why I love talking to someone sort of from a different realm that's doing something similar but in a kind of a different domain, maybe. You know, you brought up some things that everyone goes, 'Well, yeah, yeah, that's common sense, I get that.' It's like, 'No, but you did, you don't, you didn't do it.' Like you said, all right, because you put it as 'be the best listener in the room,' right? Be, you know, just shut your mouth and open your ears. And, you know, because we always say, one of our principles is that humans are constantly on transmit, right? People teach you how they want to be treated. We're constantly just transmitting everything about us, so I have to one, tune into the right frequency, and then not jam a square peg into a round hole, right? So I have to not let that take over. And, you know, even with you talking about listening, people are like, 'Okay, yeah, no, I listen to them.' It's like, 'No, like this is, even military has terms called SLLS: Stop, Look, Listen, Smell.' And like, so I get inserted with my team via helicopter in the middle of the night somewhere, we jump off sometimes depending on the mission. You literally sit there for an hour and you just stop, you look, you listen, you smell, you hear, see what's going on in the area, see if your presence just attracted any. I mean, for an hour, you just don't say a damn thing, and you just sit there, and then you decide to start moving towards wherever you're going. I mean, that's the idea because you're just getting that baseline, you're getting that sample, you're acclimating yourself to the situation. So you're using that external baseline, not an internal one of what you think is going to happen. And it seems so obvious, but people really don't do it.

And then what happens is like, like Greg did, you know, thing earlier in the call when he's like, 'Okay, this is what you're showing me, kind of like you're highly organized, you've got all your stuff neat in your room, you got a cool little neon sign in the background,' with, you know, everything over, 'Yeah, you've got all the stuff and it's well put together, it's clean, it's this.' But here's the thing, I don't even know if that's your room, I don't even know if it's this. Like, and that the perfect example of that is, especially this happened especially during COVID for a lot of like, and it happened mostly in D.C., all the talking heads on different news shows because they're mostly doing stuff remotely. There were companies that would come in, you could hire them, and they would put in like a bookshelf, make a decorative Zoom background for you. I didn't know that, but big, big money too, and it was all curated. And then they could, based on what your preferences were, they would highlight certain books out there that you want. So they would cultivate that image for you to transmit to the world to show that, 'Look at me, I know what I'm talking about.' And this, by, I mean, that's the idea. Like, you know, if you, like you can only see so much behind me, but if you saw where my, this is my little loft office above our garage, like this is Brian's head, I've got the guitars over here, I've got some stuff stacked up over here that I need to get to, I've got my books back there, the couch that I said, like it really is. But you only get this perspective, you're only seeing what I'm showing you. So those simple things is where I see things go wrong.

So I like what you're doing with the book and then kind of expanding this reach, because, you know, especially with BCBAs, it's so much focused on kids and intervention strategies, and then that takes on a life of its own with social media, and every little thing gets picked apart. That's why Greg even brought up like kinesis and body language at the beginning, where it's like, 'You can't start there, you have to know where you're starting from.' And I just love getting your perspective or background from this. So, you know, I want to allow you to, like, anything else you kind of want to add or takeaways for people? Especially stuff with kids and sort of your perspective on, everyone's really scared of social media and these different apps and way things are changing. You know, I always say people have been the same for a really, really long time. It's not the app, it's not the phone, it's the person. You know, it's not the gun, it's not the drugs, it's not the, it's the person. Let's, if we shift our focus to that. And people are worried, 'Well, what do I do with my kid? What do I do about this?' And my opinion of this is sort of, 'Okay, what are you doing yourself?' Because I see adults are much worse at this than children are. And if you're doing that around your kid, all they're going to do is mimic your behavior. So if you're constantly on the phone when you're hanging out with them and checking your Instagram, well, then that's what they think is normal or typical. So it's actually not them that you have to worry about, right? It's you. So I'm just curious from your perspective, like what you see or what you tell parents or what you've seen before and kind of where you think the social media impact, what it really is, not just versus what it's always talked about.

Oh my God, this could be an entire podcast! It could be. But what I see is it totally draws people out of the moment. And for, again, I don't have data on this, but for my observations, I'm seeing decreases in how people are connecting with anybody and anything around them. A lot more risky and dangerous behavior. Like people are texting constantly, you're on social media at the red light, and you might take your foot off the brake for a second and don't realize that you're rolling, and then you get into a fender bender. So all these things that maybe weren't happening as much before social media occurred are starting to pop up now because of it. We're also constantly comparing ourselves to other people. I'm super guilty of that because I'm an influencer, I am on social media all the time. And it's not the best environment for us to really thrive. Because when you're constantly comparing, you're getting pulled out of the moment that you're in right now. You're maybe not interacting with the people around you or your pets as much. You're not attending to what you should be, the stove that's on maybe, all the work that's in front of you. We're being less productive, we're living less in the moment. And it's to me, when I feel, when I'm on social media more, even though I love it and it's so fun, I almost feel like sick. Like something's wrong. And I'm like, 'Man, why do I feel like so off?' It's because I've been living in this world, in this box, for two hours or whatever it is. I really try not to be on social media for that long, but it happens. So all of these risky things and these things that we really, we talk about like, 'Oh, we don't like, we don't like being ignored. We don't like when people are not vigilant when they drive.' We're doing that because we're on social media. Social media is wonderful for so many things, it allows us to connect to a lot of people. But I think that there has to be a lot more education for the young population on how to engage with it appropriately and what to expect. Maybe some restrictions on who can be on there, like what age and duration restrictions. Maybe there also needs to be, after, you know, when you become an adult, you can have full access to this. Here are some tips on how you can engage with your social media audience and your platform and whatever, in a healthy manner. Because here are the effects that can come from it, which there are resources out there. But just constantly putting them out there for people, because if we're not prompted, we're not going to do it if it's already not a habit. So, yeah.

Well, Greg, I'll let you kind of get any final comments or any other questions for Kendall while we have her around here.

I have so much more we could talk about. I think this would be a fun conversation to revisit once the book comes out and we've all had a chance to look around. I think we should have you back on the show. I think that there's, the book's out. Oh, pre-order it now, yeah, you can, because I'll have what I'm saying. Yeah, yeah, I'm not pre-ordering unless it includes like an autographed edition with the 'Sam I Am' moniker on it. You gotta remember I am. But, no, but this was a fun-spirited discussion about simple stuff that everybody can wrap their head around. It demystifies some of it. It puts it back in the realm of you writing your own narrative, and that's what people really want. That's why people are really out there looking for an answer. And this is an answer, it's not the answer. We don't offer the answer, we offer an answer. And I think that's important. So I just want to tell you thanks. You lived up to all the expectations that I had. Can't wait to see the book.

Oh, thank you, guys, for having me on. I was so excited to talk with you because I know you guys are in a different domain of human behavior, and I love learning about what other people are doing because that's why I got into this, is to grow this science and have the biggest impact possible. You guys are awesome.

Well, we appreciate you coming on here, sharing your perspective. Obviously, for listeners and everything, we'll have the links to you and your social media and the book to pre-order in the episode details and all that. And you can always look her up at 'thebehaviorinfluencer' on Instagram. And then TikTok, I'm not on TikTok just because it's not, I don't, you know, I think the Chinese government has enough information about me already. (Laughter) So much surveillance, and my different things have been hacked that have had my information in it. So they have enough on me. But, you know, we appreciate you coming on here. I think, if you're interested to, maybe, maybe something again, we could organize something on just kind of getting into the social media stuff because it's huge, and we've got sort of different perspectives between the three of us in general. And then I kind of want to get like how, how to address it. We get questions on it all the time. And, you know, I run into the same thing where, you know, I do like, 'All right, Brian, if you're going to grow this stuff on Arcadia on the social media, you got to be more consistent.' It's like, 'Okay, so I start being more consistent.' And then, then I realized like, 'Jesus, I'm spending so much time on here, it's not good for me and I don't like it.' But then, so then people are like, 'How do you, like you just post and then you won't even open the app for like another week?' I was like, 'No,' they're like, 'You have to engage with people if you want to grow.' Like, 'Ah, man, I don't really want to do that.' But it's so, it's tough, but that's just part of that, just like a generational thing and how we use it. So there's a lot we can get into that. But either way, Ken, I really appreciate you coming on. 'Talk Behavior to Me' sounds like a really cool book. I'll have the links for everyone. Thanks so much, everyone, for tuning in, and don't forget that training changes behavior.